Welcome to the Monday edition of the Stack City, where I’ll be going through the top MLB DFS Stacks on DraftKings and Fanduel.
We have a solid 10-game slate tonight, with all games included in the main slate on both DraftKings and FanDuel. We have some solid spots for stacking tonight.
Always make sure to read Adam’s Starting Rotation when setting your lineup. It’s hands down the best pitching article in the MLB DFS business.
Let’s dig in and see if we can find some stacks to use today!
The Arizona Diamondbacks showed yesterday they have the ability to put up some offense against a southpaw as they were able to tag Ranger Suarez for 4 Runs in just 4 innings of work. They then proceeded to put another 9 runs the rest of the game. This is another good spot for this sneaky offense. Mike Minor has struggled through his first 2 starts this season. He’s so far allowed 8 ER through just 8 innings of work. He’s also allowed 5 homers in those 8 innings. Until he gets things right (he probably won’t), we should consider stacking against him.
I’m starting off this stack with Christian Walker. Over the last month, Walker has just brutalized lefties. He has a .333 ISO and a .443 wOBA vs. them. Walker has only faced Minor in 2 AB, but one of those AB left the yard. With how well he’s done against lefties over the last month and how cheap he is tonight at just $3.6k, he’s a lock for me in this stack.
Next up in this stack would be Ketel Marte. Marte comes into this game swinging a hot bat as he has hits in 4 of his last 6, including 3 3-hit games. Against lefties over the last month, he has a .431 wOBA. He stands a great chance to be productive in this matchup. He’ll mostly face fastballs tonight as Minor throws it 40% of the time. Against lefty fastballs, Marte has a .293 ISO and a .466 wOBA. At $4.7k on DK tonight, this is about as cheap as we’ll see Marte. Let’s take advantage of it tonight against a beatable southpaw.
Other bats I’ll look to include in this Diamondbacks stack will be Jordan Luplow and Carson Kelly.
This has the potential to be Kyle Bradish’s toughest task to date. So far in his brief career, Bradish has had some extreme struggles vs. righties. Righties have a 1.158 OPS against Bradish so far. The Blue Jays will almost certainly throw out a lineup tonight that will be 8 righties strong. It’s a nightmare scenario for the young kid. Bradish has yet to have a game this season without giving up a homer. He’s given up 10 in less than 40 innings of work. We can absolutely go home run hunting in this one.
My Blue Jays stack will start off with Bo Bichette. Over the last 30 days, Bichette has been arguably the Blue Jays best hitter vs. righties. He has a .286 ISO and a .406 wOBA. He’s coming into this game with hits in 9 of his last 10 games, including 5 multi-hit games.
Up next will be Vladimir Guerrero. Guerrero is starting to see his price creep back up, but it’s still within a reasonable range on DK at $5.5k. We’ll have enough value with the Dbacks to afford some pricey bats. The power that had gone MIA appears to be back. He’s homered 4 times over the past week, and with a matchup vs. a pitcher that can’t get righties out, he very well could do it again tonight.
With this stack, I’m also going to look to load up on Teoscar Hernandez, George Springer, Santiago Espinal, and Lourdes Gurriel. All Blue Jays are in play though.
Tonight will be start number 3 vs. the Astros this season for Hearn. The first two have not gone over well. He’s allowed 8 ER through just 9 innings of work against them so far. In those 2 starts, he allowed close to a combined 50% hard-hit rate with multiple barrels against him. With Hearn, I’m not going to be overly worried about splits. While righties tend to better against him, we can’t expect him to go too deep into this one so ignoring lefties will only hurt us.
Coming off his monster day yesterday, I’ll start this Astros stack off with Jose Altuve. Over the last 30 days, Altuve has an ISO near .300 against lefties. He’s shown some pop vs. them with a 55% hard-hit rate. Hearn’s favorite pitch to righties is a sinker. Against lefty sinkers, Altuve has a .378 wOBA and a .222 ISO. He should do well tonight.
Next up will be lefty smasher Chas McCormick. Should he crack the lineup tonight, I absolutely love him. Against lefties over the last month, McCormick has a .500 ISO and a .523 wOBA. He also has very solid numbers vs. lefty sinkers, with a .400 ISO and a 50% hard-hit rave vs. them.
