4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 6/15/15
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.
Baltimore Orioles
This is a tale of two opposing forces that are going in totally opposite directions. The Orioles' offense is trending up while regression has dragged Aaron Harang to its murky depths. Not a great combo if you're a Phillies fan.
Harang got off to an awesome start this year, but his last four starts have been much more of a struggle. His strikeouts are down to 5.70 per nine over that span with 3.42 walks per nine. This has pumped his ERA to 6.08 with a 6.40 FIP and a 5.41 xFIP. His overall numbers are still more than respectable, but it seems as though the early-season magic may have expired.
Since Matt Wieters' return, the Orioles are averaging 6.667 (demon) runs per game when he has been in the starting lineup. That only spans six games, so it means nothing, but he is exactly what they need in a bat that can crush righty pitching without striking out much. Individually, he's a bit spendy at $4,400 on DraftKings, but his presence does provide a decent amount of additional value to the rest of the guys in the lineup.
New York Yankees
The Yankees are straight clippin' along at this point.They have worked their way up to fourth on the leaderboard in wOBA against right-handed pitchers. Now, New York enters a match-up with Tom Koehler, whose season hasn't gone as planned.
Koehler had a fine season last year, but he has seen his strikeout rate decline while his walk rate moved in the opposite direction. His home run to fly-ball ratio has also spiked up, going from below average last year to above it in 2015, meaning he's due for a bit of a regression. Even when accounting for that, he has a 4.46 xFIP, so it's not all about luck at this point.
Koehler's main struggles have come against left-handed hitters. They are hitting him at a .266/.352/.520 clip with nine home runs through 145 batters faced. This seems like a perfect match-up for Mark Teixeira and his "dong or die trying" tendencies, and he is reasonably priced at $4,700 today on DraftKings.
Detroit Tigers
The over/under for this game is pretty lofty at 8.5. Then you add in Detroit being -182, and you can see that the betting world sees this as a hitter's paradise for the Tigers' bangers. Not good news for Jon Moscot.
Moscot has struggled with his command through his first two Major League starts, issuing five walks to go with his five strikeouts. Both of these numbers have contributed to his 4.91 ERA, 5.92 FIP and 5.71 xFIP. Those two outings came against the Padres and Phillies, who rank 25th and 30th respectively in the league in wOBA against right handers. The Tigers rank sixth, thus the inflated Vegas totals.
With the rebound in the Tigers' offense has come a rebound in their pricing. J.D. Martinez has seen his price shoot back up to $4,500 on DraftKings with three home runs in his past six games. That doesn't mean I think he's out-priced himself, though. His .246 isolated slugging against righties is actually higher than that of Miguel Cabrera, who has been superb again this year. Martinez's strikeout rate has been discouraging, but when he makes contact, he has been giving that ball a ride.
Atlanta Braves
Vegas is saying to stack the Red Sox here with an over/under of 9 and favoring Boston at -155. I just struggle to find reason to do so when they are facing a ground-ball pitcher, the Braves have been better against right-handed pitching, and Atlanta's hitters are 30 times cheaper than Boston's. So we're rolling with the Braves here to see how wrong Vegas can make me look.
Rick Porcello is way better than his 5.26 ERA would indicate. The problem is that almost every Boston pitcher is better than their ERA as the team's 4.40 ERA is significantly higher than their 4.07 FIP. Why is that? Part of it may be the Red Sox defense, which ranks 20th in UZR/150. This makes it hard to automatically say a pitcher will regress, even when his peripheral stats indicate that he should.
Outside of Freddie Freeman, not a single Braves hitter costs more than $3,800 on DraftKings today. This includes Cameron Maybin, who is starting to look like what people thought he'd become. He has added 11 stolen bases this year, and Porcello has already allowed 8 swiped bags. I also believe the Braves will be the less popular of the two stacks from this projected high-scoring game, so you may have the ownership edge. Might as well roll the dice and see how it goes down.