4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 6/22/15
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.
New York Yankees
Twice I have recommended stacking against Kevin Correia this year. Twice he has allowed two earned runs or fewer. Thankfully, the beautiful Phillies defense helped a brotha out last time, allowing four unearned runs to cross the plate as well. This time, Correia has the pleasure of operating in Yankee Stadium. He'll need that magic once again.
The Yankees rank fifth in wOBA against righties, third in slugging percentage and fourth in isolated slugging. They are the ideal mixture of floor and upside in a park conducive to stackaliciousness. If Correia is a little off his game, things could go south in a hurry.
With the Yankees, you've got plenty of awesome left-handed bats. There also happens to be a right hander that enjoys crushing righty pitching. That would be Mr. 3000 himself in Alex Rodriguez. He's slashing .300/.382/.541 against them this year, and his ownership may be lower than that of guys like Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann. When it's a short slate like this, that could make a pretty humongo difference in your tourney plays.
Houston Astros
The pitcher with the highest fly-ball percentage in the entire league against the team that has had historic slugging numbers this year? Uh, yeah, sign me up for that, please.
Let me make something very clear: Hector Santiago versus the Astros is not a safe play. He racks up the strikeouts, and they fully embrace that third strike. It's very possible this could be a game in which there is not a single ball put in play. Just bombs, walks and strikeouts. But it's those bombs that provide this play with the upside to more than justify a tourney stack.
As a concession for said riskiness, the pricing on the Astros is sweet as all get-up today. Only George Springer costs more than $4,100 (assuming Jose Altuve sits again). This includes Colby Rasmus who, despite the platoon disadvantage, has slashed .279/.404/.512 off of lefties this year and only costs $3,400 on DraftKings. This stack gives you crazy upside with decent flexibility on pricing. That's not a bad combo if you ask me.
Cleveland Indians
Whereas I would rather use the Astros in a tourney, I'd much rather use the Indians in cash games. They have a solid wOBA this year against lefties, ranking 10th in the league. That, however, is largely because of a high walk rate with a reduced slugging percentage. The upside isn't great, but the floor is.
An added bonus here is that Kyle Ryan adheres to this cash-game strategy. He averages 4.66 strikeouts per nine innings while the Indians only strikeout 16.7 percent of the time against lefties. That means a whole lot of balls in play, which leads to a whole lot of hits.
The one guy who is an exception to this limited-upside mentality is Ryan Raburn. He's slashing .310/.392/.536 against lefties and only costs $2,800 on DraftKings. The problem is pretty much everybody knows this by now, so his ownership will probably be significant. That's not an issue in cash games, but it is something to keep in mind if you consider him in a tourney.
Minnesota Twins
While we're focusing on ownership today, I'm a bit torn on the Twins. They could be highly owned because they're facing John Danks, or they could be on the lower side because, well, they're the Twins. Either way, it's a play that has the potential to be very interesting.
On the season, Danks has a 5.04 ERA with a 4.51 FIP and a 4.45 xFIP. His ground-ball rate is down to just 36.7 percent. That, paired with his low strikeout numbers, combines for some juiciness against a team that has been significantly better against lefties than righties this year.
I know Brian Dozier's super expensive tonight at $5,000 on DraftKings, but that doesn't mean he can't be worth it. His .280 isolated slugging against lefties ranks 11th in the league. That gets a sizable bump with Danks on the mound. If you toss in a few of the other cheap Twins bats, you've got yourself a decent little tourney stack for tonight's short slate.