4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 8/14/15
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. As a note, these stacks do not include the Padres and the Rockies at Coors. You all know to have ownership there; I don't need to tell you. Here are the other teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.
Boston Red Sox
You could, conceivably, stack the Mariners today. I won't be doing so as Joe Kelly's advanced stats have actually been pretty sweet his past two starts. Instead, I'd rather target Mike Montgomery and a Red Sox offense that has picked up its abilities to hit lefty pitching tremendously as of late.
Montgomery has had his fair share of good starts this season. That hasn't stopped his SIERA from posting up at 4.31, meaning he should see some inflation on his ERA soon. He allows plenty of base runners via walks to both righties and lefties, so I'd be okay with rolling this one out in either cash or tourneys.
I would prefer to base my Red Sox stack (and most stacks, in all honesty -- just more so this one) around their batting order. If Jackie Bradley., climbs his way to the top of the order, I'll roll with him. If it's Rusney Castillo instead, sure. Either way, I want to maximize my plate appearances. That includes rolling the dice on David Ortiz in a tourney with his .173 isolated slugging against pitchers of the same handedness.
Houston Astros
It's the big-boppin' 'Stros against a low-strikeout, high-walk pitcher with a 4.57 SIERA. Let's do this, yo!
The big struggle point for Alfredo Simon this season has been left-handed batters. Against them, he has a 13.3 strikeout percentage and 8.3 walk percentage. They have a 23.9 line-drive percentage and a 32.4 fly-ball percentage, so if it goes in play, it's going a ways. That's dandy news for this one.
With the Astros, you've basically got a conglomeration of boon-or-bane sluggers who could drop an egg or a double dong on any day. Obviously, that's not something you'll always want to trot out. But if you can roster enough extra-base hits, that'll make up for some misses. It's difficult to know which bat will breakout on a given day, but it has crazy high upside in tournaments.
Tampa Bay Rays
This isn't a stack I'd recommend in cash games. It carries risk with Martin Perez's improvements over his past two starts. However, the Rays are crazy good against left-handed pitching, and they're in a park with a better park factor than Tropicana. I can dig it as a tourney roll.
Even prior to his Tommy John surgery, Perez was never great in the strikeout and walk departments. He made his moola with a high ground-ball rate, and this year has been no different. That lowers the value of the Rays, who have a .172 isolated slugging against lefties, but doesn't totally curtail a stack as they still sit third in wRC+.
Because Perez does induce ground balls, I want to roster hitters who smack the ball around. Logan Forsythe, Evan Longoria and Brandon Guyer all have hard-hit rates of 32.0 percent or higher against lefties this year. Desmond Jennings is expected to come off of the disabled list, and he posted a 35.9 percent hard-hit rate against lefties in 2014. There are options to choose from here, even if there is some risk involved.
Baltimore Orioles
After Sonny Gray was scratched yesterday, today's Oakland A's starter is officially ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I don't mean that as in I don't know who the starter is. I mean it as in they might actually call upon the shrug symbol to face the O's today. Should be fun!
At the time of this writing, the A's hadn't announced their starter, but either way, it's probably not going to be a great day for the staff. The O's, thankfully, rank 11th in wOBA against right-handed pitchers and 14th against lefties. They are susceptible to the strikeout, so it may be best to take heed if the ball goes to a manufacturer of the third strike. Odds are, you should be in the clear there, but it's best to check regardless.
Another addition here is that the Orioles have a .187 isolated slugging at home. The best belter in the Beltway is Chris Davis, who has a .328 isolated slugging at Camden Yards. That's very much in line with his numbers in the past there as he posted iso marks of .300, .361, and .232 there from 2012 to 2014 respectively. Considering his abilities to slug against pitchers of either handedness, he figures to be a good little play tonight.
