Speaking of stacks, my favorites of the night are the Mariners and the Nationals. The Mariners get a great matchup against James Shields, who gives up a ton of home runs and hasn’t pitched well since coming off the DL in June. The Nationals are much more expensive and will probably be more popular, but they draw an incredible matchup against the Reds in hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park. In terms of pitching, I have a feeling that the key to tonight is finding someone who smashes value....

For more analysis, plus daily rankings, optimal lineups, hitting and pitching coaches, plus tons of info for those in standard fantasy leagues, head over to Fantasy Alarm and check out their mix of free and premium tools. MORE DFS: SP rankings | GO PRO with Fantasy Alarm Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks: Thursday, April 13

For more daily fantasy baseball advice and sleeper picks, check out our starting pitcher rankings and the DFS MLB Playbook from our partners at FantasyAlarm.com every morning. You can also get pregame lineups with BvP stats at Fantasy Alarm. Meanwhile, here are our picks for hitters to buy and sell in today’s key matchups. MORE: SN Fantasy | Today’s pitcher rankings | MLB DFS value picks Daily fantasy baseball hitter matchups With a lefty (Jon Lester) on the mound against the the Reds, Joey Votto (1....

BUY ‘EM Don’t be afraid to spend big on Giancarlo Stanton, who is 7-for-24 (.292) with three jacks in his career against Jordan Zimmermann. Christian Yelich (5-for-8) is also a nice play. Adam LaRoche is 5-for-11 (.455) with a homer against the struggling Nathan Eovaldi. Deep sleeper: Dan Uggla is 5-for-11 with two homers against Vance Worley. SELL ‘EM David Wright is just 3-for-24 (.125) with 11 Ks lifetime against A....

Usually, when a lefty is on the mound, you can find some splits to exploit in FanDuel and DraftKings contests, but four of the best lefties in the game (Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Chris Sale, Dallas Keuchel) are pitching today. Sure, they might be facing batters who traditionally hit better against southpaws, but it’s tough to recommend anyone against these guys, even knowing full well they will likely give up some runs....

There is no shortage of potential stacks and value picks for the early slate. The Yankees, Red Sox, Astros, Giants, Rockies and Indians offer prime stacking opportunities according to the numbers, and you can also load up on Cardinals vs. Nick Martinez, Rays vs. Albert Suarez, A’s vs. Tim Lincecum, and Blue Jays vs. Yovani Gallardo. MORE: Waiver wire | Prospect rankings | Fantasy football rankings For those planning to play in evening contests, the Pirates and Cubs offer a lot of options with both teams starting lefties, but naturally you’ll see more Cubs stacks since they have the better offense and better starter (Jon Lester)....

You have to love how often the chalk will flop, with even the best players on the planet having off nights. For me, this is why having lineup tools like those at RotoQL are so important. Fading the chalk and hitting on a low-owned stack will shoot you to the top of the leaderboards and give you the most opportunities to take home those big payouts. RotoQL’s fantasy baseball packages have all the key fantasy stats in one easy-to-use platform, and our DFS tools – specifically, our RotoQL MLB Lineup Optimizer – should be your first stop when building lineups for any given day....

Quick piece of DFS strategy advice: No one is too good to not have in your lineup, especially on a day with several aces going. Paxton might seem like a must in cash games, but it’s not as if the A’s can’t hit. He’s going to give up some runs eventually, and even a solid performance might not be on par with today’s other studs (Noah Syndergaard, Stephen Strasburg, etc....

Today’s pitcher rankings are loaded with aces and upper-tier No. 2 pitchers, so there’s no shortage of options for FanDuel and DraftKings tournaments. With so many good pitchers going today, choosing one might come down to win probability. Thus, one could argue you’d rather have Stephen Strasburg against Philadelphia than Clayton Kershaw against Johnny Cueto and the Giants. MORE FANTASY: Prospect rankings | Waiver wire pickups | Fantasy football rankings...

Like Clayton Kershaw, whenever Jake Arrieta pitches, he’s head-and-shoulders above everyone (unless Kershaw is also pitching that day, I suppose). But there are other legitimate options today, starting with a pair of Pennsylvania pitchers and a bunch of young studs with major upside. The biggest risk is Mets’ starter Steven Matz, who has been sidelined with a sore elbow, but with a nice matchup against the Brewers, Matz is worth investing in again....

There are a ton of quality pitching optons on today’s slate. It’s full of some of the best pitchers in the baseball, including Jose Fernandez, Chris Sale, Noah Syndergaard, Johnny Cueto and Corey Kluber. The question is which one is the best option. There are also some nice, cheap options at pitcher for the two-pitcher sites if you want to load up the bats in tournaments. MORE: Tuesday’s Optimal DFS lineup | Waiver Wire | Fantasy football rankings...

The DFS MLB Playbook PRO comes with a full top 10 at each position every day, optimal lineups for each DFS site, deep stats and daily projections, suggested lineup “stacks,” hitting and pitching strategies, a live DFS scoreboard to track your players and much more. Check out today’s free DFS plays below, and check out FantasyAlarm.com’s premium product when you’re ready to go PRO! READ MORE: Today’s SP rankings | Hitter matchups to exploit | Fantasy football cheat sheet...

The MLB season officially launched last week, as did the prices of quite a few players in terms of daily fantasy baseball salary. The value algorithms are sometimes just as frustrating as the owners in your season-long league who want to trade you Eugenio Suarez for Clayton Kershaw. The key to any DFS strategy is understanding when to pay and when not to pay for players riding a big wave of production....

As usual, the experts at FantasyAlarm.com will publish their top daily fantasy basketball picks at each position across various DFS sites in the Playbook (free preview below). Playbook PRO members get even more daily fantasy basketball advice, along with detailed analysis and strategies, suggested team “stacks” and optimal daily fantasy lineups. Also, PRO members get access to all the DFS Playbooks and tools for every sport, including NFL, college football and NHL, with one subscription....

Also, PRO subscribers get rankings of 65 players broken down by position based on quality of play waiting for you in the DFS NFL Rankings section. Even better, one Playbook PRO subscription gets you access to all of Fantasy Alarm’s DFS strategy and tools for NFL, NBA, NHL and college football as well. So, check out the free version of the daily fantasy football Playbook below, and get even more DFS values, strategies and sleepers with Playbook PRO!...

Below we’ll consider the budget required for the most popular stacks, then run down a few contrarian options that the public will fade hard (and with good reason). However, these complements also possess realistic enough upside to elevate lineups in small player-pool tournaments through a contrarian addition on the likely more popular stacks. NFL PLAYOFF DFS: FanDuel GPP lineup | DK cash | DFS lineup builder Daily Fantasy Football Strategy: DraftKings GPP Stacks for Divisional Round Tournaments Triple-stacks featuring three players projected by Collective Ownership Report to surpass 10 percent ownership this weekend at DraftKings....

My goal is to find the “why” behind the reasons each players had huge games. You know what they say – “history repeats itself.” Follow me on Twitter @MLoveDFS for DFS tips throughout the week, and let me know why you think these players were able to perform effectively. WEEK 5 DFS: FD GPP lineup | DK cash | DK GPP | Top values Let’s see what we can find from Week 4 that will help us build winning DFS lineups moving forward!...