FanDuel DFS Fantasy Baseball Picks for Wednesday September 30, 2015: Tanaka

On Wednesday FanDuel is offering a full slate of 15 games to choose from. The first game begins at 7pm Eastern and the last one starts at 10:10pm Eastern so please be sure and select players that you are absolutely certain will be playing on Sunday. Also please consult local weather for any possible delays or rainouts.

We are entering the most volatile week in Daily FanDuel baseball; some teams that have clinched playoff berths are resting players, lousy teams are traipsing out minor leaguers and teams fighting for the playoffs are using their normal lineups so be doubly sure that the players you've selected are actually playing.

Tonight's slate does leaves us with several pitching opportunities so let's take a look at some of those.

Pitching

As you've probably already figured out my philosophy is to roster a top tier pitcher as I believe there are or at least will be plenty of value sticks available for me to put together a roster that I feel can win for me on any given night. The other thing I'm looking for is value; I want to get at the very least 1 point per $1000 dollars spent.......now that you understand my philosophy here is what I'm looking at tonight.

Masahiro Tanaka ($9,600) has a home game tonight against the Red Sox. Tanaka has had hamstring issues and at the time of this writing he's still scheduled to start tonight's ballgame. Tanaka has had decent success against these Red Sox and with the Sox having nothing to play for who knows who they will traipse out there tonight.  Tanaka over his last 5 starts is striking out 8.65, walking 0.79 and has allowed 1.31 bombs per nine innings pitched and has gone 6 or more innings in each of his last 5 starts. The Red Sox don't strike out much against righties (17 percent) and have a wOBA of .321 and wRC+ of 98 against righties this season. Enter at your own risk here folks.

Gerrit Cole ($10,000) has been decent against the current collection of Cardinals over his career and he and the Pirates play host to them on Wednesday night. Over Cole's last 5 starts he's striking out 9.77, walking 1.72 and allowing 0.29 bombs per nine innings pitched and has lasted 6 or more innings in 4 of his last 5 starts. The Cardinals have a 19 percent strikeout rate with a wOBA of .320 and wRC+ of 102 against righties this season.

Jon Lester ($10,400) and the Cubs will be in Cincinnati to take on the Reds. The sample size is small but Lester has been decent against this Reds team and over his last 5 starts Lester is fanning 8.47, walking just under 2 and has allowed less than a bomb per nine innings and has pitched 6 or more innings in 4 of his last 5 starts. The Reds have a 20 percent strikeout rate with a .314 wOBA and wRC+ of 95 against lefties and depending on who is in their lineup this could be good to go on Wednesday.

Carlos Carrasco ($9,400) has been striking out 15 per nine, walking just over 3 and has allowed just under 1 bomb per nine innings and has lasted 6 or more innings just 3 of his last 5 starts. He has an average history against the Twins and their history of striking out at 21 percent with a wOBA of .302 and wRC+ of 89 against righties this season makes me want to consider Carrasco tonight against Minnesota.

Jordan Zimmermann ($9,200) makes his last start of the season against the Atlanta Braves tonight and over his last 5 starts he's gone 6 innings or more just 3 times with 10.05 strikeouts, just under 3 walks and 1.88 bombs per nine innings. He's also dominated this current Braves roster who have a season long strikeout rate of 17 percent, wOBA of .299 and wRC+ of 87. Hopefully the Nationals let Zimmermann pitch more than 6 innings and if they do this could be a good thing on Wednesday.

Marcus Stroman ($8,300) is pitching tonight and Tim did a nice job talking about him so no point in saying anything else.

Drew Smyly ($8,700) has had a lot of attention recently and over his last 5 starts has struck out just over 11, walked 3 and has allowed 1.20 bombs per nine innings pitched. Smyly has lasted 6 or more innings in 3 of his last 5 starts and while the sample size is small Marlins hitters have killed Smyly and over the season the Marlins have a 20 percent strikeout rate with a wOBA of .321 and wRC+ of 100 against lefties this season.

Stacking Opportunities for Sunday

Barry Zito is pitching for the Athletics tonight so anyone in an Angels uniform is eligible to be utilized.

Lefties have a .400 wOBA against Williams Perez at home so Washington Nationals left-handed bats come into play tonight.

Alec Asher has a difficult time getting anyone out so anyone in a Mets uniform would be appropriate tonight especially lefties as they have a wOBA of .489 against Asher when he pitches at home.

Texas Rangers righties and lefties as righties have a wOBA of .494 and lefties .460 when the Tigers Matt Boyd pitches on the road. Mike Napoli ($2,200)and Delino Deshields ($3,100) are must haves tonight in any Rangers stack.

Value Plays for Wednesday

Robinson Cano ($3,200) has 3 bombs over his career and also has struck out 14 times in 45 at bats against Scott Kazmir so Cano might be a good add tonight.

On this edition of Phil's Fantasy Sports Phil is giving away a 25 dollar pre-paid Visa card to one lucky listener per week for signing up at his new Daily Fantasy Sports site Draft Dragons. Rotowire NHL writer Brian Rutherford and Phil discuss Fantasy Hockey mid-tier forwards, Fake Teams Ray Guilfoyle joins Phil and the guys try and figure out who will be the #1 Fantasy Baseball player taken in next seasons draft as well as several Cubs players and pitchers and their possible 2016 values. Draft Kings Playbook writer Jason Walker joins Phil and the guys share their FanDuel and Draft Kings Fantasy Football picks and Rotowire NBA writer Alex Rikleen and Phil discuss Fantasy Basketball sleepers and busts at the Center position. You can download the show from my site or listen below.

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