The concept of stacking in Daily Fantasy Sports is to insert a large number of players from the same team into your lineup. This is done to increase the ceiling of production. If you roster, say, a team's 1-4 in the lineup, and the first two reach base, a home run would be worth 10+ points to your team: 4 for the HR, 1 for each of the 3 runs scored, 1 for each of the 3 RBIs, plus points for how the first two runners got on originally. It's a very common tactic to take in a large tournament format against tens of thousands of opposing fantasy owners, where you want to maximize the ceiling production of your team.
FanDuel allows a maximum of 4 batters per team to be played in your lineup, so here is the stack I think gives the best chances at production tomorrow, and why:
Houston Astros vs. LHP Mark Buehrle
I rationalized this stack in two tweets last night:
Jose Altuve vs LHP, since the start of 2014: 208 PA, .408/.471/.576, 1.047 OPS, 5 HR, 196 wRC+, 19 SB
— Timothy Finnegan (@TimFinn521) May 17, 2015
Astros ISOs on pitches — Timothy Finnegan (@TimFinn521) May 17, 2015
(Note: Altuve's correct batting average for that sample is .424 instead of .408)
Springer in particular is very intriguing tomorrow. Eno Sarris of FanGraphs wrote a great piece on Springer earlier this year, noting that Springer has better results against slow stuff than hard stuff:
There's some evidence that Springer's effort level is different against fastballs than breaking and offspeed pitches. That serves to highlight the velocity difference between game and BP fastballs. There, in Springer's pitch type values, you'll see that Springer is doing better against the slow stuff.
There appears to be a tangible change in Springer's process at the plate that makes him more likely to produce vs slower pitches, which Buehrle is perfect for.
Pitch velocity results aside, Buehrle has thrown 439 pitches to RHB in 2015, and it's resulted in an OPS against of .913, which would be top 25 in the game for a hitter and only about 25 points off of Mike Trout's OPS from last season. His 5.16 ERA and 4.67 FIP vs RHB are both significantly below average, and he's been getting hit harder this year: opponents are ending their at bats vs Buehrle with a hard hit ball 20% of the time, also significantly below average.
Springer and Gattis are locks in my tournament stack for tomorrow. Carter's status in the stack largely depends on whether or not he's slotted 5th in the order, which unfortunately he has not been recently. Carter has been slotted 7th, which is problematic because runs scored, RBIs and plate appearances drop significantly batting at the bottom of the order, giving him less chances to rack up fantasy points. Keep an eye out for Carter's lineup slot.
The second point: Jose Altuve is incredible vs left handed pitching. To put Altuve's production against LHP in perspective, Babe Ruth's career wRC+ is 197. Altuve's sample vs LHP in the last 2 seasons is 1 point off Ruth's career mark. That has to be taken advantage of in a daily lineup.
So, for tomorrow, I'm picking for my FanDuel stack:
Jose Altuve ($4,700)
George Springer ($3,900)
Evan Gattis ($3,100)
Chris Carter ($2,800)
I might switch Carter out if he bats 7th again, but for now, that's my tournament stack for Sunday afternoon.
Follow me on Twitter at @TimFinn521, I usually tweet out more good options as lineups are released.