One of Bryan’s recent articles discussed the benefits of creating three-player stacks on DraftKings and had a lot of really good points in terms of production vs. actual value after factoring in ownership levels. I thought it might be fun to play off this idea and put a few potential mini stacks under the microscope. I’m going to start with one of the hot-topic teams so far this year, the Chicago Cubs.
When we think about stacking Cubs, the two players we immediately have in mind are Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, and then we go from there. From a tournament perspective, knowing that these two will be in pretty much any Cubs stack out there, do I gain value by fading one or both of them or does that fall more into the “being dumb” category?
In terms of Plus/Minus, here have been their top individual performers, both vs. R and vs. L:
The Cubs have been crazy (un)lucky in avoiding lefty pitching in 2015. I’ll look at this more in a minute, but just the sheer frequency with which they face right-handed pitching vs left-handed is pretty amazing and honestly it makes looking at the results kind of difficult.
When we are stacking a team, we typically want to pick players who bat in succession. Knowing that, I took a look at Cubs lineups over the past two to three weeks to see what they usually do. Amazingly, the Cubs have only faced two left-handers in the past MONTH. Going back further than that wouldn’t have given me an accurate picture because they were sometimes batting Junior Lake cleanup (demoted), still had Soler (long-term injury), and were pre-Castillo trade. Anyway, here’s their lineup based on the small sample of data vs L:
- Fowler
- Bryant
- Rizzo
- OPEN SPOT (Lake)
- Castro
- Szczur/Russell
- Ross
- PITCHER
- Russell/Herrera
One thing I’ve seen is that the Cubs don’t really like to move Addison Russell or Starlin Castro around in the lineup too much, so I would be surprised if either of them bat cleanup in their next matchup with a lefty. Our viable Cubs mini-stacks vs L then are:
Fowler-Bryant-Rizzo
Bryant-Rizzo-value
Russell-Fowler-Bryant
Russell has yet to really find his footing as a young player in the league, has less RBI opportunities hitting behind the pitcher, and would be the first player to lose an at-bat due to the game ending before getting to the nine-spot the fifth time through. Fowler is a switch hitter, but actually has more power and stolen-base upside against righties, which leave us with Bryant-Rizzo-value.
There’s a lot of potential in a Rizzo-Bryant-Soler stack later in the season, but that assumes A) Soler comes back fully healthy B) being a player who has been moved all around the batting order, Soler is able to settle into the fourth slot. In the meantime, assuming whoever the Cubs try at cleanup next produce at least at the level of Junior Lake, here is what you can expect:
Because Rizzo has actually maintained a higher wOBA while keeping his ISO within .1 vs. L and Kris Bryant has had so few opportunities to destroy lefties this year, I think we’ve only just scratched the surface with this stack against lefties. I won’t go so far as to say that there is a buy-low window on a stack containing one of the most talked about players this season, but I do think that the potential production from a Rizzo-Bryant-value mini stack outweighs the ownership hit when compared to the other Cubs’ options.
Against righties, thankfully, we have a lot more data to analyze. Here is what the Cubs have looked like vs. righties recently:
- Fowler
- Rizzo
- Bryant
- Montero/Coghlan
- Castro
- Coghlan/Castro
- Denorfia/Ross
- PITCHER/Ross (AL games)
- Russell
Once again, here are the players currently in the green in terms of Plus/Minus against R:
There is a very clear upper tier here consisting of Bryant-Rizzo-Montero and they frequently bat two-three-four in succession. I don’t know that the ownership difference in general between Fowler-Rizzo-Bryant and Rizzo-Bryant-Montero would be enough to justify losing the point in Plus/Minus, and every other mini-stack combination would involve including a player that is currently in the red.
Overall, the Rizzo-Bryant-Montero stack has had decent results, but added a little less value overall than the Cubs vs L. stack. There is a much larger sample size with the vs R stack though, which should be considered.
One last thing I want to add about the Cubs stack, I love that Rizzo and Bryant are both effective vs L and R. I wrote a previous article which looked at Rizzo’s very good lefty vs. lefty numbers and it’s nice to know that there won’t be a significant downgrade once the Cubs get into the other team’s bullpen. Here is Rizzo/Bryant adding value vs. both hands:
In closing, although it would have been more fun to find a Cubs stack that didn’t include one or both of Rizzo/Bryant and finished in the green, it looks like taking a chance on a bottom-of-the-order mini-stack with the Cubs just isn’t worth it at this time. If Castro ever gets it going, Bryant-Montero-Castro would be in play vs R, but right now, the stack just loses too much from Plus/Minus without Rizzo. Finally, make sure to keep an eye out for the Cubs lineup if they ever face a lefty again to see who is batting fourth because Rizzo-Bryant-Lake vs. L has been their most valuable lineup thus far in 2015.
