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 game at Coors between the Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres. You already know to have ownership at Coors -- I don't need to tell you that. Here are the other teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.
Houston Astros
Lefty? Check. Not a lot of strikeouts? Check. Ground-ball pitcher? Check. Felix Doubront fulfills all of the boxes we are looking for in rolling out an Astros stack. So let's do it.
The Astros sit eighth in the league in wOBA against left-handed pitching and hold a .176 isolated slugging percentage. They're also the sixth best hitting team at home based on wOBA. Basically, all of the stars have aligned to give us a good matchup in this one that is conducive to stacking.
For yesterday's game, Jed Lowrie was able to return to the lineup after missing a few games with a bum shin. Assuming he's in there tonight, I'm getting preemptively pumped. He never strikes out against lefties, and his soft-hit rate hasn't been higher than 10.6 any of the past four years. With his reasonable pricing, I can firmly state this bad mamma jamma will be in my lineups tonight.
Texas Rangers
Earlier in the year, the Rangers were putrid against lefties, so much so that I would target those matchups in selecting my pitchers. Then they went out and pounded the daylights out of Dallas Keuchel, one of the best lefties in the league, and they're up to 17th in wOBA against lefties. So let's do this.
Their matchup Friday is against James Paxton. Paxton missed a huge chunk of the season due to injury, but he just returned to the Majors on September 13th. In that game -- at home against the league's worst team against lefties in the Colorado Rockies -- he walked three batters over three innings as the Rockies scored three runs (two earned). Not a great start to his return. He has a 4.41 xFIP on the season as his ground-ball rate is down significantly from where it was last year. Until he proves he's back to his 2014 form, it's fair to target Paxton with stacks.
I'm not going to spend this whole paragraph explaining why you should roster Mike Napoli. You most definitely should, but I think most of you are aware he crushes lefties. One guy I find intriguing is Rougned Odor. He's a left-handed batter, but his numbers are almost identical against lefties and righties. His walks do decrease a bit while his strikeouts increase, but the strikeouts are still below average. Additionally, his soft-hit rate is actually lower against lefties than righties. He's a high-upside guy with his power, and you could catch him with lower ownership because of the apparent platoon disadvantage. He's a bit expensive on FanDuel at $3,600, but he has the pop to make it worth that.
Tampa Bay Rays
Tyler Wilson will toe the rubber for the Baltimore Orioles in this one. He has thrown a grand total of 24 2/3 innings in his career, and he has recorded 7 strikeouts. Whew. This is a continuation of his track record in the minors, where he averaged 6.01 strikeouts per nine innings. I can live with that.
Part of the reason the Rays struggled early in the season was their susceptibility to strikeouts, especially against right-handed pitchers. I mean, it was bad. But since the All-Star break, they've been able to cut down a bit on the strikeouts, and they sit seventh in the league in wOBA in the second half. Wilson's lack of punchouts should only help this cause.
Possibly the biggest benefactor of this matchup is Steven Souza. Now, Souza's rookie campaign hasn't been great, even when you put the plethora of injuries aside. He has struck out an ungodly 37.0 percent of the time against righties, and he holds an on-base percentage below .300 against these pups. But when he makes contact, he can spank the baseball around with a 34.0 hard-hit rate. If you can guarantee he'll make contact (which you can never fully do), the odds that he'll rack up some extra bases are decent. I'm willing to roll the dice on him tonight.
Philadelphia Phillies
Why stack the Toronto Blue Jays -- the team leading the league in wOBA against righties -- when you can roll with the Phillies, who sit in 29th place? It seems like a pretty easy choice if you ask me.
The odds are that the Blue Jays will likely outscore the Phillies tonight. That's obvious. But Rick Porcello has been sick since coming off of the disabled list, holding a 2.97 xFIP over four starts. Plus, the Jays are more expensive, and I can guarantee you they will have higher ownership. With the Phillies facing Williams Perez, I am absolutely not opposed to stacking them in a tournament.
Perez has had difficulties with both walks and strikeouts, which is generally sub-optimal for a pitcher. He's averaging 5.64 strikeouts and 4.18 walks per nine innings, leading to a 4.96 xFIP. Perez hasn't allowed fewer than two runs since well before the All-Star break -- June 15th, to be exact, though that includes a month-long stint in the minors. Two of those starts have come against the Phillies, who have touched him up for 11 runs over 11 1/3 innings. Leggo.
Now comes the hard part. Picking the Phillies who aren't going to bomb against a righty. Blurgh. I know that, if he's in the lineup, Ryan Howard will be one of them. He strikes out way too much, but he does hold a 40.6 hard-hit rate against righties, and his .243 isolated slugging percentage is still dripping with sweetness. It's probably going to flop. But this is a realistic stack that will provide you more tournament upside than the Jays tonight.