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MLB Daily Fantasy Lineups to Stack / Avoid, Tuesday June 12

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Stream-O-Matic 2000

A peak at Chris’ Stream-O-Matic 2000 that he uses to write his weekly Straight Cheese streaming article, and identify MLB lineups to stack or avoid for daily fantasy baseball.

Stack #1
Rangers
·
Stack #2
Angels
·
Stack #3
Phillies

Stacking is a well-known daily fantasy sports strategy. In an effort to identify stack worthy lineups I’ve been tinkering with the idea of looking at the opposing pitcher’s DFS points allowed. Similar to in fantasy football looking at the opposing defense’s fantasy points allowed to running backs to determine which one to start.

My approach is to look at a team’s DFS points per plate appearance and compare to the opposing pitcher’s DFS points per plate appearance. A “bad” pitcher could lead to an increase in production from the hitters and conversely, a “good” pitcher could lead to a decrease in production. It is important to note that due to the volatility of stolen bases, I do not include them when calculating ppa.

How to Read the Charts
The Rangers are facing a LHP on road and in that situation they are currently putting up 1.67 FanDuel and 1.30 DraftKings points per plate appearance or ppa. The opposing pitcher is Caleb Ferguson (Dodgers) and he is currently allowing 194% more ppa in FanDuel and 170% more ppa in DraftKings than the current MLB average (2.10 on FanDuel and 1.60 on DraftKings). The modified ppa is simply 1.67 x 194% in FanDuel and 1.30 x 170% in DraftKings.

FANDUEL
MLB FanDuel average is 2.10 through yesterday

Advice Lineup Situation Situational ppa Pitcher Pitcher’s Effect Modified ppa
Stack TEX LHP on road 1.67 Caleb Ferguson LAD 194% 3.25
Stack LAA RHP on road 2.40 Mike Leake SEA 110% 2.63
Stack PHI RHP at home 2.23 Jon Gray COL 115% 2.56
Stack CHC RHP on road 2.33 Chase Anderson MIL 108% 2.51
Stack CIN RHP on road 1.97 Ian Kennedy KCR 125% 2.46
Stack CHW RHP at home 2.14 Adam Plutko CLE 115% 2.46
— — — — — — —
Avoid PIT RHP on road 1.97 Clay Buchholz ARI 72% 1.41
Avoid SDP RHP on road 1.83 Miles Mikolas STL 73% 1.34
Avoid COL RHP on road 1.87 Aaron Nola PHI 68% 1.28

DRAFTKINGS
MLB DraftKings average is 1.60 through yesterday

Advice Lineup Situation Situational ppa Pitcher Pitcher’s Effect Modified ppa
Stack TEX LHP on road 1.30 Caleb Ferguson LAD 170% 2.21
Stack LAA RHP on road 1.82 Mike Leake SEA 111% 2.02
Stack PHI RHP at home 1.68 Jon Gray COL 115% 1.93
Stack CHC RHP on road 1.77 Chase Anderson MIL 107% 1.89
Stack CIN RHP on road 1.51 Ian Kennedy KCR 125% 1.89
Stack CHW RHP at home 1.65 Adam Plutko CLE 115% 1.89
— — — — — — —
Avoid PIT RHP on road 1.51 Clay Buchholz ARI 75% 1.14
Avoid SDP RHP on road 1.42 Miles Mikolas STL 77% 1.09
Avoid COL RHP on road 1.42 Aaron Nola PHI 70% 1.00

Quarterbacks to Target and Avoid, Projection Pal Files Available

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Russell Wilson

I’m not saying make a habit of drafting a quarterback early, but if you are going to take the plunge, Russell Wilson offers the best potential ROI of the top passers.

In case you missed it … What? You haven’t liked our Facebook page or don’t follow us on Twitter yet?… here is a bit of an update on what I’ve kept myself busy doing the last week.

Mostly, answering emails from Draft Buddy customers. It is mid-August and we are in the thick of drafting season. NFL regular season will be here before we know it. If you haven’t re-upped Draft Buddy yet then please get on it. Don’t wait until the last minute in case you do need some help getting ready for your draft.

I also updated my own rankings here on the website. The last update included some icons to show players to target and avoid. I will add a few sentences below explaining why I picked some of the quarterbacks who received the target or the avoid tags.

Today I added three Projection Pal files to the Draft Buddy download page, which include projections from each of CBS, ESPN and FantasyPros you can import into Buddy. These projections are as of yesterday, as it took a little while to put these together.

Quarterbacks to Target

Russell Wilson, SEA
I have him ranked 4th at QB. He usually goes QB4. The point here is, if you are going to take one of these top quarterbacks, grab the guy near the end of that tier and only IF he is at a value. In some drafts, Wilson is falling far enough he is worth it over stockpiling more middling RB and WR. Would it surprise me if Wilson ends the season as the number one QB? Not at all.

Kirk Cousins, WAS
Fantasy players don’t believe in Cousins’ talent. Fair enough. Under pressure, a do-or-die playoff game, I probably don’t have Cousins high on my list either. However I do believe in the offense run by coach Jay Gruden and Cousins has excellent receiving talent around him. Running game could look better. Cousins finished QB9 last season and is usually getting drafted outside the top twelve. When I wait at QB, which is most of the time, I’ve ended up taking Cousins a fair bit.

Quarterbacks to Avoid

Andy Dalton, CIN
A.J. Green is great but Tyler Eifert is banged up and I am not confident he is going to start the season. While I’m getting slightly intrigued by rookie Tyler Boyd because of the opportunity in front of him, Brandon LaFell is LaForgettable. Short of Giovani Bernard catching 100 passes there isn’t enough receiving talent here to propel Dalton to be any more reliable than Alex Smith, and everyone is already avoiding him, right?

Marcus Mariota, TEN
Admittedly my avoid picks at quarterback are, on average, not usually ranked or drafted very high, but I’ve seen a reach or three for Mariota in the last month. I think it is his youth, draft pedigree and good old fashioned optimism getting some fantasy players ahead of themselves on Mariota. Maybe he will be the next breakout Blake Bortles, but not this year. The receivers aren’t good enough and head coach Mike Mularkey has a spotty offensive record even though that is supposed to be his forte.