If you haven’t read Ben Scherr’s hitting coach for today, go do that now. I will wait. Ben makes several strong points regarding the Phillies-Cubs matchup, and for good reason. The Cubs are fifth in baseball in runs scored, while the Phillies are 15th. Phillies starter Vince Velasquez enters this game with a 6.33 ERA. The game total in Vegas is 10 ½. The only other game higher than 8 ½ is the White Sox and Royals. As Ben points out, the wind is expected to blow out strongly, assuming it isn’t rained out.
With that in mind, I will use this space to put together a DraftKings and a FanDuel lineup featuring a Phillies-Cubs game stack. After that, I will finish with a couple of other stacks to consider if you want to fade that game or if it is rained out.
DraftKings Stack:
1B- Tommy Joseph
2B- Cesar Hernandez
3B- Maikel Franco
SS- Addison Russell
OF- Aaron Altherr
OF- Odubel Herrera
OF- Ben Zobrist
FanDuel Stack:
C- Cameron Rupp
1B- Anthony Rizzo
2B- Ben Zobrist
3B- Maikel Franco
SS- Addison Russell
OF- Aaron Altherr
OF- Odubel Herrera
OF- Jason Heyward
One of the best ways to save money if you want to stack the Cubs is to choose guys like Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward or even Javier Baez who have struggled lately but could easily bounce back thanks to a favorable matchup. If Contreras is out I will simply play Miguel Montero and possibly use the extra savings to upgrade from Robert Gsellman.
Tommy Joseph is probably a bit overpriced for how terrible he has been, but I doubt his ownership will be very high, which certainly helps. I really like Odubel Herrera, and I strongly considered Michael Saunders as well, because Brett Anderson has been surprisingly poor against left-handed batters. Lefties are hitting .536 against Anderson since the start of 2016, though it is an extremely small sample size (28 at-bats). I think I like the FanDuel lineup better, especially the potential to get the heart of the Cubs’ lineup all together for a pretty reasonable price.
Other stacks to consider:
New York Mets vs. Julio Teheran
Jay Bruce, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jose Reyes, Michael Conforto, T.J. Rivera
Reyes is on a six-game hitting streak, while Jay Bruce went 3-for-4 with a home run Sunday. Asdrubal Cabrera is 6-for-17 against Julio Teheran, and T.J. Rivera has a chance to be the best value of the bunch.
Kansas City Royals vs. Dylan Covey
Whit Merrifield, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez
I know a lot of people are fed up stacking Royals, and I don’t blame them, but the FantasyAlarm team could probably score five runs against Dylan Covey, and the Royals are understandably cheap.