MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 5/14/15

There are plenty of juicy matchups for both the early and the late slate today, including the Kansas City Royals against Ross Detwiler.

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.

Kansas City Royals

I could see a stack of the Royals' opponent, the Texas Rangers, in tourneys for today. I wouldn't do it in a 50/50 because they rank 27th in wOBA against right-handers, and Jeremy Guthrie isn't the worst pitcher on the planet. If it is a high floor which you seek, the Royals are ready and waiting.

I say that knowing full well what Ross Detwiler did to my blood pressure two starts ago. In holding the Houston Astros to one run over seven innings, he effectively gave every roster I compiled the double middle finger. Thank you, Ross. But, his ERA is at 7.22 now with a 6.58 FIP, and the Royals rank second in the league in wOBA against lefties. Let's roll with it.

The pricing is quite interesting for the Royals in this one. Their two highest-priced hitters (Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon) on the DraftKings early slate are left-handed. Gordon has done well against lefties, but not nearly as well as Lorenzo Cain and his .396/.463/.625 slash. He's only at $4,400 for the early slate, so I trust y'all know the proper action to take.

Detroit Tigers

I tried really hard not to stack the Tigers here. It's not because I don't think they can post some silly numbers as they very well could. It's because I'm a curse. Whenever I say to stack against the Minnesota Twins, offenses embrace the suck and tank hardcore. There aren't a ton of great early-slate stack options, so I'll do it. But I assure you this lil homie ain't happy about it.

Another aspect to this is that the Tigers' offense is sputtering away right now. They haven't scored more than six runs in a game since April 30th. They were facing the Twins, but they were not a stack option because Phil Hughes was the starter. Beginning to sense my frustration?

With all of this working against the Tigers, they do have one thing working for them in Twins' starter Mike Pelfrey. Big man has a 2.62 ERA, but it's coupled with a 4.64 FIP, a .250 BABIP against, and an 81.9 percent strand rate. Be gentle, Madame Regression. Pelfrey's groundball rate is way up, as is his fastball velocity, but the peripheral stats still say things will be a-changing soon.

Los Angeles Dodgers

In his 43 career Major League innings, Chad Bettis has a 6.88 ERA and a 5.14 FIP. That FIP was at 5.02 through his six Triple-A starts this year prior to his promotion. And he gets the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight. Neat.

Though the sample size is small, right-handed batters have posted drool-inducing numbers off of Bettis. They have slashed .351/.416/.578, while lefties are at .291/.380/.466. Part of that is because right-handers have an inflated .375 BABIP against him with the left-handers' at .322, but it's also part because he might be bad at pitching.

This stack is made even more enticing because the pricing is super relaxed on the Dodgers on DraftKings for the late slate. There is not a single Dodgers hitter who costs more than $4,500, and only four are above $4,100. If that doesn't get your insides all tingly, you probably have more of a life than I do. Props.

Toronto Blue Jays

This is another game where I could totally see a stack of either team. I'm rolling with the Jays, though, because I hate stacking high-strikeout teams against pitchers that can accumulate the K's. The Astros have the second-highest strikeout percentage in the league, and Drew Hutchison recorded 8.97 strikeouts per nine innings last year. I wouldn't totally toss out the Astros, but the Jays are the safer option here.

Relative to expectations, Roberto Hernandez has been a'ight this year. His FIP is down over half a run from last year, and his xFIP has dropped by almost as much. All of this is despite a decrease of 1.2 miles per hour in his average fastball velocity. How has he done it?

Unfortunately, part of this success may be due to the opponents he has faced. The four teams Hernandez has faced (two each against the Angels and Mariners with one against the Rangers and Padres) rank 19th, 20th, 27th and 29th in wOBA against right-handers. The Blue Jays, however, rank eighth in that category. It's possible that he has seen the light and exercised his demonic numbers, but I'm not quite buying it yet. Tonight will tell us a lot about whether or not that's true.