Happy Wednesday! As the weather heats up, so has the offenses. What’s that mean for daily fantasy purposes? Well, the emphasis on pitching is more important than ever. Shaving that little bit of salary and not overpaying for pitching is the key. So, make that a place you spend a bit of time constructing your build.
Now, from an overall slate perspective: we’ve got ten games going, which means 20 teams on the field. As the slate becomes larger, the need to diversify your build lessens. For example, if a team put up 12 runs today; you’ll want a five-person stack to gain as many points as possible. Sure, one-offs are fun when they hit but the correlation from stacking a high-scoring team will boost you past the field.
Baseball is a game of high variance, and today’s as good as any to try something new. Good luck!
Implied Run Totals (IRT)
- CHC (4.5) @ BAL (4) – This matchup doesn’t look like a great one to stack either side. At heart, Marcus Stroman is a groundball pitcher and his underlying metrics (3.39 xFIP and 57.5% LOB rate) suggest he’s been unlucky, not bad. Furthermore, the Cubs offense is extremely middle-of-the-road vs. RHP, and Jordan Lyles has only been crushed by LHB.
- TEX (3.11) @ CLE (3.89) – When you see IRT this low, you run from stacking. Rather, this is a solid matchup to plunk your one-offs from. Texas has a number of bats with depleted salaries due to a poor season, and Cleveland has J-Ram. He’s pricey but tends to be worth it.
- STL (3.29) @ TBR (4.21) – Tropicana isn’t a friendly place for hitters, and St Louis isn’t exceptional vs. RHP, so they’re not a stack to target. Additionally, Corey Kluber is punching out RHB and LHP at nearly a 23% clip. On the flip side, the Rays lineup looks much worse with Brandon Lowe and Wander Franco on the IL, even with a subpar pitching opponent. This is another matchup to avoid stacking.
- OAK (3.47) @ ATL (5.53) – Yuck! Don’t stack Oakland, don’t! And the chalkiest stack of the day is Atlanta because they’re a dynamic offense squaring off against an SP making his first start in the MLB.
- NYY (4.86) @ MIN (3.64) – Both offenses feature a ton of swing-and-miss throughout the lineup. However, the Twins face the top pitcher on the slate. That’s not a sound strategy to try and stack against. Instead, make the Yankees one of your stacks since Chris Archer has been meh (at best). He’s not really striking batters out and is giving up a .190 ISO to RHB and LHB.
- LAD (4.83) @ CWS (3.67) -The White Sox offense is a shell of itself without Eloy Jiménez and Tim Anderson. Furthermore, they’ve got a matchup against Tony Gonsolin, who’s got an above-average K-rate while not allowing much hard contact. On paper, Johnny Cueto looks like a solid SP (2.92 ERA and 47.4% GB rate), however, his fastball is only sitting at 92 mph and the lack of strikeouts leaves very little margin for error. Lastly, this is an elite offense, and they don’t need much of a window to light up a scoreboard. Stack’em!
- PHI (4.23) @ MIL (3.77) – Aaron Nola is very very good, so we shouldn’t stack against him. Plus, in the previous two weeks, the Brewers offense hasn’t been the top-seven scoring offense from the start of the season. Rather, try to stack the Phillies where you can. The salaries are fairly low, and you could easily grab four (or five) hitters and have salary left over for better pitching.
- BOS (4.73) @ LAA (3.77) – You might be asking yourself, how do the Angels have an IRT this low? Well, it doesn’t look like Mike Trout will be in today’s lineup with yet another injury. There are too many other options to stack the Angels anyway. A better spot to look is the Red Sox. They matchup against Reid Detmers, and he doesn’t effectively strike out batters from either side of the dish while giving up lots of hard contact. Make stacking Boston a priority today.
- NYM (3.5) @ SDP (3.5) -We’ve got two stronger SP options facing off in this one. That’ll drive the IRT way down and we shouldn’t force either as a stack, especially with Pete Alonso’s recent injury.
- COL (3.41) @ SFG (5.09) – The Rockies away from Coors? Pass! The Giants against Antonio Senzatela? Sign me up! Additionally, the IRT over five suggest they project well, and I’d happily stack them in a multi-entry contest.
Starting Pitchers
Since the slate is much bigger than usual, I’ve broken down the SP targets by price ranges. Note: The price ranges are somewhat skewed to DraftKings. The easiest way to notice is Dane Dunning since he’s $6700 on DK and $8800 on FanDuel.
