MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 9/16/15

With the Orioles facing a fly-ball lefty, there are several hitters who should be on your daily fantasy radar.

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

I stacked hardcore against Henry Owens when he made his most recent start against the Toronto Blue Jays. Dude went out and held them to one run on three hits over 5 1/3, prompting a constant stream of tears over the next couple of hours. Obviously, we should avoid him now, right? Not quite.

Even in that outing, Owens's xFIP was at 7.32. He walked four batters while striking out three and holding a 33.3 ground-ball percentage. Those aren't lines that will lead to only one run often. This outing bumped Owens' season-long xFIP up to 5.24 prior to a date with the Orioles. Thus we are back, tempting fate yet again by stacking against the young lefty.

Steve Pearce came off the disabled list on August 24th, and it seems like he has gone to the Kent Murphy school of baseball: it's just dingers. He has 11 hits in 54 plate appearances, and 4 have left the yard. He's a heavy fly-ball hitter at a 44.3 fly-ball percentage. His career hard-hit rate against lefties is 37.0 percent, and now he faces a lefty with fly-ball tendencies. Pearce has had a disappointing season, but he is still in a favorable matchup tonight.

Washington Nationals

So, the Nationals stack I rolled with last night was kind of a disappointment. I was big into Clint Robinson, Anthony Rendon, and others, hoping they'd be able to rack up the runs. But they weren't feeling that same vibe. Fortunately, they have this shining beacon of baseball glory that some feel the urge to call Bryce Harper.

We've got a stat here at numberFire called 'nERD'. nERD measures the number of runs a player would be worth compared to an average player over the course of 27 plate appearances. Harper currently holds a nERD of 5.73, meaning he is 5.73 runs better than an average player over 27 plate appearances. The second best mark in the league is Joey Votto at 4.92, and he's the only other player above 4.20. I'm not always of the belief that if you stack a certain team, you need to include their best player in that stack. Harper is most definitely an exception for nights like last night.

Those Nationals are facing Phillies' righty Alec Asher. Between Double-A and Triple-A with the Phillies and Texas Rangers this season, Asher had a 4.87 FIP. Yeesh. That has followed him to the majors, where he holds a 6.70 xFIP through three big league starts. People may be off the rest of the Nats after last night's let down, but tonight might not be the night to "never again" these pups.

San Francisco Giants

Why can't the Giants play somewhere that is not AT&T Park? It's currently tied for 27th in park factor and last in home run park factor. Dope for fantasy purposes. I hate that this is where it's going down, but a matchup with Michael Lorenzen will help cancel out a bit of the park factor.

The interesting thing about Lorenzen is that he may be turning a corner. Over his past three starts, he has 12 strikeouts compared to only 3 walks. That's still not shockingly good, but it's better than his 65 to 53 strikeout to walk ratio prior to that. He has also been able to induce more ground balls recently. His season-long xFIP is at 4.95, so I'm absolutely still going to target him, but it's something to keep an eye on moving forward.

Because AT&T Park is superbly unique, I place more of an emphasis on individual players' home/road splits than usual. One guy who seems to be unfazed by the bay is Brandon Belt. His home slash this season sits at .319/.396/.498, and he has been crushing the ball to the tune of a 39.5 percent hard-hit rate overall. His home runs do decrease while at home, but he can still hit value without a dong in this matchup.

Minnesota Twins

It's probably a bit homerish of me to recommend a Twins stack three consecutive days. However, the Detroit Tigers' rotation is in absolute flames, and Daniel Norris is next in the pecking order, so I say we just keep on keeping on.

Norris was due to head to the bullpen upon his return from the disabled list, but a setback with Anibal Sanchez has forced him into the rotation. Through nine starts with the Tigers and the Toronto Blue Jays, Norris has a 4.97 xFIP. He has been able to cut down his walks, issuing either zero or one in three of his last four starts. However, his 36.7 ground-ball percentage and 6.85 strikeouts per nine innings make this a stack worth perusing.

Now, Miguel Sano's stats are pretty ign'ant no matter what the situation is. But against lefties, ain't nobody touching his Gucciness. He has a 58.5 percent hard-hit rate off of them. The current qualified league leader in hard-hit rate off of lefties is Paul Goldschmidt at 46.8 percent. Sano blows that total out of the water. I sometimes like to pivot to Trevor Plouffe in bad matchups to capitalize on low ownership, but not tonight. You have to unleash the Miggy Pop.