Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 05/11/17

*Chris Durell

Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks – Thursday, May 11

Welcome back for another night of Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for May 11th. Thursday gives us two-afternoon games with nine more on the main slate. For this article, we will be turning our attention to the main slate for the pitching and stack recommendations. Put your favorite stacks from the article below in our lineup optimizer and hit calculate. You can let it fill in the rest of the spots for you or choose your personal favorites from the MLB Player Lab.

This season, new with our MLB Subscription Package we offer Daily Fantasy Graphs. We wanted to create a tool that gives users the ability to visualize data points for Hitters and Pitchers by showing DFS salaries/fantasy points over time. If any of you come from the world of Stocks or Equities Trading, you will immediately understand the usefulness of these charts. Just as price and volume are essential in understanding a stocks movement, points and salary are core for DFS.

**STARTING PITCHERS**

Zack Greinke
Opponent – vs. PIT
Park – Chase Field(Hitter Positive)
Vegas Favorite (ARi -135)
Vegas Total (8.5)

My top option at pitcher tonight, despite Chase Field being the top hitters park so far, is Zack Greinke. I turn to him as the top priced pitcher Dallas Keuchel gets a very tough matchup vs. the Yankees who are one of the top hitting teams in the league. Greinke, on the other hand, gets to face a somewhat depleted Pirates roster as they are without one of their best players Starling Marte. They rank 22nd overall in wOBA(.300) and wRC+(84) vs. right-handed pitching and have scored the third fewest total runs all season. I am not all worried about Greinke pitching at home in Chase Field as he is coming off arguably one of his best starts of the season where he struck out seven Rockies and allowed just six hits and two earned runs in Coors Field. With 27 strikeouts over his last three starts, Greinke has also brought his K/9 rate back up to a near-elite rate of 9.7 K/9 while he is running nearly a career-best 1.65 BB/9 rate. Fire up Greinke in all formats tonight.

Michael Fulmer
Opponent – @LAA
Park – Angel Stadium of Anaheim(Pitcher Positive)
Vegas (DET -105)
Vegas Total (7)

For me, at least, the pitching options really fall off after the top tier so I find myself building all my lineups around Greinke and Michael Fulmer tonight. Fulmer saw a big price jump after his last start where he went into Oakland and struck out nine over eight full innings to pick up his third win of the season. While the Angels strike out about 3% less than the A’s vs. right-handed pitching, they rank a few spots lower when looking at their wOBA(.289) and wRC+(86) splits. It is also very likely the Angels will be without the services of the league’s top hitter, Mike Trout, once again as he has been dealing with a hamstring injury. The only knock on Fulmer is the fact that he can get into trouble with walks (2.54 BB/9 rate) but the Angels also own one of the lowest walk rates vs. righties so that doesn’t really bother me tonight. Fulmer is also safe in all formats tonight.

**STARTING STACKS**

Cincinnati Reds vs. San Francisco Giants (Ty Blach)
Park – AT&T Park (Pitcher Positive)
Vegas (CIN +122)
Vegas Total (8)

The Reds are dogs on the road tonight against the Giants in AT&T Park, but that doesn’t stop me from targeting Ty Blach with my top stack. The 26-year-old southpaw had a brief stint in the majors last year and started this season out in the bullpen. He was serviceable as a reliever allowing just three hits in 5.2 innings pitched and had just one blow up where he allowed three earned runs. They then made the switch and was placed in the rotation and while he only struck three in his first two starts, ended up only allowing two earned runs in 12 innings. The regression hit big time in his last start where he allowed these Reds to get 11 hits and eight earned runs in just three innings before he was removed. The issue with Blach is that he is nowhere near a strikeout pitcher with his 2.18 K/9 and 4.1% swing strike rate. He comes into tonight with a 5.66 ERA with a 5.72 xFIP that suggests things aren’t going to get much better. This is great news for the Reds who sit third in wOBA(.350) and sixth in wRC+(110)vs. left -handed pitching. The power is what we are looking for and the Reds also rank second in team ISO behind the Nationals vs. southpaws. Everything is pointing to a big night for Reds and the ownership could also be down as they play in a pitchers park as underdogs.

Texas Rangers vs. San Diego Padres (Clayton Richard)
Park – Globe Life Park in Arlington (Hitter Positive)
Vegas (TEX -140)
Vegas Total (9.5)

Outside of the Coors Field game, the Texas Rangers rank #1 when looking at projected team totals today. The Rangers have struggled to pick up wins early in the season ranking dead last in the American League West division but the problem has not been the offense as they rank 14th in total runs scored and 7th in Isolated Power (.177) coming into tonight. They get an excellent matchup vs. Clayton Richard tonight who is walking 3.76 batters per nine and has allowed four or more earned runs in four of his seven starts with five home runs (25% HR/FB rate). How you construct your core stack for the Rangers will be dependent on the lineup as Delino DeShields or Shin-Soo Choo could be hitting leadoff and both have positive splits vs. left-handed pitching. Elvis Andrus, Carlos Gomez, and Mike Napoli should be right in the middle of the lineup and also look for Robinson Chirinos to get in the lineup as he also crushes southpaws to the tune of a .561 wOBA/268 wRC+.