MLB Stacking To Win It: 4-9-18

Stacking has been a popular way to bring down tournaments, and some stacks are even cash game viable. We offer three free top stacks of the night and will provide stacks in a wide range of price tags. We do want to make it known that stacks in Colorado are often fairly obvious and popular stacks. We don't feel the need to break down Colorado stacks and will be more focused on other stacking options. Unless we are struggling to find three others, Colorado stacks will be a top choice but not broken down. We tend to look at park factors, Vegas numbers, starting pitcher and bullpen numbers, and various offensive stats. Feel free to shoot us questions on Twitter at @BrentHeiden1, @JGuilbault11, and @dfcafe.

Julio Teheran has struggled out of the gates so far this season, allowing nine earned runs over eight innings in two starts. He just faced this Nationals team, allowing three home runs, five earned, over 2.1 innings pitched. Teheran is having velocity issues to start the year, which is a major concern for a pitcher that throws his fastball over 60% of the time. He is averaging 89 mph this season, and his career norm is 91 mph, which is where it was at last season. Before it was just the lefties to tee off on Teheran, which is still the case, but right-handed bats have a 50% hard-contact rate off Teheran so far this season, and a 5.3% strikeout rate. He was trending downward last season, but he might be bottoming out now. I will go back to the well with this Washington stack, even if it comes in somewhat popular.

We can get Bryce Harper out of the way here first, who has the BvP stats against Teheran, but also that is just because Teheran flat out sucks against lefties. Harper is 18-for-39 with three doubles and eight homers. He has also walked seven times, striking out just five. Harper being off to a huge year already, he will be extremely high owned again tonight, as he was the last time these two met. We might see Adam Eaton, Brian Goodwin, or Matt Adams in the lineup tonight with their numbers against right-handed pitching they would be solid options, but likely it will remain the bats like Ryan Zimmerman and Anthony Rendon in the top of the order. If Teheran continues to struggle against right-handed pitching, this won't be a problem. Rendon and Zimmerman both had over .200 ISOs against right-handers last season. Trea Turner would be the other bat if his lineup spot isn't 6th again, boasting a career .371 wOBA and .214 ISO off right-handers.

Over 8.2 innings pitched so far for Doug Fister, he has allowed 17 baserunners, and a .389 wOBA. In prior season's Fister was actually a tough arm to stack against at times, unless it was a lefty heavy lineup. He only allowed a .258 wOBA to right-handed bats last season, and allowing just a 25.4% hard-contact rate. This is because of his trustworthy sinker, that hitters pound into the ground at a 53.4% rate. While four of the names here are right-handed, all have strong profiles against the pitch. Mike Trout had a .418 wOBA and .207 ISO against sinkers last season. Justin Upton, .381 wOBA and .187 ISO. Albert Pujols, .385 wOBA and .212 ISO. Even Zack Cozart and Kole Calhoun had a wOBA over .330, but more average ISO numbers. These names also have a decent track record in limited sample sizes off Fister.

This Angels offense is clicking early, ranking 6th in wOBA, 4th in ISO, and 3rd in wRC+. They also have just a 17.6% strikeout rate to start the year, and have the third highest contact rate to start the year (80.1%). They get a park factor bump here in Texas, which was slightly above average for power to right-handers and left-handers in 2017. Over the last three years, Global Life comes in second to Coors in overall park factor. With Coors on the slate tonight, I expect this stack to come in fairly low owned. I have seen Mike Trout be around the low teens for ownership when Coors is on the slate, or other pricey outfield bats are in play. That will be the case tonight.

We saw the upside of the Phillies offense over the weekend, and unfortunately their prices came up because of it. They are still a cheap stack, as Rhys Hoskins is the only true pay up bat within it. Citizens Bank Park is a tremendous power park, ranking second in HR park factors last season, only to Yankee Stadium. With the Phillies getting another lefty on the hill, we should see Scott Kingery and Aaron Altherr slip into solid lineup spots, or at least that has been the case so far this season. Cody Reed isn't expect to stay in the majors long this season, and is filling in for some injured starters. While he has shown some quality stuff in the minors, it has not translated to the majors yet. He has allowed a career .413 wOBA to right-handed bats, with a 2.36 HR/9. He also has a 13.5% walk rate, and is allowing a 41.4% hard-contact rate. Reed had his fastball hammered last season, throwing it about 50% of the time. Outside of that, he threw his slider 36% of the time, which generated some whiffs, but had an xwOBA of .396.

The Phillies have a few bats who hit sliders well last season. Carlos Santana had a .365 wOBA and .230 ISO. Cesar Hernandez had a .373 wOBA and .198 ISO, while Rhys Hoskins had a .526 wOBA and .520 ISO, but that was over a limited sample size. These guys all have solid track records against fastballs as well. This team has some pop against southpaws. Altherr had a .350 wOBA and .266 ISO and Hoskins a ridiculous .429 ISO and .400 wOBA. Kingery also has a solid track record against lefties down in the minors, and him sneaking up to third in the order against southpaws puts him on the radar most nights. A guy not listed in this chart above is Maikel Franco, who has two home runs off lefties so far this season, including the grand slam on Saturday. Franco has a career .209 ISO off southpaws, but just hasn't clicked for a full season yet. If Franco breaks out this year, this offense that is already above average becomes even more scary.