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. As a note, this does not include the game at Coors between the Rockies and the Angels. I would take heed when stacking that game as Chad Bettis and Andrew Heaney are both pretty good, but you should be okay to still use some bats there. Here are the other teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.
Boston Red Sox
This puppy got a whole lot of blow-up potential. Dan Haren can't get a ground ball to save his life, his xFIP is at 4.32 against largely National-League competition, and the Red Sox are clipping along against right-handed pitching. Bring your glove if you're going to Fenway.
This is a stack with which I would be comfortable in both tourneys and cash games (yes, you can and should stack in cash games). Haren's 31.9 percent ground-ball rate is conducive to tourneys because of the home run potential, but his lack of strikeouts means there will be plenty of balls in play, as well. He averages just 6.45 strikeouts per nine innings, and the Red Sox only strike out 16.2 percent of the time against righties, tied for the lowest total in baseball.
Although he has had a tough year overall, David Ortiz should have your attention tonight. He is hitting .272/.389/.523 against righties, but more importantly for our purposes, he couples that with a 39.4 percent fly-ball rate and a 40.0 percent hard-hit rate. At just $4,200 on DraftKings, Ortiz is a quality buy.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The best team in the league against right-handed pitching is facing a guy with a 4.96 xFIP, yet only one of their bats costs more than $4,000 on DraftKings. How does this happen?
The even stranger part of this is that the only guy who is above $4,000 is Howie Kendrick. Not any of the other Dodgers' big bats, but the guy with the .125 isolated slugging mark. Nothing against Kendrick, but that seems a bit insane. It gives us plenty of cheap options in a great matchup, so I ain't mad, doe.
As for Chad Billingsley (Party at Taylor's house, Billingsley!), his return from the disabled list his last time out was a bit rough. The Brewers touched him up for six earned runs in five innings on 10 hits. After that performance, he is averaging only 3.43 strikeouts per nine with 2.57 walks. His ground-ball rate is slightly above average at 47.0 percent, but that's not enough to scare me off of this stack with the pricing as low and the upside as high as they are.
Chicago Cubs
Just for clarity's sake, this is in reference to the second half of the double-header. Tim Cooney's not making his debut, so we avoid that wretched nightmare, and the Cubs have had a boatload of success against lefties this year. I'm down.
Cooney through his first two starts has generated swings and misses and recorded more strikeouts than innings pitched. Normally, that would be a concern when you consider the Cubs' 21.9 percent strikeout rate against lefties. Cooney, however, never showed that same affinity for strike three in the minors, averaging 6.39 strikeouts per nine in his 14 Triple-A starts this season.
It's still a limited sample size, but Kris Bryant has shown that he is worth that $4,800 price tag against lefties this year. Through his first 50 plate appearances, he is slashing .310/.420/.667 off of south paws, ranking him fourth in the league in isolated slugging. Anthony Rizzo has hit lefties at an impressive clip the past two seasons, but his power numbers do still go down. I could see going with other options at first base with his large price tag, but he does present the ability to rack up singles and some outside-dependent stats in this matchup if you do decide to roll out the Cubs.
Toronto Blue Jays
For this final stack, I had a choice. I could either stack one of two bad offenses against a bad starter, or I could stack a great offense against a pretty good starter. I rolled with the latter in taking the Blue Jays instead of the Mariners and the Rangers, who have both been brutal against left-handed pitching this year. I'll be interested to see how this pans out.
Jose Quintana is a very good, young pitcher about whom the White Sox should be excited. Unfortunately, a grand majority of the struggles he has shown this year have come against right-handed bats, and you know the Blue Jays have those. He does do a decent job of keeping the ball on the ground, but righties have a higher hard-hit rate against him, as they have the past few years.
I believe that Quintana's presence could scare people off of stacking the Blue Jays, as it rightfully should. However, this means you could get an advantage in ownership that you don't always see with this roster. That means if Quintana does slip, the upside would be larger than normal with a team that hits the lights out against lefties.