4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/17/15
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.
Washington Nationals
Back on Sunday, Sean O'Sullivan held the Washington Nationals to just two runs over six innings. The Nats went on to win, 4-3, but O'Sullivan pitched well. Since then, Washington has averaged 6.5 runs per game. I find it hard to see O'Sullivan duplicating his commendable performance.
O'Sullivan's ZiPS projection for the season was a 5.33 ERA. This comes after he had a 4.30 ERA in 25 triple-A starts last year in his age-26 season. His career major-league ERA in 237.1 innings is 5.84. Unleash the Nattitude.
Yunel Escobar replacing Michael Taylor as the lead-off guy is a major buzzkill, but Escobar has crazy value in his current position. He costs less than $3,500 on DraftKings today despite facing a sub-par opponent in front of some solid bats in Ian Desmond, Bryce Harper and the newly-healthy Jayson Werth. Just saying, though, I'll cry a few happy tears if they slot Taylor back in there. Do it for the kids, yo.
Oakland Athletics
Question: why is Mark Canha still so cheap? Answer: DraftKings secretly loves you and wants you to be happy. D'aaaawwww.
Canha has hit second in each of the A's past five games and has accumulated a slash of .324/.342/.486 for the season. That combo should not be worth less than $4,000, yet Canha's salary for today is at $3,500. So. Much. Want. When you add in that Canha and the A's are facing Jeremy Guthrie, my increasingly creepy affection with Canha gets weird.
Guthrie's numberFire preseason ERA projection was 4.33. He may end up with the lowest strikeouts per nine of any starter in the league this year, and he induces an average number of groundballs. He's extremely stackable.
I may have gushed over Canha, but, really, it's pretty much the entire A's order that has tasty pricing. This is even more important on a day like this when there are so many stud pitchers going. You might be able to stack the A's, roster some high-strikeout dudes, and not totally drown yourself elsewhere. I dig.
Los Angeles Angels
If you are like me and miss you some Fausto Carmona, numberFire has the cure. He was still Fausto when his profile was created, so if you click on Roberto Hernandez's profile, it has his original name in the URL. That's the good news. The bad news is that his old skills, like his dope name, are largely gone.
Hernandez walked four dudes and allowed five runs in his first start, but only one of them was technically earned. His ZiPS projection for the season was at 5.04, so this could be fun against a lineup with Mike Trout.
As usual, Trout's price will probably be a little crazy. However, there's still value in the Angels. Matt Joyce is okay against right-handers, but hitting behind guys like Trout and Albert Pujols ups his value. If Kole Calhoun, for some reason, doesn't come back tonight, Collin Cowgill is only $2,900. I'm just sayin'.
As a note, I'd be totally cool with tossing an Astros stack into a tourney for this matchup, too. I'm just not looking to totally fall flat on my face again by devoting a section to said tom-foolery. I'm planning on doing it, so join me if you think life's more fun when your student loans go unpaid.
Baltimore Orioles
As with the Angels/Astros game, you could make a case for stacking either of the teams in this matchup. The O's just have more dong potential, so I'll bump with them here, but the Red Sox could roll out the runs tonight as well.
Similar to Trout, you'll probably see some crazy pricing on Adam Jones tonight. Fear not, compadres; there are still plenty of bargains to be had in this Orioles lineup.
Whether it's Everth Cabrera, Alejando De Aza, Steve Pearce or Manny Machado, you're not going to have to break the bank to roster the top two guys in Baltimore's order. That's something I adore when it comes to stacking, especially when the three-hitter is crushing souls like Jones has been this year. A similar concept trickles down to Travis Snider batting behind Jones, too. Either way, you can make a solid O's stack work even if you don't want to spend big money on Jones.
