4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 5/27/15
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.
Cincinnati Reds
Kyle Kendrick has started nine games this year. In those nine games, he has allowed at least two home runs on four separate occasions. He has let in four or more runs six times and six or more runs four times. And it's not just Coors. He has a 5.91 road ERA. Woot!
The interesting thing about Kendrick is that left-handers don't receive a huge platoon advantage off of him. While right-handers are hitting .280/.328/.534, left-handers are chilling out at .284/.387/.537. He possesses equal opportunity suckitude. The Reds aren't normally a team I'd stack against right-handed pitchers as they rank 20th in the league in wOBA off of them. Kendrick is a game-changer.
Even though Todd Frazier is right-handed, he has still posted some sweet marks against righties, which could be fleshed out against a guy like Kendrick. He still has a .500 slugging percentage and a .366 on-base percentage versus right-handers and the ability to swipe a bag. He'll cost you $4,800 on the DraftKings early slate, but he certainly has the potential to more than pay that off.
San Francisco Giants
What is Mike Fiers' biggest strength? Strikeouts. He averages 10.99 of those puppies per nine innings. That's great! The problem is he's throwing on three days rest, and the Giants don't strike out against righties. It could be a long day.
For his career, Fiers has made 16 starts on five days of rest. In those, he has a 3.67 ERA and opponents have slashed .249/.294/.372 off of him. In 20 starts on four days of rest, those numbers leap up to a 4.35 ERA with a .264/.323/.454 opponent slash. I'm just going to go ahead and assume his numbers won't magically get better with one less day of rest.
Additionally, the Giants have been destroying right-handed hitting as they rank sixth in the league in wOBA against right handers. Their pricing as a whole on the DraftKings early slate is super jacked up, but Nori Aoki is more than reasonable at $4,200. He entered yesterday hitting .315/.384/.444 against righties, and he adds a stolen base threat. Considering Fiers has allowed six of those little whippersnappers in nine starts, Aoki is a pretty play even for non-Giants stackers.
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals have been a better stacking team this year than I would have imagined. They rank 10th in the league in wOBA off of right handers, they have hit the fourth most doubles off of righties, and they have the fourth highest hard-hit percentage in these situations. Today, they are paired with Josh Collmenter, who is far from lights out.
It seemed as though Collmenter had hit a bottom last year when he struck out 5.77 batters per nine innings. Nope. He has actually lowered that to 4.50 in 52 innings this year, helping inflate his FIP to 4.55. If he doesn't get more ground balls (35.5 percent ground-ball rate) or pop up those strikeouts, homie gonna get lit.
The Cards also just ooze with affordability for stacking. Of their top three batters in wOBA against right-handed pitchers, only one (that Matt Carpenter dude), costs more than $4,100 on the DraftKings late slate. Kolten Wong and Jhonny Peralta, who rank second and third respectively, both have slugging percentages at .496 or better and on-base percentages of at least .380. For $4,100 apiece, I'll take it without hesitation.
Pittsburgh Pirates
If I had to grade my confidence in this stack on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd put it at around a 3. If you look at the season-long statistics, the Pirates have struggled against left-handed pitching. Additionally, I have no idea how long Brad Hand will last, which could totally eff everything up. But the White Sox and Mets, the other two teams facing sub-par pitchers, also suck against pitchers of the handedness of the starters they are facing. So let's just do it, a'ight?
The positive thing here for the Pirates is that their offense is certainly starting to turn things around. They rank fifth in the league in wOBA over the past 14 days, and they're starting to not strikeout every other at bat. Baby steps. They do still lead the league in strikeout percentage against left-handed pitching, but Hand has averaged only 5.29 strikeouts per nine as a starter in his career. Rejoice and be glad.
One person who has not succumbed to the rest of the team's struggles against lefties (outside of A.J. Burnett and his 1.000/1.000/1.000 slash da gaaaaaawd) is Starling Marte. He has hit four of his nine home runs off of south paws to compile a .357/.379/.857 slash. Hello, beautiful. Sure, he costs $5,000 on the DraftKings early slate, but these the typa numbers that could put yo kids through college. Do you want to kill little Tommy's dreams? Nah. You know what to do.
