We are going to go in a different direction today with the “Stack the Deck” article and focus on a Pitcher Heavy stack. This means, simply, that we are going to build around the two best pitchers on the day’s slate. Now, you should only employ this strategy when there are two clear-cut top pitching options out there and today is one of those days.  The real challenge here is not identifying the two top starters (Madison Bumgarner and Jon Gray), but finding the values in the hitters that allow you to spend at the top two spots.

I must first address the stigma that you shouldn’t start two pitchers in the same game against each other because you eliminate your chances of getting two wins from your starting pitchers. I throw that out the window. In fact, I can turn that around and say that you are more likely to get one win. Wins are a fickle statistic as we know. Heck, FanDuel even switched to “Quality Starts” over it this year. So, you can have two really solid starting pitchers in different games and still come away with zero wins. The points are coming from innings and strikeouts.  In this strategy, the two pitchers don’t always have to come from the same game – they just happen to in this case.

So, we’re plugging in Madison Bumgarner and Jon Gray into our DraftKings and Yahoo! (the two that have two starting pitchers) and we’ll go with Bumgarner in our FanDuel example.

Now, the fun part.

We’ve spent the following on each of the sites thus far on our two top pitchers:

DraftKings = $22,500 out of $50,000 (45%)
FanDuel = $11,300 out of $35,000 (32%)
Yahoo! = $97 out of $200 (48.5%)

Now, we have to work to identify the best hitter values of the day and start plugging them in:

DraftKings

C- Austin Romine ($2,700)
1B – Trey Mancini ($3,000)
2B – Jonathan Schoop ($3,500); Raul Mondesi ($2,600)
3B – Adam Rosales ($2,500)
SS – Raul Mondesi ($2,600)
OF – Craig Gentry ($3,700); Brandon Moss ($3,800) and Josh Bell ($3,600)

FanDuel

C- Welington Castillo ($2,800)
1B – Eric Thames ($2,500)
2B –Starlin Castro ($2,300)
3B – Mike Moustakas ($2,900)
SS – Marcus Semien ($2,700)
OF – Craig Gentry ($2,100); Alex Gordon ($2,700) and Gregory Polanco ($3,200)

Yahoo!

C – Nick Hundley ($7)
1B – Trey Mancini ($7)
2B – Jose Peraza ($12)
3B – Pablo Sandoval ($11)
SS – Alcides Escobar ($7)
OF – Craig Gentry ($7); Keon Broxton ($9) and Alex Gordon ($9)

Okay, we don’t need to play all of these guys in the lineup – we can fill in some other (bigger) name bats. But, let’s identify who we like the best out of these values and plug them in to see what we have left to work with, shall we?

DK – Romine; Mondesi; Gentry; Moss and Bell
FD – Castillo; Thames; Moose; Castro and Polanco
Y! – Mancini; Peraza; Escobar and Broxton

Now, we are back on track with our funds and we can fill in with some of the better players to round out our lineups.  Here is the finished product:

DraftKings

SP – Madison Bumgarner
SP – Jon Gray
C – Austin Romine
1B – Mark Trumbo
2B – Raul Mondesi
3B – Mike Moustakas
SS – Marcus Semien
OF – Craig Gentry
OF – Josh Bell
OF – Brandon Moss

A GPP lineup here for sure.

FanDuel

P – Madison Bumgarner
C – Welington Castillo
1B – Eric Thames
2B – Starlin Castro
3B – Mike Moustakas
SS – Troy Tulowitzki
OF – Gregory Polanco
OF – Billy Hamilton
OF – Khris Davis

… another GPP lineup here in FanDuel

Yahoo! DFS

P – Madison Bumgarner
P – Jon Gray
C – Salvador Perez
1B – Trey Mancini
2B – Jose Peraza
3B – Ryon Healy
SS – Alcides Escobar
OF – Keon Broxton
OF – Adam Jones
OF – Mark Trumbo

Good luck today in all of your plays and stacks!