Digging into today’s MLB DFS slate to highlight your best bats to stack.
This article will cover two to three teams that we think are the most stackable for MLB contests. If you are newer to DFS or MLB or want a general refresher on the impact of stacking in MLB, check out our MLB Lineup Strategy refresher article.
New York Yankees (at Chicago White Sox)
Dallas Keuchel takes the hill for the White Sox on Saturday and while he remains a pitcher with an elite groundball rate, he is also a guy giving up way too much contact and way too many hits. Keuchel in five starts spanning just 21 innings has allowed 32 hits and 12 walks with just 13 strikeouts. That puts Keuchel in the bottom 5% of the league in K% and the bottom 1% in velocity. Keuchel only averaged 87.8MPH last year on his sinker but this year it has dropped even further to 86.9MPH. I don’t think I really need to overexplain that we should be targeting hitters against a pitcher with a WHIP of 2.10, but I put Keuchel into the same category as Zack Greinke – someone just giving up too many balls in play and not finding any way to get them out with the strikeout is just going to inflate the hit rate. Not rocket science that more balls in play = more hits. Now, have the hits been hard hit? Not necessarily. Keuchel has actually been good at limiting hard or barreled contact, but that is a sinkerball pitcher’s job. In 21 innings, Keuchel has allowed 21 runs (16 earned) and opposing hitters are hitting .340 against him. Left-handed hitters are actually hitting .500 against him though it has only been 18 at-bats. Righties are hitting .303, so really anyone in the order is in play here. I thought Yankees’ hitters would be more expensive here, but only Judge lands over $5,000.
Colorado Rockies (vs. Kansas City Royals)
Carlos Hernandez has been one of the worst pitchers in the MLB this year with an ERA of 7.15 and a WHIP of 1.90. Over 22.2 innings, Hernandez has allowed 31 hits and 18 earned runs while walking 12 and only striking out 10. So yeah, he has walked more than he has struck out – never usually a good sign. While the raw numbers are way worse than the metrics here, Hernandez still grades out in the bottom 10% of expected ERA, batting average, and wOBA. The K% is obviously the bottom of the league, and the exit velo and HardHit% is still the lower-half. As always though, what isn’t working? Well, the fastball. It’s pretty simple here – it’s the fastball. It is a pitch Hernandez throws 50% of the time, but it is being hit at a crazy .516 batting average and .774 slugging. While we usually look towards the expected average and slugging to bring us down to earth, the expected batting average on it still .431 and the slugging expected is actually higher than what it is at .817. This should force him to use some other pitches, but we just haven’t seen that yet. Then we get to the next key here and well, it is Coors Field. These two teams played to 24 runs on Friday and while we can’t expect that, this game should still carry the highest total of the slate. Surprisingly, the Rockies hitters aren’t that expensive, or too expensive where we can’t target them. Righties are our absolute target here, as they are hitting .420 and slugging .640 on the year.
Did you know FantasyCruncher is on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram? Follow along and never miss out on any of our free content!
