MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 5/22/15

Bryce Harper and the Nationals are rolling, and they get a sweet matchup tonight. Deploy the Nat signal.

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. I'm not going to include the game at Coors as y'all know to include that in your lineup where you can fit. Both teams could score 10 tonight, so le'go. Here are the other teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.

Washington Nationals

Narrative street alert! This is important! Bryce Harper is averaging 14.75 DraftKings points per game in his first game following an ejection for his career. Over those four games, he has a pair of bombs, a double, five RBI and four runs scored. This is the sole reason you stack the Nationals today, and if you need further convincing, it's time to getcha life right.

Again, the rest of this is all useless info, but I should let you know that the Nats are facing Sean O'Sullivan, who has been snorting hot garbage this year. Not recommended. His ERA may be 3.68, but his FIP is chilling at a sweet, sweet 5.53 with a 4.68 xFIP. Three of the 22 left-handed batters he has faced this year have donged, and the Nats might have a couple of lefties that are a'ight at baseballing.

I promise I'll eventually stop citing this, but it's so gross. The Nats are now averaging 6.46 runs per game when Denard Span is in the lineup. This is totally causation and not based on Harper's illitude. Shush. Either way, they have a rabid offense right now, and they have an equally sickly match-up. Not that any of that matters. Do it for the narrative.

Chicago Cubs

So, y'all going to give Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant a plus matchup in one of the league's best parks for hitters? Excuse me while I fan myself over here.

Josh Collmenter doesn't strike anybody out, and that has been the biggest bugaboo this year for the Cubs, who lead the league in strikeout percentage. With that concern largely erased, the offense could be unleashed. Additionally, he's a fly-ball pitcher, and the Cubs rank fourth in fly-ball percentage among National League teams. This match-up is an absolute worst-case scenario for Collmenter.

The thing preventing me from totally diving into this is the pricing. I love Bryant, but he's at $5,000 on DraftKings. Rizzo is at $5,300, and my season-long waiver boo Dexter Fowler is up to $4,900. The rest of the team is reasonable, but these are super tough prices when you consider the pitchers going tonight. This could be a situation where you go with a shorter stack here coupled with another cheaper stack so you can still spend on the big arms taking the mound.

Seattle Mariners

The Mariners are in almost the exact same situation they were in yesterday: facing a blurghish right-handed pitcher who gives up a poo-ton of fly balls. They only scored four runs on 10 hits in that one because high strand rates are neat and efficiency is for nerds. I ain't bitter, doe. Today, they go to a place with a better park factor for home runs, so let's try it one more time.

Over the past two years, Marco Estrada hasn't exhibited drastic platoon splits. In 2014, right-handers hit .251/.309/.472 while lefties sat at .222/.283/.436. This is largely the same trend he has shown this year, though the sample size is small. His FIP sits at 5.06 this year, which means you and I have a higher fWAR than his -0.1 mark. Momma, I made it!

Although the park factor went up here, so did the pricing. Kyle Seager was at $3,800 for yesterday's early slate, and now he's up to $4,400 today. Even former punt-play extraordinaire Brad Miller is up to $4,000. My heart weeps with every price increase, and the sadness reigns in this instance. That said, they're still cheaper than the first two stacks we covered, so things could be worse.

St. Louis Cardinals

If the world were run by ERA, Chris Young would be our new overlord of dopeness with his 0.94 spot this year through 28.2 innings. He would also be a quite literal overlord as he is 6'10" tall, so that might not be the worst idea in the world. But, unfortunately for good ol' Chris, that's not the case, and his 0.94 ERA is on the verge of a little face-lift.

Young strikes out fewer than seven batters per nine innings, and he has a ground-ball rate lower than 25 percent (league average is 45.4 percent). That shouldn't lead to a FIP of 2.85, but it has. Why? He has only a 2.1 home run to fly-ball ratio, which is well below the 10.7 league average. His opponent BABIP is .132, even though they have a 33.8 hard-hit percentage. He's going to regress, and he's going to regress hard-core. That crazy regression could occur against the team that ranks sixth in the league in wOBA against right-handed pitching in the Cardinals.

This can operate as the other cheap-ish stack of the day. Matt Carpenter is the only Cardinals hitter that costs more than $4,500 on DraftKings. Matt Holliday, Jhonny Peralta, Kolten Wong and Peter Bourjos all have slugging percentages at .475 or higher against right-handers, and none of them is more than $4,400. If the talented Mr. Young does experience his statistical tug-back tonight, these little whippersnappers here could be the beneficiaries.