Each day here on numberFire, we'll be providing you with four potential offenses to stack in your daily fantasy lineups. These are the offenses that provide huge run potential on that given day based on matchups and other factors.
After reading through these suggestions, make sure to check out our daily projections. These can either let you know which players to include in each stack, or which guy best complements said stack.
Another great tool is our custom optimal lineups, which are available for premium subscribers. Within the tool, we've added the option to stack teams -- you choose the team you want to stack, show how many players you want to use within the stack, and the tool will create a lineup based on this that you can then customize.
Now, let's get to the stacks. Here are the teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.
San Francisco Giants
Would you like to try to guess Christian Bergman's projected ZiPS ERA this year? Hint: it's higher than 4.50. It's higher than 5.00. It's higher than 5.50.
If you guessed 5.74, you're right! Free cookies for you! Obviously, a good chunk of that is attributable to pitching at Coors. But it's also because he doesn't strike people out and has a ridiculously low ground-ball rate. AT&T Park isn't a breeding ground for big-run outputs, but the matchup should more than take care of that.
On DraftKings, the most expensive batter in San Francisco's order is Brandon Belt at $4,400. This would allow you to pay up for one of the high-strikeout arms in action or stack home-run hitters in the rest of your lineup. I'm all aboard for this matchup and for heaping Giants hitters onto my rosters.
Baltimore Orioles
It's time to face the fact that CC Sabathia isn't himself anymore. Over his last 41 starts, dating back to the start of the 2013 season, Sabathia has a 4.90 ERA with 7.91 strikeouts and 2.57 walks per nine. Sadness.
Sabathia's first start of 2015 wasn't bad; he just got slapped in the face by the BABIP gods leading, to four earned runs despite allowing no walks and no home runs. Now, however, he has to try to dodge another tough matchup with a big-bopping A.L. East foe.
The prices for Adam Jones and Steve Pearce are more than reasonable, and they both murder lefties. Jones slashed .344/.399/.604 against south paws last year while Pearce was at a gaudy .327/.405/.704. Lawd have mercy.
The problem is that plenty of the Orioles' other top bats are left-handed. You may have to fade guys like Chris Davis and Travis Snider, though Davis had a better slugging percentage against left-handers than right-handers last year and Snider mashed lefties in a limited sample. I don't know if I'd be confident enough to roll with either against Sabathia, but this is a stack that has plenty of long-ball potential in today's slate.
Texas Rangers
The Texas Rangers aren't some killer offensive team, but I'm willing to take a chance stacking any team that is facing a guy making his first career Major League start. Hello, Drew Rucinski.
Rucinski is a righty, meaning the lefty-heavy lineup the Rangers used last night could be in play again tonight. That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll score oodles of runs, as leadoff lefty Leonys Martin has turned in a .139/.162/.139 slash so far this year. At least it means you shouldn't have to concern yourself too deeply with guys bombing in platoon splits.
As with the Angels yesterday, it appears as though DraftKings has jacked up the prices of each of these guys in anticipation of this type of stack. Because of this, I'd wait until the Ranges' lineup is out to even begin your stacks. That way if one of the lower-priced dudes gets Collin Cowgill'd and plopped at the top of the order, you can go all-out with your implementation.
Houston Astros
Note: this stack is not recommended if you don't have a large stash of alcohol somewhere in your place of residence. You will most likely need it. But, you know what? Don't caaaaaaaare!
I will admit that this is probably a horrendous idea and that you should not should not should not do it in 50/50s. Like, never. But if you're in a tourney and looking for some serious dong potential, then baby, you can cuddle up tight to the team that entered play yesterday ranked 23rd or worse in each of the triple-slash categories.
Kendall Graveman got rocked in his first start to the tune of seven earned runs in 3.1 innings. His numberFire projection sits at a 4.38 ERA for this year. Most importantly? He's not a high strikeout guy. He's projected at 6.82 strikeouts per nine innings. The Astros, minus the strikeouts, are clearly invincible.
Okay, so they actually probably suck. But let's take some risks and quite possibly have a bonfire of money that we definitely didn't need to begin with.