MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Monday 8/1/16

The beauty of daily fantasy baseball is that the top targets are different each and every day. Whether it's the right-handed catcher who destroys left-handed pitching or the mid-range hurler facing a depleted lineup, you're not going to find yourself using the same assets time after time.

While this breaks up the monotony, it can make it hard to decide which players are primed to succeed on a given day. We can help bridge that gap.

In addition to our custom optimal lineups, you can check out our batting and pitching heat maps, which show the pieces in the best spot to succeed on that slate. Put on the finishing touches with our games and lineups page to see who's hitting where and what the weather looks like, and you'll have yourself a snazzy looking team to put up some big point totals.

If you need help getting started on that trek, here are some of the top options on the board today.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitchers

Stephen Strasburg ($11,600 on FanDuel): It's not going to be easy to afford Stephen Strasburg on a slate like this with most of the highest-upside offenses also being high-priced. Even if you have to ding your offense, though, Strasburg's arm is worth it. His 3.09 SIERA is easily the best on the slate, coming with a 30.9% strikeout rate and 25.3% hard-hit rate. It's fair to worry about targeting the Arizona Diamondbacks now that Jake Lamb and David Peralta are healthy, but Strasburg's strikeout rate increases to 32.1% against left-handed batters. This is a guy you'll want to make room for in your lineups.