No Astros stack would be complete without Yordan Alvarez. I always play him vs. lefties at reduced ownership. He crushes lefties as well as anyone. Against them over the last month, he has a 54% hard-hit rate and a nearly .300 ISO. Alvarez also has great numbers vs. Hearn, albeit in a limited sample size.
Other Astros I like here will be Martin Maldonado, Yuli Gurriel, and Kyle Tucker.
Other places I like for offense tonight will be lefties for Josiah Gray (Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies), Mariners vs. Archer, and Twins vs. Flexen.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green.
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
We actually have a regular-size Sunday slate with 10 games, although the pitching leaves something to be desired. We have some options at just about every level but they may not be the best options we’ve ever seen. Let’s talk about who’s going to make sense on the slate in the MLB DFS: DraftKings and FanDuel Pitching 6/12 and find green screens!
We normally just go by salary but they aren’t far apart and I love Wright today. The Pirates have been strikeout machines lately (leading the league at 26.3% against righties over the past 14 days) and Wright has a 27.2% K rate, a swinging-strike rate of 12.8%, and a 2.75 WHIP. As we saw yesterday and Friday with Spencer Strider and Charlie Morton, the upside is immense as those two totaled 20 strikeouts themselves. Wright has only allowed a 0.40 HR/9 and while his 3.26 xFIP tells us that is pretty low, Pittsburgh isn’t making enough contact to counteract his strikeout prowess. The Pirates are also only 20th when facing a curveball and that is the main pitch for Wright at 31.7% of the time and it carries a 36.7% whiff rate with 32 strikeouts. Both sides of the plate have a .250 wOBA or lower and the right side is at a matching 2.43 FIP/xFIP. Lefties could give him some small bit of trouble with a 4.18 xFIP so a one-off like Bryan Reynolds is interesting, but Wright is in one to dominate.
I didn’t love him in the last start and he laughed in my face as he whiffed 12 hitters and scored 37 DK points. He threw his fastball only 42% in the last start, the fewest of the season and I wonder if that’s something that could turn into a trend. The slider and curve both have whiff rates of at least 32.9% and they have combined for 57 of 73 strikeouts. It’s not crazy to think Verlander could embrace a shift in the arsenal to accentuate what still does extremely well for him, sort of like Clayton Kershaw. That is speculation on my part but he’s got his K rate up to 27%, the swinging-strike rate is 11.2%, and the xFIP is only 3.38. I suspect that may wind up being higher than the ERA all season since Verlander is allowing a 43.8% fly-ball rate but he generally knows exactly how to keep runs off the board. He also has both sides of the plate at a .252 wOBA or under and there isn’t anything to stand out against him past the Marlins being a great offense on paper. They’re in the top five in wOBA and wRC+ and that may not matter for the wily veteran.
He should be more expensive in this spot considering he just smacked the Dodgers around, and the Texas lineup is not that good. They are mid-pack in basically everything including the K rate over the past 14 days with two exceptions. One is ISO where they are ninth but the other is OBP where they are 24th. That’s not the worst combo and perhaps the biggest worry is that Kopech is worse against lefties with a .270 wOBA and a 4.96 xFIP but he also features a 29.3% K rate against that side of the plate so things aren’t all bad. The 65.9% fly ball rate is a big reason the xFIP is so high but his curve is more prevalent to the left side and it has the best whiff rate at 30.4%. His fastball has the most strikeouts at 34 and Texas is just 24th against that pitch, a boost for Kopech. With a 25.5% K rate and a 10.3% swinging-strike rate, he makes a lot of sense here and I could see him being a popular SP2.
I’m keeping it short with him because he sort of drives me nuts. The K rate is only 18.7% and his xFIP of 3.68 is still almost a full run higher than the 2.73 ERA but aside from the last start, he’s been mostly successful. Taillon does generate a 27.2% hard-hit rate to couple with his 44.3% ground ball rate and it is easier to stomach him at this salary as opposed to over $9,000 as he has been through a lot of the season. The swinging-strike rate is still under 10% and the lineup may not cooperate with his splits either. The Cubs could play six righties and allow has a .312 wOBA, 3/78 xFIP, and just a 15.9% K rate against that side of the plate. On paper, Kopech makes much more sense so here comes 25 DK from Taillon once again. The Cubs are sixth in OBP so they can be pesky on the right day.
