4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 6/16/15
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.
Detroit Tigers
Weather scared me off of my Detroit stack last night, so let's try these pups again. Michael Lorenzen has seen his fair share of struggles this year, and that's not something you want to experience prior to a date with the Tigers.
Lorenzen has a 4.01 ERA through 42.2 innings despite allowing just a .235 BABIP and stranding 83.0 percent of runners. Those numbers should come up, which is why Lorenzen has a 6.08 FIP and a 4.95 xFIP. He has also allowed a .447 slugging percentage to right-handed batters, which is good news for those on the Tigers' train.
Unfortunately, DraftKings may have figured this one out before we did. They done jacked up the pricing, so, yes, I am mildly heartbroken. That means you should check the lineup for some bargains and plug from there. This could definitely be worth the price, but that price is basically your soul.
Houston Astros
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I'm not going to tell you to stack a team that ranks 14th in the league in wOBA against the handedness of pitcher they are facing with a strikeout rate of 23.3 percent. The Astros are a different beast, and they should not fall within your regular stacking guidelines.
I was all worried about stacking against Chris Rusin last week. Then he got Giancarlo'd, allowing a deep dong to Giancarlo Stanton as part of six earned runs and 11 hits in 5.1 innings. The ground-ball rate does still concern me, but it certainly has blow-up potential on a team with the fifth highest isolated slugging in the league against lefties.
As you all know, this Carlos Correa guy is quite good at the baseballs. This is especially true against left-handed pitching. Through his first 18 plate appearances versus lefties, Correa has a .353/.389/.765 slash. That may seem like a small sample size, but it's actually just a continuation of what he did in the minors. There, his slash against left handers was .419/.470/.811. You're going to give me that for $4,300 on the DraftKings early slate? Bless you.
Baltimore Orioles
The Orioles continue to creep their way up the leaderboards in wOBA. Entering last night, they were 11th in the league against right handers. With Jerome Williams on the bump, that ascent could continue today.
Back in the day, Williams got a decent number of ground balls. As an Angel in 2012, his ground-ball percentage was a stout 53.6 percent. That has dipped every year since, bottoming out at 41.8 percent this year. This has helped lead to a 5.27 FIP and a 4.48 xFIP, which is enough to justify an Orioles stack.
Williams also matches up well with Baltimore's top hitters. He has reverse splits, allowing 12 of his 13 home runs to righties with a .339/.371/.594 slash. Manny Machado's numbers this year have also jived better against right handers, which could make him a good play, even with his inflated $4,800 price tag on DraftKings.
Los Angeles Dodgers
I know I'm totally going out on a limb here in saying that Chi Chi Gonzalez's 0.42 ERA is unsustainable. That's not to take away from the first three starts of his big league career, which have been fun to watch. I'm just not sold on a guy that has eight strikeouts to 10 walks with a 5.18 xFIP through 21.2 innings, especially when he's facing a team as good as the Dodgers.
The Dodgers lead the league in the following categories against right-handed pitching: home runs, walk percentage, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, isolated slugging, wOBA. Is that good? My sources say heck yeah, bruh. There are few right-handed pitchers against whom I wouldn't recommend stacking the Dodgers. This is not an indictment of Chi Chi as much as it is an endorsement of the illest boppers against righties in the land.
An added little perk to this stack is the pricing. Obviously, the Dodgers are far from cheap, but they're beyond reasonable given their stick proficiency. Not a single bat is above $5,000 on the DraftKings late slate. This doesn't mean you should forgo less expensive guys like Justin Turner should they hit near the top of the order, but it means you shouldn't have to skimp elsewhere in order to pile Dodgers bats into your lineup.
