MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Friday 5/5/17

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. We've also got our Solo Shot Podcast, which breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each day. Here's today's episode.

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

Danny Salazar ($10,200 on FanDuel): With Danny Salazar being pushed to today thanks to a rainout on Thursday, he avoids a Detroit Tigers team that leads the league in hard-hit rate against righties, instead facing the Kansas City Royals, who rank 20th. Dude must have bribed Mother Nature to make that happen. Salazar leads all pitchers on this slate in SIERA, strikeout rate, and swinging-strike rate, and he ranks third in hard-hit rate allowed. His only bugaboo is an 11.1% walk rate, but the Royals have walked just 6.7% of the time against righties. Although there's always risk in a guy like Salazar, the tournament upside in his right arm is mighty saucy.