MLB Fanduel Draftkings Lineup for 05/05/17
*Chris Durell*
DFS MLB Fanduel Draftkings Lineup – Friday, May 5
Welcome back to another day of daily fantasy baseball featuring your MLB Fanduel Draftkings Lineup with LineupLab. Today we get just one early afternoon game between the Yankees and Cubs and Wrigley and one late afternoon game between the Giants and Reds. 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**
Stephen Strasburg
Opponent – @ PHI
Park – Citizens Banks Park(Neutral)
Vegas Favorite (WSH -165)
Vegas Total (8)
The combination of more viable starting pitching options and a big 13 game main slate is going to help level off the ownership for pitching tonight. This is great news as Strasburg is not only an elite option, but he comes at a bit of a discount from what we have been used to the last few days. While the ERA and xFIP are right in line with what he has been doing for multiple years, Strasburg has seen a big dip in his K rate(7.97 K/9) early in the season. I am chalking it up to a small sample size as he has recorded eight or more strikeouts in three of his five starts. He should be able to build on those K number tonight in a matchup vs. the Phillies who strike out over 24% of the time vs. right-handed pitching and have a wRC+(95) that is 5% below the league average. The Phillies have also been struggling lately losing three straight and six of their last seven games. Fire up Strasburg in all formats.
Kenta Maeda
Opponent – @ SD
Park – Petco Park
Vegas (LAD -155)
Vegas Total (7.5)
Maeda’s price on FanDuel has been pretty constant in the high $7K, low $8K range all season but on DraftKings it has really bounced around. It has been in large part to his high-end skill set but disappointing start where he allowed 17 earned runs and seven home runs in his first four starts of the season. Good news is that he seemed to find something in his last start where he went a season-high seven innings striking out eight Phillies and picking up his second win of the season. The strikeouts should continue to come as he has recorded a swinging strike rate greater than 10% in four of his five starts and sits with an elite 14.3% for the season. Tonight he gets an elite matchup in one of the best pitchers parks in the league (Petco Park) vs. the Padres who rank 25th in wOBA (.300) and 24th in wRC+(85) vs. right-handed pitching and strike out more than any other team (25.6%). He is an excellent SP2 on DraftKings and nice GPP pivot on FanDuel.
**OFFENSIVE STACKS**
Arizona Diamondbacks @ Colorado Rockies(German Marquez)
Park – Coors Field(Hitter Positive)
Vegas (ARI -110)
Vegas Total (10.5)
Hard to talk stacks and not start at Coors Field tonight. As usual, it boasts the biggest overall total of the night and the Vegas line is currently sitting as a pick em. I lean the D-Backs simply because Greinke is a much better pitcher than Marquez and more likely to get out of his start without being beaten up too badly. Marquez, on the other hand, did not fare well in his first start at home for the Rockies giving up eight earned runs to the Nationals in just four innings while striking out just two and walking three batters. It won’t get any easier today as he will face a Diamondbacks team that sits just outside the Top 10 in hitting vs. right-handed pitching and have scored the second most runs(150) behind only the Nationals through 30 games in the 2017 season. Center your stack around Paul Goldschmidt who is off to a hot star hitting .311 with a .422 wOBA, five home runs, 21 RBI, and 22 runs scored. He also has a secret weapon that not many first basemen possess, speed. He has already stolen eight bases in 2017. Surround him with leadoff hitter AJ Pollock and then pay close attention to the lineup cards coming out as David Peralta should be back near the top of the order as a left-handed hitter and Yasmani Tomas and Jake Lamb are nice power upside, middle of the order hitters.
New York Mets vs. Miami Marlins(Tom Koehler)
Park – Citi Field(Pitcher Positive)
Vegas (NYM -110)
Vegas Total (8.5)
There are many other ways to go tonight, but I am going to try and target a stack that will be low-owned. Enter the New York Mets. It starts with an elite matchup vs. Tom Koehler who is having an extremely hard time keeping the ball in the park this season. He has given up at least one home run in each of his first five starts and sits with a 5.40 ERA and xFIp of 4.62 which suggests things aren’t getting too much better for him. The 25% HR/FB rate is not likely to continue but with a 37% hard-contact rate against, I don’t see the positive regression happening tonight. The Mets don’t stand out as a strong candidate vs. right-handed pitching and combine that with the weather threat tonight and you have yourself a 5% owned stack with upside as they sit 10th in total runs scored on the season. Target the left-handed bats for the Mets (Bruce, Conforto, Cabrera, Walker) as Koehler has struggled mightily with a wOBA great than .500 against left-handed batters.