GREEN Tier
This is your cash games tier. We’ve got two SPs producing with ace-like success. Nola, the more proven commodity, and Cortes the breakout train that can’t be stopped.
- Nestor Cortes ($10.3K DK, $11K FD) was doing things with smoke-and-mirrors deception. However, he’s obviously figured things out and the results speak for themselves. But wait, there’s more! The Twins have the sixth-highest K-rate (24.2%) in the MLB. Strikeouts are king, and the Yankees project to win this one.
- Aaron Nola ($9.4K DK, $10.2 FD) is still the same pitcher we’ve come to expect great outings from. The high strikeout rate. Check. The high groundball rate. Check. Now, if he can keep the ball in the yard, it’ll be a big day for him because Milwaukee is in the top half of the league in strikeouts.
YELLOW Tier
Don’t want to pay all that salary for pitching? I don’t blame you, especially if you want to build a healthy-sized stack with a stout offense. That’s where this tier comes into play. Both can offer you ace-like quality of innings, but come with some warning flags. These two options would be who I’m targeting in single-entry contests.
- Nathan Eovaldi ($8.8K DK, 9.2K FD) has a HR problem—there, I said it. But it also comes with the ability to strike out batters at a high rate. Additionally, he gets a matchup against a depleted offense that just lost their manager. This is a good little spot for Eovaldi to put up a gem.
- Chris Bassitt ($8.2K DK, $9.5K) strikes out more batter than many think. And, outside of Manny Machado, the Padres are not a dynamic offense. In fact, the Padres have an 86 wRC+ vs. RHP and a .137 ISO-not good.
RED Tier
This is the land of GPP pitching options. If you want to smash an enormous amount of salary into all your hitters, these two will save you the money needed. However, they’ll come with plenty of risk.
- Dane Dunning ($6.7K DF, $8.8K FD) has been rather unfortunate. His 4.11 ERA is slightly misleading because the xFIP is nearly a run lower (3.31). Furthermore, when he’s allowing balls in play, it’s on the ground over 50% of the time. However, he’s facing a Cleveland squad that doesn’t strike out (17.9% vs. RHP).
- Konnor Pilkington ($6.7K DK) is a wild card play. His stats look great but are hard to gauge since he’s been utilized as an RP and only pitched 17 innings. Although, he’s looked sharp at times and Texas has struggled plenty as an offense this season.
Hitting Stacks
Boston Red Sox (vs. Reid Detmers)
- In the past two weeks, Boston has been demolishing southpaws. They’re touting a 212 wRC+, .364 ISO, and K-rate under 20%. Quite frankly, I’m stunned by two things. One, they have an IRT that’s only 4.73, and two, the salaries aren’t as high as expected. Sure, the top of the lineup is somewhat pricey but there are plenty of options to make a nice five-person stack and leave salary on the table for pitching.
- Red Sox Core Stack Targets: J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and Trevor Story.
Philadelphia Phillies (vs. Adrian Houser)
- The ballpark is pretty good for hitters, and especially HRs. The Phillies have a number of bats that can go yard, and the salaries are extremely affordable. Now, I’m not saying Adrian Houser is a bad SP, but he’s got flaws that can get him in trouble quickly. First, he allows WAY too many free passes to first base and doesn’t strike many batters out. Lastly, Philly has the 11th-best ISO vs. RHP, and when you add that to the small margin for error from Houser, I like our chances of this stack going off.
- Phillies’ Core Stack Targets: Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos.
Los Angeles Dodgers (vs. Johnny Cueto)
- Look, I don’t quite know how Cueto keeps escaping with the success he’s shown. But I’ll bet against it every chance I get, especially with the Dodgers’ offense. There are a few teams with a higher IRT than the Dodgers and this bodes well for us. Could we get really get a Dodgers stack (vs. a suspect SP) at a lowered roster%? I think so, and that’ll make them a priority for me.
- Dodgers’ Core Stack Targets: Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Trea Turner.
Value Hitters
Here are some of the best value hitters not mentioned above. Also, the value hitters are players under $3500 on DK and under $3300 on FD—just a step below my cash players. Use these players to smash into your lineup when you need to save some salary.
Design by J.R. Caines (@JRCainesDesign on Twitter and @caines_design on Instagram)