Entries by Stephen Monahan
MLB – The Stack – Friday, Aug. 10
NFL preseason is fully underway, but we still have few weeks until the start of the season to concentrate on what’s left of the MLB season. Tonight we 14 games in the majors, a game at Coors, some solid pitching options, but I honestly am not crazy about very many stacks today. A few stick […]
MLB – The Stack – Wednesday, Aug. 8 (Evening Only)
How many weeks until Week 1 of the 2018 NFL season? Too many to count, but we do have a 9-game MLB slate to tackle for today’s main slate of action on DraftKings. This will be a slate where you can pay down at pitching and stack the top offenses available, so let’s reveal those […]
MLB – The Stacks – Monday, Aug. 6
Welp, it’s back to the grind.
No, not DFS baseball (that too, actually), but today marks the end of my summer vacation from teaching. It’s back to being an educator (official title, though how well I edu-ma-cate stands to reason) for me, entering my 7th year.
Seven years.
Never thought I would make it this far because every year I say I am going to get out. Maybe one day I will.
Anyway, enough about that boring crap, it’s time to talk a little baseball.
Today we have a 10-game slate and Coors is back in our lives.
There are a lot of solid pitching options up top, too. I would stand to guess Lance Lynn will be the chalk value pitcher of the slate, too. Nick Tropeano might also fall into that high-owned player conversation.
But you won’t find Coors’ bats here, as always, it’s understood they are in play every night.
So who can we use to pivot from Coors?
Let’s find out…
GAME STACK – SEATTLE MARINERS @ TEXAS RANGERS
Mariners
1. Nelson Cruz
2. Mitch Haniger
3. Jean Segura
4. Kyle Seager
5. Ryon Healy
Rangers
1. Robinson Chirinos
2. Rougned Odor
3. Isiah Kiner-Falefa
4. Jurickson Profar
5. Adrian Beltre
Analysis: This might be the first time I’ve recommended 10 guys in a game stack this season. But here we are. The Rangers are throwing out the remnants of Martin Perez while Wade LeBlanc toes the rubber for the Mariners in the bulging heat of Texas. The heat is nothing new for targeting games in Texas this time of year. But here’s why you should be targeting this game and I will leave it at that. Since the All-Star Break, here’s the run totals for games in Arlington – 17, 19, 5, 18, 23, 11, 13, 25, 14, 4, and 15. That’s 164 total runs and an average of 14.9 runs per game. The Rangers have given up 106 of those runs in 11 games. I don’t know how they have any fresh bodies to throw out there. But anyway, good luck to Martin Perez and Wade LeBlanc.
MLB – The Stack – Friday, Aug. 3
Holy geeze, have a game Steve Pearce! Yesterday was a crazy-high scoring day in DFS. Red Sox, Yankees, Rangers and Dodgers put lots of runs on the board. Today we start over and have to tackle a 14-game slate. The Red Sox and Yankees are going to put up runs, the Nationals, Rangers and Orioles […]
MLB – DRAFT Strat – Thursday, Aug. 2
I had some internet issues Tuesday evening and into Wednesday, thus why if you were waiting for a Stacks article, it didn’t happen. But it appears our outage is over and we are back at it for today’s 9-game evening slate of baseball. Before we get into things, just know we will be ramping up […]
MLB – DRAFT Strat – Tuesday, July 31
TOP-15 OUTFIELDER RANKINGS 1. Mookie Betts 2. Mike Trout 3. Rhys Hoskins 4. Shin-Soo Choo 5. Andrew Benintendi 6. Charlie Blackmon 7. Matt Kemp 8. A.J. Pollock 9. Michael Brantley 10. George Springer 11. Bryce Harper 12. Steven Souza, Jr. 13. Brandon Nimmo 14. Justin Upton 15. Avisail Garcia TOP-15 INFIELDER RANKINGS 1. Jose […]
MLB – The Stack – Monday, July 30
After a short hiatus for a much-needed guy’s-only trip, I am happy to return for another full week of MLB action.
With the NFL nipping at our heels, it’s time we hunker down and try to load up on some cash so we have some extra spending money come NFL season.
Today we have 9 games with some stud pitchers on the slate, no Coors, no Yankees and the Red Sox are taking on a stud pitcher. Let’s get after it and good luck tonight!
GAME STACK – SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS @ SAN DIEGO PADRES
Giants
1. Buster Posey
2. Evan Longoria
3. Andrew McCutchen
4. Nick Hundley
Padres
1. Christian Villanueva
2. Hunter Renfroe
3. Wil Myers
Analysis: Derek Holland vs. Eric Lauer. Both are awful against RH bats and both are facing offenses that are very capable against lefty pitchers. All of the above guys are RH bats. And the lefty pitchers give up the following stats to RH bats: Holland – .341 wOBA, 44% hard contact, 1.53 HR/9; Lauer – .364 wOBA, 41% hard contact, 1.26 HR/9, 1.66 WHIP. You can’t stack everyone as you will have to swap out Posey and Hundley and Villanueva and Longo, but maybe go to a site like FantasyDraft and stack all of them. But making a few lineups with all of these combinations is a great way to be contrarian tonight.
