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.
Los Angeles Dodgers
You should only need one reason to stack the Dodgers today, and that reason is this brilliant tweet from Jonah Keri.
The following is a list of pitchers who are better than Rubby de la Rosa against left-handed batters: All of them. All the pitchers ever.
— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) June 9, 2015
I'm sold. And Jonah ain't lying. Rubby de la Rosa has allowed a .296/.353/.554 slash to lefties this year despite a shockingly average .310 BABIP. Only 11.0 percent of the batted balls have been hit softly, so homies be rocking this pup like a wagon wheel. He has induced a sweet 57.8 percent ground ball rate to righties, but that falls to 43.4 percent against lefties. Stack all of the Dodgers' lefties, friends.
Assuming he's back in the lineup tonight, Andre Ethier should be a fun play. He figures to have lower ownership than both Joc Pederson and Adrian Gonzalez while posting a 40.7 fly ball rate against righties. He also provides some salary relief at $3,600 on DraftKings if you want to squeeze the other big bats in your order while not limiting your pitching options.
Houston Astros
Danny Duffy got peppered to death in his first start off the disabled list with the Mariners dinking eight singles off of him. The good news for Duffy is that the Astros don't hit singles. That is also the bad news.
The Astros entered play last night tied for second in the league in ISO against lefties at .173. Duffy's 35.5 ground ball percentage is conducive to a high slugging percentage, so we may see exclusively extra bases tonight. Additionally, Duffy has allowed a higher fly ball percentage to lefty batters since the start of last year, so don't be afraid to go a bit contrarian tonight with a left-handed slugger in tourneys.
If you're rolling out a cash-game lineup tonight, it would be in your best interests to roster Carlos Correa. He has carried his dominance of left-handed pitching into the Majors by slashing .317/.333/.634 off of them through his first 42 plate appearances this year. I specified cash game as Correa's ownership is going to be crazy tonight. It might not be a terrible idea to fade him in a tourney, but just know that you are fading at your own risk.
Toronto Blue Jays
Poor Eduardo Rodriguez deserves so much better than this. He's a stupidly entertaining young pitcher, and he gets saddled with the team that's historically good against left-handed pitching. It's not too late to fake a stomach flu, Eduardo. Nobody would fault you for doing so.
Above, I used the word "historic" to describe the Jays' offense against lefties. That was not simple hyperbole. That is, as of right now, a straight fact. Fangraphs has been tracking team platoon splits since 2002. In those seasons, the highest wOBA against lefties belongs to the 2003 Colorado Rockies at .372. The Jays entered last night at .377. This is despite playing in an era where offense is down across the board with the league as a whole holding a wOBA 20 points lower than what it was in that 2003 season. They are criminally good.
As you may have/should have/better have guessed, the pricing is quite high for these Jays. Both Chris Colabello and Kevin Pillar have fly ball percentages above 40.0 against lefties, and Devon Travis is just beneath that at 39.3 percent. These are all options that cost either $3,800 or $3,700 on DraftKings that could snag you a cheap long ball. They should also have lower ownership than the other Jays bats, so I'd go all in any of these guys that you see fit for this stack tonight.
Baltimore Orioles
This is probably a stack I would only use in tourneys because Colby Lewis really hasn't been that bad this year. The thing he does do is allow a high volume of fly balls, which is exactly what I'm looking for when I need that upside.
In 29 starts last year, Lewis had a 5.18 ERA with a 4.36 xFIP. This year, his ERA has dropped to 4.10, though his xFIP has stayed at 4.36. This means he is still not a guy against whom you'll avoid stacking despite a much-improved ERA with his 36.4 percent ground ball rate.
I'm not buying into Chris Parmelee yet with his immeasurably small sample size. That said, I really don't mind him as a tourney play tonight. He has a 57.7 fly ball percentage against righties this year, pushing his career total up to 44.8 percent. Against a fly ball pitcher like Lewis, that gives him some nice potential for a guy priced just $2,900 on DraftKings.