I’d rather play Suarez who has a much friendlier matchup against the D-Backs, who rank in the bottom five in wOBA, wRC+, OPS, and OBP to go along with a 25% K rate and the seventh-highest ground ball rate. Suarez has been tough to get right this season but since May, the xFIP has been below 4.00 and the K rate has jumped over 20% and he’s been a little bit better. The right side of the plate only generates a 22.1% hard-hit rate which puts the .348 wOBA as a little bit of an odd metric. His sinker only has a one-degree launch angle on it this season and the D-Backs ranking so high in ground ball rate should help out here. It also helps that they are dead last when facing a changeup and that’s the strikeout pitch for Suarez with a 31.9% whiff rate and 12 strikeouts, the most outside of the sinker. His price is affordable and he has shown he can score 20+ DK points in any given start, it’s just he can score under five as well.
I’m sort of hesitant here but this s about the only pitcher that I can see having a path to success that falls into the punt range. Stripling has gone from 38 to 56 pitches in the past two appearances so I don’t think he’s going more than five innings or 75-ish pitches but this is the Detroit lineup. Even if we shrink the sample to just the past 14 days, they are 30th in wRC+, wOBA, and OBP with a K rate over 25%. Stripling does have a K rate over 201.% although I wouldn’t expect more than 3-5 strikeouts. He’s also generating a 53% ground ball rate and a 24.3% hard-hit rate so the profile is actually fairly strong from a metrics perspective. Detroit is fifth in ground ball rate over the past two weeks and ninth through the whole season, and neither side of the plate is over a .297 wOBA. We could do worse with the matchup considered.
I realized that I added this section without much of an explanation, which was my fault. Pitchers who “Miss The Cut” COULD potentially have a good game, but some part of the profile or matchup stick out in a very negative way. I wouldn’t be playing any of these pitchers in cash, SE GPP, or even 3-max. These would be 20-max or deeper options and I think there is a higher risk for a really bad game that sinks any lineup.
Edward Cabrera – If you’re playing a 20-max GPP, perhaps you can get after Cabrera in a few but through two starts, he’s racked up a 12.5% walk rate, a 4.66 xFIP compared to his 0.75 ERA, a 100% strand rate, and a .080 BABIP. I’m not sure Houston is the team I want to try that profile against, although he is wildly talented. We’re only talking about a 12-inning sample so there is a good game possible, but he’s not cheap at all.
Graham Ashcraft – I just don’t want to pay up for a pitcher that has a 14.3% K rate and swinging-strike rate under 9%. While he’s getting a 60.6% ground ball rate, that’s driving all of his success and his salary demands strikeouts or close to perfection.
Tarik Skubal – I love Skubal typically but this is such a tough spot. Toronto is in the top five in OPS, OBP, wOBA, and wC+ when facing a lefty. They also lead in walk rate at 11.3% and are 23rd in K rate at just 19.8%. The path to success is there, but it’s narrow. The Jays can be a bust offense (Beau Brieske says hi from Saturday) but the matchup just does not line up well for Skubal.
Jon Gray – He was probably the closest to getting a full write-up with a 3.88 xFIP contrasted with a 5.28 ERA and he does have a K rate over 24%. The issues come from the hard-hit rate of over 30% and a 4.61 xFIP with a 5.94 ERA on the road, not to mention his K splits are titanic. In Texas (only 12.2 IP), it’s over 39% while on the road (33.1 IP) it is only 18.8%. I tend to think the road numbers are more indicative of how he’s pitching although the White Sox struggle when facing righty pitching.
Phillies
Braves
Reds
Brewers
Rays
Royals
Yankees
Thank you for reading my MLB DFS: DraftKings and FanDuel Pitching 6/12 and make sure you follow me on Twitter at @bucn4life! Be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
Welcome to the Friday edition of the Stack City, where I’ll be going through the top MLB DFS Stacks on DraftKings and Fanduel.