MLB – The Stack – Monday, July 23
You will hear me grunt and groan about this, but I have just two weeks until I return to my day job.
The summer is quickly leaving us, which for heat and temperature sake, I am glad. But that also means school is starting soon.
It also means football is upon us. It also means there is about one month left of normalcy in the major leagues. Once the trade deadline and September roll around, the MLB landscape changes.
But for now, things are quiet, so let’s dive into today’s 13-game slate.
There are some rain concerns in a couple of games, specifically Boston at Baltimore and Pittsburgh at Cleveland.
Now, I love both the Red Sox and Indians today, but I am leaving them off of today’s Stacks because we don’t know exactly how the weather is going to pan out. Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez are two of the top plays for me if that game looks good to go.
Let’s check out today’s Stacks. Good luck tonight!
GAME STACK – Oakland Athletics @ Texas Rangers
Athletics
1. Chad Pinder
2. Josh Phegley
3. Khris Davis
Rangers
1. Adrian Beltre
2. Elvis Andrus
3. Jurickson Profar
4. Robinson Chirinos
Analysis: Speaking of weather, it’s balls hot in Texas. Temperatures have been well over 100 degrees this past week and today won’t be any better. The Rangers, who are sellers at the deadline, are still trying to piece something together this season. They draw lefty Brett Anderson, who has allowed a .422 wOBA and 1.50 HR/9 rate this season against RH bats. Beltre and Andrus have BvP against Anderson, going a combined 13-for-38 with a double, 2 HRs, and 9 walks. Andrus is on a tear with 6 hits in his past four. Profar is the top bat against LH pitching on this team. Chirinos a lefty killer. As for the A’s, we get the ultimate BvP against Cole Hamels – Chad Pinder, assuming he’s in the lineup, is 7-for-8 with 3 doubles, 3 home runs and 2 walks. That is pure ownage. K-Davis has 3 bombs in 16 Abs to go with 5 walks. Phegley is my boy and a cheaper catcher option even if he comes in at $3,400 today.
MLB – The Stack – Friday, July 20
Funny how things change so quickly.
We took a break from baseball, had an All-Star Game, Bryce Harper won the home run derby…and Manny Machado was traded to the Dodgers.
Brad Hand was traded to the Indians for…Francisco Mejia, their top prospect.
Kawhi Leonard was traded and so was Carmelo Anthony….but to hell with basketball, it’s still baseball season.
And DailyOverlay has changed the look of its website. I hope you enjoy the smoother, finer, sleek layout design!
And we are back to some DFS baseball, at least for the next month or so. NFL preseason is on the horizon and so is the 2018 season. But we will get to that later.
We have 14 games on tonight’s return to the diamond and there’s not a clear cut stack to outright target, so we are going to spread this one out. However, if I had to guess, I am going to take a shot that the Nationals will be one of the highest owned stacks out there tonight. I am going to take a wait-and-see approach with them. I might mix in one or two bats, but I am not going to full out stack.
Also, if you are not a subscriber, but like us and like the design of the new site, please sign up for a free trial!
For those that I am going to stack, see below. Good luck tonight and remember to follow me on Twitter @HotdogDaily_DFS and on PlayDRAFT @hotdogphingers.
And away we go!
BOSTON RED SOX
1. Mookie Betts
2. J.D. Martinez
3. Steve Pearce
Analysis: Are you surprised? The Red Sox have moved up from the bottom of the barrel against lefties, to one of the top offenses against lefties. Tonight they are on the road against Matthew Boyd, a southpaw that many people in the industry think is a decent pitcher. To that I say don’t listen to the noise. This is the Red Sox, they are on the road and they have two of the best power bats against lefties in all of baseball. The Red Sox also are one of the top offenses against righties, so they are good to go for 9 innings. Boyd has some major regression coming against righties, sporting a 5.09 xFIP and .264 BABIP against them this season. Because of that, his wOBA and homers allowed numbers are depressed,. Betts is on his own plante against southpaws this season as he owns a .513 wOBA, .453 ISO and 42% hard contact against. Pearce and J.D. each have ISOs over .200 and wOBAs in the .390-.420 range.
CLEVELAND INDIANS
1. Jose Ramirez
2. Francisco Lindor
3. Brandon Guyer
Analysis: The Boston/Cleveland stack worked the Friday before the break, throw in some cheap pitching and you can get a relatively high-owned stack with a low-owned stack because no one plays the Indians. There’s a 1B I love tonight that I will have most of my exposure to so I left off E5 from this list, but understand if you want to plug him in against Rangers’ lefty Martin Perez. The Indians are expensive and even though this game will be played in the frigid temperature of a July summer in Texas (we are in extreme heat warnings actually), I still think the Indians are lower owned. Maybe I am wrong. Either way, I am not shying away from Cleveland today. They are in a great spot and tear up lefty pitching. Guyer is a guy that should bat in the middle of the order somewhere and is a cheap value play to pair with Ramirez and Lindor. There are so many OF options I like better than Brantley in a lefty/lefty matchup, but I understand the play if you go there yourself.