4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 6/12/15
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.
Texas Rangers
When your ERA, FIP and xFIP are all higher than your strikeouts per nine innings, you might be a stack candidate. Tommy Milone qualifies, and he's facing a team that ranks sixth in wOBA against left-handers. This is a no-brainer.
There are two things to consider here. First, the Rangers got mowed down by another lefty yesterday in Scott Kazmir, indicating the magic may be wearing off. Second, Milone was absolutely gross in Triple-A prior to his return to the majors. He had a 0.70 ERA in 38.2 innings there with 10.94 strikeouts and 0.70 walks per nine. Both of those are reliant on minuscule sample sizes, so I'm still rolling with this stack.
Nine out of 10 times, I would never recommend starting Robinson Chirinos. That one exception is when he's facing a lefty. This year, he's slashing .278/.366/.583 off of them after posting a .215 isolated slugging against lefties last year. He's one of the lower-end options at $3,700 on DraftKings, and this is a great matchup for him.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Honestly, I wrote this section right when the Phillies signed Kevin Correia. Whenever a team signs a player to start in the majors who was just cut from another organization's Triple-A squad, that sends up a red flag attached to a flair gun with streamers flying out the top.
Correia finished last season with a 5.44 ERA and a 4.67 FIP. His ground-ball rate has gone down each of the past three years to where it is right about the league average. This helps the guys like Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker, who have been fly-ball heavy against righties on the season.
In addition to that minor pump for McCutchen, both lefties and righties had similar numbers against Correia last year. Left-handed batters drew more walks, but righties had a higher isolated slugging while both slugged .470 or better. I have trouble seeing a situation in which Correia keeps the Pirates in check, even if they do rank just 20th in the league in wOBA against righties.
Toronto Blue Jays
Overall this season, Joe Kelly has been light years better than his 5.40 ERA. The exception would be when he's facing right-handed batters. They are slashing .290/.382/.491 off of him through 131 batters. It just so happens the Jays' tastiest bats are right-handed. Stack it, yo.
When Kelly has been matched with top-tier offenses this year, his struggles have been more exaggerated. He has made five starts this year against teams that rank in the top 10 in wOBA against right-handers. In those five starts, he has allowed 18 runs in 29.1 innings for a 5.52 ERA. Part of that is because he has walked 4.30 batters per nine innings in these instances. Two of those five starts have come against these Blue Jays, and they did not go well.
The pricing is, as usual, pretty high for Toronto on DraftKings. One of the lower-priced options to consider is Justin Smoak. He has posted a .210 isolated slugging percentage against righties this year, and he'll only cost you $3,200. Then again, last time I said to stack the Blue Jays, I pumped Chris Colabello. They promptly kept him out of the lineup that night. Enjoy your off day, Justin.
Tampa Bay Rays
If the Jays were your expensive stack of the day, the Rays are your cheap one. They rank seventh in the league in slugging percentage against lefties and fourth in isolated slugging. Pair that with a matchup against John Danks, and you've got yourself some sweetness.
Danks's ERA sits at 5.17 with a 4.77 FIP and 4.53 xFIP. He has allowed at least three runs in eight of his 11 starts this year, including at least five runs in three of his last four. What was the other one? A 10-hit, complete-game shutout of course. It's hard to see that happening again tonight.
If a Rays batter is capable of swinging a bat right-handed, you should consider him an option for tonight. Right-handed hitters are crushing Danks at a .318/.373/.586 slash this year with nine home runs. Steven Souza, Jr., Joey Butler and Logan Forsythe all have slugging percentages of .540 or higher against lefties, and only Souza costs more than $3,800 on DraftKings. Roll these sweet puppies out and bask in their glorious upside.
