MLB Lineup Optimizer Stacks for 04/14/17
Chris Durell
Welcome back for another night of daily fantasy baseball. With two matinee games we will turn our attention to the main slate of 13 games that gets underway at 7:05 ET. The slate is always an interesting one when the best pitcher in baseball (Clayton Kershaw) step son the mound. To fit him into your lineup with his elite salary, it will take some creativity and research to find those value gems. This is where Lineup Lab and their industry leading tools can help identify those players that will lead you to success on a daily basis. You can filter by position, game, and almost any stat you can think of.
They have an excellent weather page, lineups page as they roll in daily and of the lineup optimizer. Below is a just a sample of what I am looking at today at the catcher position. All the columns you see are fully customizable so you see what you want to see! Give it a try.
Starting Pitchers
Noah Syndergaard
Opponent – @ MIA
Park – Marlins Park
Vegas Favorite – NYM -150
Vegas Total – 7
Friday brings us a slate with much better pitching options than yesterday. It starts right at the top with Kershaw, Syndergaard, and Cueto. I lean Thor tonight as my top option for a few reasons. First of all, he is the cheapest of the three on DraftKings and second-most expensive on FanDuel. Then there is the fact Thor is having a fantastic start to the year going 1-0 while giving up just one earned run in 13 innings while striking out 13 and walking zero batters. He also gets a park boost tonight in Miami vs. the Marlins who he has a 34.5% K rate against in his career(via Baseball Savant). He is the #1 option on Friday and safe in all formats.
Julio Teheran
Opponent – vs. SD
Park – Turner Field
Vegas – ATL -135
Vegas Total – 7.5
With the amount high-end pitching options on tonight’s slate, Teheran’s price continues to sit in the mid $8K range which makes him an excellent PTS/$ play in all formats. He isn’t going to blow hitters away with his low 90 mph fastball but has been very effective to start the 2017 season. He has yet to allow an earned run in two starts(13 innings pitched) while striking out 10. He also bounced back after walking three in game one and walked just one in game two. The only issue is that he has given up twice as many fly balls than ground balls and his high 4.29 xFIP suggests he is more than due for regression. I just don’t think it’s tonight as he faces the Padres who are below average when looking at wRC+ vs. right-handed pitching and are currently striking out over 21% of the time.
Stacks To Target
Cincinnati Reds vs. Tommy Milone (MIL)
Vegas – CIN -125
Vegas Total – 9
They burned us last night but I am 100% going back to the well tonight. The good news is the poor one run performance from last night should help suppress the ownership tonight and the upside might even be higher. The Reds have been a top 10 hitting team in terms of wOBA so far this season but have been even better against left-handed pitching. They sit fifth overall in wRC+(137) and wOBA(.387) and have struck out less than 13% of the time. It’s early, so the sample size is relatively small(62 AB) but it is certainly a positive sign. Even looking at last year’s numbers, Eugenio Suarez, Joey Votto, Jose Peraza, and Adam Duvall all had a wOBA higher than .330 vs. southpaws. The Brewers starter Tommy Milone will not strike fear into the hitters with his sub-90 mph fastball and while he doesn’t walk batters, he gives up a ton of fly balls. On Draftkings I will have a lot of one through five in the order while FanDuel, I prefer two through five to get Suarez in there.
Kansas City Royals
Vegas – KC -130
Vegas Total – 8.5
The Royals will try and build off only their third win of the season last night as they took down the A’s 3-1 in the finale of their series. Don’t let early season struggles distract you from what is ahead. And today it’s a great spot for the offense of the Royals to put some runs on the board against J.C. Ramirez of the Angels. He will be making a spot start today and even with a 95 mph fastball and 50%+ ground ball rate, hasn’t had too much success early in 2017. In five innings pitched out of the pen he has allowed seven hits and three earned runs while striking out just three hitters and walking two. He is probably only going to get a couple of times through the lineup before the Angels manager Mike Scioscia turns it over to a bullpen that sits middle of the pack regarding ERA early in the season. I love starting at the top of the order with the Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain as both seem to always be in the 5-10% owned range while Salvador Perez and Mike Moustakas have been around 20% owned on average. The Royals won’t provide a ton of power but can rack up some big innings with patience and a lot of doubles.