Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 05/12/17

*Chris Durell

Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks – Thursday, May 12

Welcome back to another day of daily fantasy baseball stacks. I hope you had a profitable week and if not, well, it’s TGIF! There are a ton of ways to go tonight with your lineups as Clayton Kershaw is on the mound…in Coors Field! That’s right, the best pitcher in baseball enters the best hitters park in baseball. Something has to give. Let’s jump in and take a look at my top pitching options and hitter stacks for tonight’s 15 game slate. 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**

Clayton Kershaw
Opponent – @ COL
Park – Coors Field (Hitter Positive)
Vegas Favorite (LAD -200)
Vegas Total (9.5)

If you are like me, you have been waiting for this matchup. It is an opportunity to get the best pitcher in baseball at a discount, but unfortunately, he travels to the high elevation of Denver, Colorado. It doesn’t bother me as Kershaw has made 18 trips to Coors Field in his career and came away with an 8-4 record and has recorded just over a strikeout per inning pitched. Yes, the ERA is 4.71, but that doesn’t scare me tonight as I am mainly a GPP player. He is still the most expensive option on FanDuel today where we only roster one pitcher but on DraftKings he comes at a $1,300 discount from Johnny Cueto making it an easy decision for me tonight. I mean, when was the last time a Coors game saw an Over/Under below 10? The Rockies have been very impressive to this point of the season, sitting ten games above .500 and in first place in the NL West but Kershaw is the great equalizer. Through sevens starts, Kershaw has a slightly lower K rate (9.8 K/9) which gets a boost tonight as the Rockies have struck out 24.3% of the time over the past seven days and 25% of the time vs. left-handed pitching. You can usually get Kershaw at a slightly lower ownership in Coors as well, and the upside greatly outweighs the risk tonight so build around the Dodgers ace.

Dylan Bundy
Opponent – @ KC
Park – Kauffman Stadium(Pitcher Positive)
Vegas (BAL -105)
Vegas Total (8.5)

From the worst pitchers park in the league to one of the best. Kauffman Stadium ranks #1 right now in run suppression, and that is great news if you want to roster Dylan Bundy tonight. He was pushed back after last night’s game was postponed and sits in a great spot. Vegas isn’t totally on board yet but give it time as I feel the line will shift in the Orioles favor. [Line moved right before publication, nice call Chris! – Editor.] I mean, the Royals are the worst offensive team in the Major Leagues. Bundy comes into this matchup with a shiny 5-1 record and has picked up a quality start in all seven starts which are huge if you are playing on FanDuel. The downside is that his K rate (5.5 K/9) has been less than impressive but should get a boost tonight as the Royals have struck out 23.5% of the time over the past seven days with just an 80 wRC+. He makes a cheap SP2 to pair with Kershaw on DraftKings and an excellent GPP salary relief option on FanDuel that allows you to stack all the bats.

** STARTING STACKS**

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Colorado Rockies (Tyler Chatwood)
Park – Coors Field (Hitter Positive)
Vegas (LAD -200)
Vegas Total (9.5)

It is an extremely low total for Coors Field, but as I mentioned above, it has everything to do with the best pitcher on the planet going for the Dodgers tonight. Give the Dodgers credit last night, making an attempted comeback after falling down ten runs after four innings. They ended up falling short of the win but should be able to carry that momentum over into today’s game which is a really big spot. The Dodgers currently sit behind the Rockies in the NL West and will not want to fall further behind as we get into the summer months. The Dodgers rank third in wOBA (.349) and fourth in wRC+ (118) vs. right-handed pitching and face Tyler Chatwood who has given up four or more earned runs in five of his seven starts. Even worse for Chatwood and better for the Dodgers hitters is that he has also given up close to a league high 33% HR/FB rate and 29% hard-contact rate. Load up on Dodgers bats tonight and start at the top of the order with Joc Pederson, Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger.

Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies(Nick Pivetta)
Park – Nationals Park (Pitcher Positive)
Vegas (WSH -190)
Vegas Total (8.5)

I will start off by saying that this game comes with a ton of risk as there is rain in the Washington area, but it appears there is a good chance the game will play. There could be some possible delays, but as a GPP player, this does not scare me at all. I actually prefer rain threats when looking for high upside stacks as the ownership level tends to drop off in these situations. If you are risk averse, I would recommend staying away but if you can handle some risk jump on board with me. Ok, now that I have warned you let’s jump into the pick. The Nationals are currently projected to score just under five runs tonight which comes in large part to their elite matchup vs. Nick Pivetta of the Phillies. The rookie pitcher has shown some K upside (9.9 K.9) but has been hit very hard through his first two starts of the season. He faced the Nats in his last start and gave up nine hits, four earned runs and three long balls. So through two starts now he is giving up over 50% hard contact (WOW) with a 30% HR/FB rate and while he is likely to see some positive regression, I don’t see it happening tonight vs. a powerful Nats team headlined by Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, and Daniel Murphy.

Monitor the weather throughout the day and follow me on Twitter (@jager_Bombs9) for updates.