Welcome to our new daily article breaking down some of the other stacking targets on this slate. We covered our system's top value plays in our daily picks article and our updates articles but here we will look at other dudes to consider.
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Stacking in DFS MLB is such an important concept if you’re looking to take down a big tournament on FanDuel or DraftKings. It’s also a good way to diversify cash games because the variance in baseball can mean wild swings (ahem) in the scoring on a particular slate. The concept is easy. You want to pile players from one or two teams into your lineups because those guys compound scores by helping each other score runs when the going is good.
Seattle Marines Left Handed Bats vs. Doug Fister (Astros)
Park - Minute Maid Park
The Mariners have surprised some people early in the 2016 season as they lead the American League West Division by 2.5 games over the Rangers and sit 8th in the entire league with 128 runs scored. They also sit 11th in team wOBA(.328) vs. right handed pitching and are loaded with left handed bats. I would take that to the bank against almost any righty but today the Mariners get a great matchup vs. gas Doug Fister who has been pretty bad this year. He is striking out less than five batters per nine and also walking over 3.5 batters per nine which has resulted in a 4.60 ERA. He has limited the damage to right handed batters giving up just a .258 wOBA against but has really struggled vs. left handed batters where he has given up a .409 wOBA against along with five home runs on the season. For FanDuel I love the 3 through 6 hitters(Cano, Cruz, Seager, Lind) and on DraftKings you can be creative and add the very top of the order(Aoki, Smith) as well.
Cincinnati Reds vs. Tyler Cravy (Brewers)
Park - Great American Ballpark
The Milwaukee Brewers have called up Tyler Cravy to make a spot start on Friday as Wily Peralta is with his family enjoying the birth of their daughter. Crazy made an appearance out of the bullpen earlier in the year and was fairly impressive striking out five batters and walking none in 5.2 innings pitched. Starting is a whole different animal. In 2015 Cravy made 14 appearance(7 starts) for the Brewers and was less than impressive going 0-8 with a 5.70 ERA and walked batters at a 4.64 BB/9 rate. The Reds have been on fire coming into this game winning two straight while scoring a total of 16 runs. Their bullpen has been quite shaky so I am expecting them to rely on their offense once again tonight. The top of the order(Cozart, Hamilton) are getting base while the runs producers behind them(Votto, Phillips, Bruce) have been on fire driving them in. On FanDuel I would lean towards a 1-4 or 2-5 stack while on DraftKings I would try and fit all five in my lineup.
Chicago White Sox vs. Ricky Nolasco (Twins)
Park - U.S. Cellular Field
If you read the article you seen that the projection system absolutely loves the White Sox bats tonight against Ricky Nolasco. The White Sox currently sit in the middle of pack in hitting vs. right handed pitching(.305 wOBA) but have limited their K's as they are one of only six teams in the majors to strike out less than 19% vs. righties. This is positive as the White Sox should be able to minimize Nolasco's strength in striking out batters(7.5 K/9 rate). Outside of the K's, Nolasco has been struggling recently giving up four or more earned runs in three of his last four starts and has given up three home runs in his last two starts. This is a great spot for the White Sox to get back on track after losing two straight games to the Red Sox to close out their last series.
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View Comments
Anyone have a run total on Reds vs Brewers game and Angels vs Rays?
I've been playing dfs for a few years with pretty good results, but it's time for the optimizer, super pumped guy!
@Jerald The Reds/Brewers game is sitting at 8.5 currently with the over favored.
what do you mean by 1-4 or 2-5 stack?, sorry im new to mlb dfs?
@ Wayne he means where the player is batting in the lineup
Taking the first 4-5 hitters in the lineup on a certain team Wayne
thanks guys for clearing that up
limit your expectations on the optimizer. i've used this site for a little over two weeks now, ive followed all the news articles on the stacks to use, ive read the pitching articles, and ive also read the best players each day with the considerations below them. let me just let you know that i've gotten absolutely smoked. some of the "optimized lineups" ive plugged exactly as suggested, have failed to get me even 60 points at times. so every day ive been using the recommended optimal lineup and then creating my own lineup after. Some of the players suggested on this site do work, but majority of them fail miserably. i'm not sure where these projections are calculated from, but in these tournaments where it takes 200+ points to win big money, and these lineups produce anywhere from 50 to 125 points, that isnt cutting it. so temper expectations and make sure to do your own research as well. this whole optimizer thing just started for the 2016 season and lets just say it needs work because the results arent there. Also take into consideration a majority of these players suggested in the optimal are owned by a ton of other people as well, so the cheap sleepers they suggest on here will either make u or break you. i do like some of the suggestions but then theres others that baffle me, i.e. the optimizer has suggested troy tulo about every day this week, and im assuming the site is just banking on him to come out of his slump, but slump is still there and the consistent tulo recommendation has cost me good money, and thats just one example so becareful with fully trusting spending your money based soley on the optimal lineup.
Hey Ben,
Thanks for the comment. Couple of things here. Saying a majority of the picks "fail miserably" strikes me as a gross over exaggeration. That being said, baseball will have wild swings (pun intended!) and there will of course be a great sDev of score from projected mean simply because that's the nature of the game (unlike say NBA).
Baseball been up and down to start the season for sure. Down a little more than up, but it doesn't have me at all concerned about the nature of the system. We are always making tweaks and working toward the best possible product. But we are confident (as we are with NBA and NFL both of which returned significant user value) that MLB has the necessary components to long term profit.
Re: Tulo, system has two issues here. One is that his BABIP is absurdly low at .179 (140 points off his career average) From that POV we think he's getting about as unlucky as possible. His LD% has fallen off a cliff, turning more into FBs than normal. (This will crush BABIP of course) In some ways this is a good sign as well. GB% is the number that normalizes quicker than the other two (which sometimes suggests injury). His GB rate is in line with career numbers leading me to believe it could be he's just missing on some hard hit balls. Time will tell here, but I'm staying the course with him.
Ben
You should never take your frustration out in a comment section on your extremely biased opinion. Optimizers are just tools and articles are just information. Good dfs players gather as much data as possible to create themselves a good winning lineup on any given night. If you notice a player such as Tulo is struggling... guess what? just don't use him. That is where your own knowledge comes in and the optimizer and articles are used as a starting place to start building. If all you do is go around to different optimizers hoping they will win you money and do all the work for you... You should not be playing DFS... period... You'll lose a lot of money. So yes... everybody... the optimizer and articles are a GREAT starting place to start constructing your winning lineups! Let's win again tonight!! GO THOR!!! lol
@ Ben, the optimizer is nothing more than a tool and the articles are nothing more than information. You should never blindly plug and play the optimizer results or take these articles as gospel. If this is your only tool, then yes, you had a rough 2 weeks. Conversely, if this your only tool, you likely won money yesterday and in the early part of April as the Optimizer spit out some cashing combinations.
As far as identifying chalk and finding high upside pivots off them, one strategy is to take a lot at many sites or podcast. Pay attention to common names and consider them chalk. Then take that info and decide if you play the chalk or contrast it.
Sorry there is no magic formula. I will agree with tempering expectations though. Not because it doesn't work, but because no expert can predict the future.
I feel like I get more info from the comments than I do the article. Thanks!