For the first time in a while, we have all 30 teams playing on just on big slate tonight. That means we’ll have plenty of options for offense.
Always make sure to read Adam’s Starting Rotation when setting your lineup. It’s hands down the best pitching article in the MLB DFS business.
Let’s dig in and see if we can find some stacks to use today!
Bruce Zimmermann is in a pretty bad stretch of pitching right now. Over his last 4 games, Zimmermann has allowed 20 ER in just 20 innings of work. While the teams that he did this against were superior to the Royals, I’m going to look to take advantage of his current form. Over the last month, Zimmermann has been getting absolutely shelled by batters as they have a 44% hard-hit rate. He’s allowed 18 barrels and 12 homers over his 27 innings of work. That’s just not going to cut it and it’s something we should attack.
Zimmermann’s splits against both sides of the plate recently have been awful, so I’m not going to be overly concerned with which side of the plate we’ll attack him with. My first lock to this stack will be Salvador Perez, who finally appears to be heating up. He has hits in 5 of his last 6 games, including 2 homers and 9 RBI. He’s historically crushed southpaws, with a .302 ISO against them over the last 2 seasons.
Next up will be MJ Melendez. Even though this is going to be a L/L matchup, I’m not shying away from it. In his brief career, Melendez has crushed southpaws. In 26 plate appearances against southpaws this season, Melendez has a .680 slugging % and a 1.124 OPS. He’s up to 5 homers in just 108 AB this year and very well could add to that total tonight.
I’ll round out this stack with Whitt Merrifield, Bobby Witt Jr, and Emmanual Rivera. Should Hunter Dozier return to play tonight, he’ll also be part of my player pool from KC>
I should preface this by saying that I don’t expect a repeat performance out of Rodriguez tonight. I don’t expect him to give up 10 ER in 4 innings of work again. I do expect him to struggle tonight though, because outside of 1 appearance this season against the Guardians, all he’s done is give up runs. He’s made 4 appearances now and has given up at least 4 ER in 3 of them. Both sides of the plate have been crushing this season as they each have an OPS over 1.000.
I’m starting off this stack with Bo Bichette tonight. Bichette has been arguably their best hitter of late. Since May 24, he’s failed to get a hit in just 2 games. Over the last month, he’s been crushing righties too. He has a wOBA of .402 and an ISO of .256 against them.
Next up would be Vladimir Guerrero. While he’s gone hitless in his last 2 games, I’m not overly concerned with it because he’s only K’d once. Coming into those 2 games, he had been red hot at the plate and this is a great get-right spot for him again. He has 4 homers in his last 8 games. Tonight, he should add a fifth in 9 games. He’ll see a healthy dose of sliders from Rodriguez tonight. Should Rodriguez hang one, Guerrero should crush as he’s historically done well against righty sliders.
Other bats I really like here will be George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez, and Alejandro Kirk.
Someone in my season-long league recently offered Paul Blackburn for one of my top bats. I emphatically said no because there was nothing in his profile and career-long history that indicated he should be pitching this well. He proceeded to prove me right by throwing back-to-back clunkers. He’ll throw a third tonight. His last 2 outings have been by far his worst of the year and are more indicative of the pitcher he has been throughout his career.
I’ll start this stack off with Jose Ramirez. He’s pricey, but he’ll be worth every penny of it tonight. He’s been dynamite vs. righties, especially over the past month. His ISO against them over the last month is .343 and has a solid wOBA of .387. He’ll see a heavy dose of sinkers tonight and that’s right up his alley as he has a .314 ISO against them from righties.
Next up will be the min-priced Oscar Gonzalez. You got that right, after his 4-4 night last night, his price went down. Since getting called to the big leagues, all he has done is hit. Against a pitcher that has just a 12.5% K rate vs. righties, he should be able to continue to put the ball in play tonight.
I also really like Josh Naylor here. He has hits in 3 of his last 4, including a homer last night. Against righties over the last month, he has a wOBA of .444 and an ISO of .381. Look for him to homer tonight. Other bats to include here are Gimenez, Straw, and Kwan.
Other places for bats i like tonight will be the Mariners vs. Dick Mountain, Orioles vs. Jon Heasley, and Rays vs. Devin Smeltzer.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green.
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
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