We’ve switched things up a little bit in our MLB Daily League Lineups column:  Instead of giving you an exact lineup for Fanduel, or another daily league site, we’ll be sharing top positional plays with quick analysis about why we like these guys.  There is no set budget for these picks, so they may be star-studded– the idea here is to give you an overview of some of the best plays at each position, including some value picks and some strong matchup plays.  Read our MLB daily league analysis, sprinkle in some of your own research, and win your Fanduel daily leagues!

My Top 3 Starting Pitchers

Roberto Hernandez - This is my only early play at SP. Nothing really sticks out at me, but Roberto has a good matchup vs the strikeout prone Astros.  Great value play at $4,900. His xFIP of 3.59 is almost  a run and a half lower than his ERA of 4.93 on the season.  I still would like to see some more Ks, but he is a great ground ball pitcher with a 50.6 GB%

Jon Lester - Mid-tier pricing at $6,500, and pitching against a slumping A's offense in a pitchers park.  Another guy with a lower xFIP than his ERA, as his xFIP is 3.95 while his ERA is at 4.60. It is quite eerie how similar most of his peripherals are from last year, so suffice to say I see no real outlier stats from now to a year ago.

Jose Fernandez - ESPN developed a new metric called STUFF rating, and this Jose was 2nd on this list after Harvey and before Strasburg.  This is an Insider article so to be brief, STUFF rating combines some traditional stats with Pitch F/X data and ball in play data. Very interesting article, but not sure how it stacks up to other peripheral stats like xFIP, SIERA etc.  I mentioned the Nats and their disappointing offense yesterday and the same logic applies today.  Jose is a bit over 7k and should be worth every penny as he opposes the hittable Dan Haren.

Catchers

Carlos Santana - Value play at $3,100.

Russel Martin - Don't be fooled by Torres' sparkling ERA. His xFIP is around 3 on the season. I know plenty about Torres as he can be good in short spurts, and I don't see him going more than 4-5 IP today

First Base (1B)

Edwin Encarnacion - 6-14 with 2 homers off the hittable Jason Hammel. He hit one out vs Chris Tillman yesterday so hopefully we are not a day late here.

Nick Swisher - 13-34 with 2 homers and 5 doubles off Guthrie in his career.

Second Base (2B)

Brandon Phillips - $3,400 for an elite RBI machine seems a bit low for me.

Gordon Beckham - Still has value on that price of $3,200 vs a mediocre SP in Pettibone.

Third Base (3B)

Pablo Sandoval - As long as he is below 3k, I will keep leaving him on this list.

Manny Machado - Not even sure who Todd Redmond is, perhaps the cousin of Marlins manager Mike Redmond?

Shortstop (SS)

Adeiny Hechavarria - Vintage Haren is long gone and the Nats are just hoping he can be a serviceable 5th starter. Well, good luck with that.

Brad Miller/Jhonny Peralta - Take your pick of value plays although I would lean towards Peralta because of the cooler first name. But thats just me.

Outfield (OF)

Torii Hunter - 11-37 with 2 homers off Holland in his career.

Raul Ibanez - I wish we would stop the senseless PED talk in general when guys hit a number of HRs, or still crush late in their careers.  Ole' man Raul keeps slugging it, and swatted one out yesterday.  He's 14-30 with 4 homers off Weaver in his career.

Mark Trumbo - 10-33 with 3 homers off the King in his career.

Delmon Young, Viciedo, Pence, Bourn, Ozuna, Chris Young - All are  value plays.

==================

As always, remember to check your MLB daily lineups before they lock and make sure you are doing your own research, too, for optimal performance! The most successful daily leaguers are grinders who are constantly tweaking their lineups as the day goes on and fantasy news gets released. Good luck today, RotoBallers!

 Make sure to give me a follow on Twitter @Joe12Three