4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 6/23/15
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. I'll note that this does not include the Rockies and the Diamondbacks at Coors. With that match-up and an over/under of 11, you know you need that tastiness on your roster; I don't need to tell you that. Here are other the teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.
New York Yankees
Here is your chalk stack of the night. Sean O'Sullivan struggles mightily against left-handed hitters, and the Yankees rank fourth in the league in wOBA against righties. That scoreboard is about to get a workout.
Exactly 100 left-handed batters have faced O'Sullivan this year. They have slashed .322/.394/.636 off of him with 7 home runs. His ground-ball percentage decreases to 39.7 percent from his overall 45.4 mark. Stack the Yankees' lefties and watch those balls fly.
If you're looking for cheap plays here, Chase Headley is a good cash game option, and Stephen Drew should be considered in tourneys. Headley has been hitting second recently, which would make any player at $3,900 on a stack-worthy team attractive. As for Drew, he has a .230 isolated slugging mark against righties with a 50.0 fly-ball percentage. Don't be surprised if he goes clubbing against O'Sullivan tonight.
Oakland Athletics
It's another chapter in the chronicles of Chi Chi Gonzalez versus the world. He has gone four starts without feeling the wrath of regression despite a 5.04 xFIP. We'll see if he can do it again and continue to make my bankroll cough and wheeze.
Despite what his 0.90 ERA would suggest, Gonzalez has walked more batters than he has struck out on the season. Additionally, the A's only strikeout 17.2 percent of the time against righties, so there should be a poop-ton of balls in play in this one. That's perfect for a cash game stack, especially with the A's sitting sixth in the league in wOBA against righties.
On the season, the A's have three batters that possess a slugging percentage of .540 or higher against righties: Josh Reddick, Stephen Vogt and Mark Canha. Canha costs only $3,900 on DraftKings. With the pricing as inflated as it is on tonight's slate, he will be a necessary piece of this stack if you want to make it fit.
Baltimore Orioles
I would be much more excited for this stack if it weren't for the strikeouts. Joe Kelly averages 7.35 strikeouts per nine, which is right about the league average for a starter, but the Orioles strikeout 22.5 percent of the time. That is enough to make me nervous about pumping this, but not enough so to fully fade it.
The reason I'm not able to back off the Orioles is the power. They rank ninth in the league in wOBA against right handers, seventh in slugging, and sixth in isolated slugging. Those are the types of numbers I'm looking for with my stacks.
Vegas likes this game as a whole, but not necessarily the Orioles as much as I would have thought. The over/under is 9, but Boston is -110. I struggle to see why as the Orioles have the far better match-up, they are better against right-handed pitching, and the Orioles' bullpen ERA is more than a run better than that of the Red Sox. Boston does hit a significant amount better at home than on the road, but I'm not sure it's enough to overcome the other disadvantages. I'd rather roll with the O's in this one, personally.
Kansas City Royals
Don't be shocked if Mike Montgomery doesn't record a single strikeout tonight. He averages only 4.10 per nine, and the Royals strike out a mind-bogglingly low 14.4 percent of the time against lefties. The second lowest is Cleveland at 16.7 percent. That's the formula for a cash game stack if I ever saw one.
With that said, I really don't see the Royals being more than a cash game option tonight. They have a .121 isolated slugging against lefties with their ninth-ranked wOBA being inflated by a high batting average. They'll get their hits, but it's hard to see a boat-load of extra-base hits for Kansas City. That's fine for cash games and on sites that deduct for outs, but I'm not recommending them for anything beyond that.
If you're looking for an individual to serve as an exception to that cash-game only strategy, I'd go with Salvador Perez. He hasn't drawn a walk yet against a lefty, and his batting average and on-base percentage are chilling at .269. However, he has provided considerable pop with a .478 slugging percentage. Because of that, he's on the less safe side, but he provides one higher-upside option in play for a decent match-up.
