In daily fantasy baseball on FanDuel, finding and utilizing productive high-salary players is integral to building a successful lineup.

In terms of hitters, we're looking for individuals with big numbers, favorable matchups, and fellow players around them who are likely to produce, as well, increasing our chances for runs and RBI. For pitchers, we want high strikeout totals. Still, the ability to labor deep into a game while earning a win is also valuable.

With high-salary picks playing such a crucial role in your lineup, you can't afford to miss on these guys, so let's take a look at a few top high-salary plays for today's main slate on FanDuel.

Shohei Ohtani, OF, Los Angeles Angels ($5,000)

Shohei Ohtani is on track to have a career-best season at the plate and should be in your lineups for today's slate.

The Los Angeles Angels have an ideal matchup against the Colorado Rockies and their starter Kyle Freeland, making Ohtani the most attractive option of the day for DFS lineups. The two-way player leads the majors in weighted on-base average (wOBA) at .415, which would be the highest of his career if the season were to end right now. That only adds to Ohtani's league-leading 24 home runs as his tear in June continues. He's only striking out 19.3% of the time, shrinking down the number from over 20 percent through the first two months of the season. Ohtani's hard-hit rate is also 41.1% in the month of June as he's driving the ball more and more every day it seems.

Freeland, on the other hand, has had a poor season. His 5.03 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) is the fourth-highest among qualified pitchers this season. The Rockies starter's expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP) of 4.84 is the worst of his career since 2019.

The Angels have the best-implied total of the day at 6.23, meaning that the Angels lineup outside of Ohtani would be worth stacking with the likes of Mike Trout and Taylor Ward.

numberFire's model has Ohtani as the highest-scoring batter of the day, projected for an eye-popping 19.1 FanDuel points.

Fernando Tatis Jr., OF/SS, San Diego Padres ($4,300)

June has been good to Fernando Tatis Jr..

Tatis has arguably been the best of the San Diego Padres' "big four" bats, and much of that has come this month where he's hitting .359 with 6 home runs and 16 RBIs. The strikeout rate may point to Tatis' improvement this month better than any other stat as he's down to 15.1% while the walk rate is up 12.9% -- 5.3% higher than it was in May.

With a .494 wOBA in June, Tatis only trails Ohtani, Eddie Rosario, and Corey Seager. He does, however, have the highest WAR at 1.9 and is continuing to make an impact that should be part of DFS lineups.

The opposition of Patrick Corbin only makes the selection of Tatis all the more favorable. Corbin's 4.96 SIERA is easily the worst of his career, and he's not missing bats by any means either. The lefty's 9.0% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) is the lowest of his career since 2012, which was his rookie season. Tatis' .469 wOBA against lefties in 2023 has a chance to get even higher with this one.

Tatis is projected for 13.4 points, according to numberFire.

Marcus Semien, 2B, Texas Rangers ($3,800)

At this point in the season, it's hard to not want someone from the Texas Rangers in your DFS lineup with how the offense has been going.

Enter Marcus Semien, who has had the season the Rangers were looking for an offseason ago when they signed him to a 7-year, $175 million contract. Semien has a respectable .342 wOBA to go with a 14.9% strikeout rate (his best since 2019) and a hard-hit rate of 34.5%. Averaging 12.8 fantasy points per game, Semien projects as a good play against Clarke Schmidt and the New York Yankees.

Schmidt has been better than his statistics on the surface would say but still is not playing to a level you'd be nervous about selecting against him. The 4.04 SIERA is up from last season and is coming off a start against the Boston Red Sox where he was unable to get through five innings despite only giving up two earned runs. He's going to have an even tougher time against the league's best lineup that Texas brings to the table.

Semien's great season looks to continue as numberFire forecasts 13.1 FanDuel points for today.

The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author’s advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.