4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 5/7/15
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. Here are the teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.
San Diego Padres
Two nights ago, the Padres were shut down by Ryan Vogelsong. Yesterday, they torched Chris Heston, who had been having a nice season. Now, they get a positive park factor and a pitcher less dope than Heston in Rubby de la Rosa. They could get blanked again, but I'm thinking not.
de la Rosa's preseason numberFire ERA projection was 5.05. He has started his year above that at 5.40, though his FIP does sit at 4.45. He isn't a heavy fly-ball pitcher, but teams have still been able to touch him up enough to make him stackable.
As a whole, the Padres' offense has cooled off from its hot start to the season. However, they are still making some sweet, sweet contact. Baseball Info Solutions is now publishing its hard-hit rate on FanGraphs, and it views the Padres favorably. They rank fourth in the league in hard-hit rate at 31.9 percent. If you give them a favorable match-up in a hitter's park, things could turn quickly for the offense.
Detroit Tigers
Poor Jose Quintana can't catch a break. He was just starting to turn his tough season around as he held the Minnesota Twins at bay in his last start. Now he has to face the Detroit Tigers. Ruh-roh.
You see, Quintana, got murked by the Tigers a few starts ago, when they tattooed him for nine runs on ten hits in four innings. That's not why you should stack the Tigers, though. You should stack them because they are excellent hitters against lefties, as they demonstrated again last night in popping Chris Sale for five runs in five innings.
I know I've mentioned this here before, but it bears repeating: Victor Martinez's knee is much less of an issue when he is batting right-handed, as he will today. He hit a bomb off of Sale, and now has more hits off of left-handers than he does off of righties in about one third the number of at-bats. His price is up to $4,400 on the DraftKings' early slate, which is a bit of a buzzkill, but it's more reasonable than it would be against a righty.
Oakland Athletics
I believe that the Minnesota Twins pitching staff has about a 0.50 ERA this year when I say to stack against them. So, with me being a Twins fan, that may or may not factor into this. But for real, Ricky Nolasco has been screaming "Stack me!" ever since he arrived in Minnesota.
Nolasco doesn't notch a lot of strikeouts, he allows plenty of fly balls, and he has a 5.53 ERA since the start of last year. Last year, left-handers slashed .329/.387/.519 against Nolasco. This almost mirrored the line of Michael Brantley. So, an average lefty against Nolasco last year essentially turned into the guy that finished third in the MVP voting.
A couple of lefties that could bring surprising value for the A's are Billy Burns and Ike Davis. Burns is valuable because he has been hitting at the top of the order and he can run like heck (74 steals in the minors in 2013 and 57 last year between three levels). Davis hasn't been extraordinary, but he has slashed .275/.337/.374. When he costs only $2,600 on DraftKings with Burns at $2,700, I'll take both in an instant in this match-up.
New York Yankees
Outside of the game at Chase Field, this is the only one in the late slate that has an over/under greater than 7.5. You could, theoretically, stack either team, but the Yankees have the better matchup with Chris Tillman going for the Orioles.
There are no real bad plays with Tillman on the mound. For his career, the difference in wOBA between right-handed batters and lefties against him is only seven points. If there's a player of value, regardless of handedness, you should plop them into your lineup.
One major caveat to this stack recommendation is that you should not overvalue players who derive a good chunk of their scoring from stolen bases. The Orioles have done a nice job of controlling the running game this year, allowing only 10 steals on 15 attempts. Tillman has been even better himself as he has allowed only two steals since the start of the 2013 season (439.2 innings). Considering the price of Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner, that may be reason enough to fade them, but they could certainly make up for it in other areas if Tillman struggles.
