Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 05/18/17

*Chris Durell*

Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks – Thursday, May 18

Thursday brings us another split slate with six games early and five games on the main slate. The lack of elite pitching tonight will mean it is likely a GPP night where we can almost afford any bats we want. Put your favorite daily fantasy baseball 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**

Early Slate

Trevor Cahill
Opponent – vs. MIL
Park – Petco Park (Pitcher Positive)
Vegas Favorite (SD -130)
Vegas Total (8.0)

The options are slim at the pitcher position on the early slate which thrusts Trevor Cahill into the top spot today. It could be worse as Cahill comes into today’s matchup with a 3.27 ERA and 3.03 xFIP which tops all pitchers on the early slate. Not to mention his 11.1 K/9 rate and 13.8% swinging strike rate and while those are not sustainable, it works right into his favor today as the Brewers strike out 24.6% of the time vs. right-handed pitching. Even when Cahill is not striking guys out, he is getting them out with an elite 60% ground ball rate and today will be at home in Petco Park, one of the best pitchers parks in the big leagues. While he seems more of a GPP option, he is the safest of all the pitchers on the early slate if you are playing cash games.

Main Slate

Jordan Montgomery
Opponent – @ KC
Park – Kauffman Stadium (Neutral)
Vegas (NYY -105)
Vegas Total (8.5)

The options don’t get much better on the main slate, so I lean in the direction of the best matchup plus upside. Enter rookie Jordan Montgomery who has been inconsistent but not awful through his first six starts. He has struggled with his control walking almost four batters per nine innings but has also shown nice K upside with an 8.7 K/9 rate and elite 13.4% swinging strike rate. He has made it through the sixth inning in four of his six starts and limited opponents to three earned runs or less in five of those six starts. He now gets a plus matchup vs. the Royals who rank dead last in runs scored (120) in the entire league. The Royals have also been a worse hitting team vs. left-handed pitching with a league-low .259 wOBA and 57 wRC+. Be sure to check the wind forecast before lock as it was blowing out hard last night. It won’t affect my decision too much as Montgomery has a limited hard contact (23.5%) this season and suppressed the home runs (6.5% HR/FB). Same with Cahill in that Montgomery isn’t a cash consideration on a normal slate but tonight with limited options, he is as safe as they come.

**DAILY FANTASY BASEBALL STACKS**

Early Slate

Baltimore Orioles vs. Detroit Tigers (Jordan Zimmerman)
Park – Comerica Park (Neutral)
Vegas (BAL -110)
Vegas Total (10.0)

We will start out by picking on Jordan Zimmerman on the early slate today. Since beating the Red Sox in his first start of the season, he has struggled giving up 26 earned runs in his last six outings. He comes into today’s matchup with a 6.28 ERA and a 5.86 xFIP that suggests things aren’t going to get much better anytime soon. Digging deeper we can see why as he is only striking out just over five batters per nine and is giving up a juicy 42.3% hard contact rate on 48% flyballs. That is a recipe for disaster and explains the nine home runs he has given up on the year. This plays perfectly into the hands of the Orioles who sit with a .372 wOBA and .236 ISO over the past seven days. Slugger Chris Davis has found his groove lately and been one of the hottest O’s with four home runs and seven runs batted in over the past seven days. He is surrounded by terrific hitters in Adam Jones, Manny Machado, and another power bat in Mark Trumbo to complete the four-man stack. For value, watch lineup card closely when it’s released as Trey Mancini (.449 wOBA/190 wRC+ vs. RH pitching) and Seth Smith (.383 wOBA/1144 wRC+ vs. RH pitching) make excellent salary relief options.

Main Slate

Seattle Mariners vs. Chicago White Sox (Dylan Covey)
Park – Safeco Field (Pitcher Positive)
Vegas (SEA -170)
Vegas Total (9.0)

Turning to the five-game main slate, this matchup is going to get a lot of attention from a stacking perspective. We have a pair of rookie pitchers going head to head and I lean the Mariners side for stacking as we know a little bit more about Dylan Covey at this point. After posting a sub 2.00 ERA in AA last year he completely skipped AAA and made his way to the bigs in 2017. Through six starts he has struggled mightily giving up 26 earned runs in just 29.1 innings pitched (7.98 ERA). He has also given up multiple home runs in three straight and four of his last five starts for a season total 37% hard contact rate against. It is a small sample size, but he has also been worse on the road. Although Safeco Field is more of a pitcher’s park, the Mariners have plenty of power to crush it out anywhere. They are usually known for their terrorizing of southpaws but also rank 9th overall in wOBA (.334) and 4th in wRC+ (116) vs. right-handed pitching. Build your daily fantasy baseball stack around their core top of the lineup in Jean Segura, Nelson Cruz, and Kyle Seager.