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Fantasy Baseball: Detroit Tigers Daily Picks and Stacks for 7/17

By Dave Holcomb |

Baseball opens its unofficial second half of the season on Friday, and fans will get a rematch of the 2014 ALDS between the Detroit Tigers and the Baltimore Orioles.

Detroit has been one of the best offenses in baseball this season, so fantasy baseball owners always need to keep an eye on the Tigers hitters.

Even without first baseman Miguel Cabrera, there are some great daily fantasy plays in the Tigers lineup against Orioles starter Ubaldo Jimenez on Friday.

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Here are three helpful hints regarding using Detroit hitters on Friday, July 17:

Start V. Martinez, Sit Avila

There are only 11 players in all of baseball on Friday that have seen over 100 pitches from the opponents starting pitcher, and two of them are in the Tigers starting lineup: designated hitter Victor Martinez and catcher Alex Avila.

Martinez is a career .333 hitter with three home runs, nine RBI and seven runs in his career versus Jimenez. Martinez also has a .750 slugging percentage and 1.083 OPS against the right-hander in 27 plate appearances.

Avila, however, is only slashing .217/.419/.391 with one home run and six RBI in 31 plate appearances against Jimenez.

The Tigers DH is also the much hotter hitter going into Friday. Martinez is hitting .395 with three home runs in his last 10 games. Avila is batting just .185 since his return from the disabled list on July 3.

Draft Cespedes, Avoid Davis

Left fielder Yoenis Cespedes and center fielder Rajai Davis have a much smaller sample size than Martinez and Avila, but each also have some telling statistics against Jimenez.

Cespedes is 3-for-7 with a home run, three RBI and three walks versus the Orioles right-hander. That makes his career OPS a 1.357, but Davis is 0-for-5 versus Jimenez.

Like Martinez, Cespedes has also been hot lately. The Tigers left fielder is slashing .357/.357/.667 with three home runs and eight RBI in the last nine games. It would be wise to get Cespedes in the lineup and avoid Davis.

Stack Cespedes, V. Martinez, J.D. Martinez

If possible, stacking the Tigers 2-3-4 hitters is a great move for Friday. As discussed above, Cespedes and V. Martinez have seen a lot of pitches from Jimenez and have been pretty successful against him. J.D. Martinez is 0-for-4 in five plate appearances versus Jimenez, but there aren’t many hotter hitters in the last month.

Since June 7, J.D. Martinez is slashing .353/.405/.802 with 16 home runs and 36 RBI. That makes his OPS an incredible 1.206 over his last 126 plate appearances. No need to worry about the o-for-4 against the Orioles right-hander when he has those kinds of numbers in the last 30 games.

If fantasy baseball owners really want to, they can also include second baseman Ian Kinsler in the stack. Kinsler is just 4-for-17 (.235) versus Jimenez, though, three of those four hits are doubles. He also has three walks off Jimenez.

The idea of stacking players from the same team gives owners an opportunity to score double points on each run. For instance, when the Martinez brothers (editor’s note: they aren’t really brothers) get their hits on Friday, Kinsler and Cespedes should be scoring. In this case, owners will get points for the runs and RBI if they started all four players.

Because Cespedes and V. Martinez’s numbers are so good versus Jimenez, a four-player stack for the Tigers isn’t a bad idea, but owners should at least seriously consider the Cespedes-Martinez-Martinez stack on Friday.

Now, go play on DraftKings and make sure to use this promo code: CAFE

Next: Detroit Tigers: Five Bold Second-Half Predictions for AL Central

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