Daily Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Stacking Lineups With Players on the Same Team
By Adam, MLB Handicapper, Rotopicks.com
Daily fantasy sports site Draftkings allows you to select up to six hitters from the same team. This is important to know because many times, we will want to take advantage of a particular team poised to do well, due to the ballpark, the lineup, the opposing pitcher, etc.
When choosing a major league baseball team whose lineup you want to "stack", the first place to go is Las Vegas... no, not literally! We want to check the over/under on runs scored for each of the day's games. The team favorite in the highest predicted game total will be a team we want to target. When you stack a lineup, it is important to understand the dynamics of a major league baseball lineup. Here is a basic layout of a typical lineup. The National League has 8 batters and then the pitcher, while the American League has nine batters due to the designated hitter. This will not matter as I urge you to stick to hitters batting in the one through six slots. Sometimes, there may be a bargain at the seven slot, but steer clear of eight and nine.
Leadoff hitter - This is most likely the table setter, with a lot of speed, and hopefully a good on base percentage. The leadoff hitters get you stolen bases, which are worth a healthy two points at most DFBB sites. In 2013, leadoff hitters stole 689 bases, almost double any other position.
Number 2 hitter - From what the 2013 stats tell us, the number two hitter is a lesser version of the leadoff hitter. They had the same OPS of .719, but the number two hitter lacked the stolen bases.
Number 3 hitter - This is the stud. In general, the number 3 hitter has the highest average and on base plus slugging percentage. He is usually the first guy to target on a stacked team. He is also protected in the lineup by having a big bat behind him the…
Clean up hitter - This is the power guy. He has more home runs than anyone else due to the chance of the first three hitters reaching base, and giving him an opportunity to knock them all in. Cleanup hitters led the league in home runs and runs batted in in 2013.
Number 5 hitter - Some say this is the runs batted in guy, or the wannabe cleanup hitter. On stacked teams, the number 5 hitter can get you a ton of runs batted in.
Number 6 and 7 hitter - On stacked teams, number six and seven do not fall into the other categories, or there is someone more worthy taking their place. These hitters should be relatively cheap and if the other slots are too expensive, you may take someone later in the order, with the hopes that they simply get more at bats than players on other teams, as well as more RBI opportunities.
A DraftKings lineup consists of 2 pitchers (values usually range from $3,000 to $13,000), and 8 hitters (values range from $2,000 to $5,000+). The salary cap is $50,000 so assuming you can use $15,000 - $20,000 on pitchers, that leaves you with $30k - $35k for 8 hitters, or $3,750 - $4,375 per hitter. This is more than enough to play around with a stacked lineup.
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The advantages of stacking a lineup with teammates are to take advantage of plays that score points for two or more of your players. If you snag the leadoff hitter, 3 hole hitter, cleanup hitter, and number 5 hitter, you can theoretically have the first three players reach base and get a grand slam from the number 5 hitter. That one swing will get you 16 points, an enormous number. 4 points for the homerun. 6 points for 4 different runs (1.5 per run) and 6 points for the 4 runs batted in (also 1.5 per). There is nothing sweeter than stacking a lineup that puts up double digit runs, since you will almost have to in order to get at least a piece of the action (pot).
The disadvantage is if the opposing pitcher shuts down that team. Now, you want to choose favorable matchups, but every now and then stats lie and a pitcher can outperform expectations. When this happens, it can really kill your lineup since you have 4 or so hitters who failed. For this reason, I believe it is best to stack lineups in guaranteed payout tournaments, where you have to hit it big to place in the money. It is a high risk high reward play, and as I will explain elsewhere in another article on RotoPicks.com, you want to have a diversified portfolio when playing double ups. (Salary cap leagues that payout the top 50% of the field)
So check those Vegas lines, find the team predicted to score the most, and snag the hitters in the middle of that lineup. Then enter some Draftkings tournaments!
Good luck and as always, thanks for reading!
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