3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Monday 5/15/23
Stacking is an integral part of daily fantasy baseball. Correlation drives upside, giving your lineups a slate-winning ceiling when your stacks explode.
This piece will do the digging and the dirty work each day to determine which stacks are worth rostering on FanDuel's main slate. While we want upside, we also need to factor in game theory, especially in a sport as random as baseball.
Our MLB DFS heat map is a quick way to get a feel for the overall slate and which offenses are in a good spot. You can also check out our daily fantasy baseball projections to identify the slate's best bats.
Let's look at the top stacks for this main slate. We won't spend time talking about the Coors teams. The Colorado Rockies and Cincinnati Reds have two of the night's top implied totals, but you don't need me to tell you to get exposure to Coors.
San Diego Padres
The San Diego Padres' 5.25 implied total is the night's top non-Coors mark, and the Padres could go nuts versus Brad Keller.
Keller is sporting a 6.19 SIERA and 16.3% strikeout rate through his first 39 2/3 frames of the season. He's a guy we've stacked against for a while, and this is the worst version of Keller we've seen.
Due to their slow start, the Padres are salaried modestly. Juan Soto ($3,500), Fernando Tatis Jr. ($3,700), Manny Machado ($2,900) and Xander Bogaerts ($3,100) pack a lot of upside and aren't nearly as high in salary as they were earlier this season. Soto has a .382 wOBA and .401 expected wOBA (xwOBA) for the year, and he owns a 295 wRC+ over the last six games. With the platoon advantage against Keller, Soto is a fantastic play tonight. Our model has him as the slate's number-two bat.
Jake Cronenworth ($2,800) and Matt Carpenter ($2,600) are two value bats who will hit from the left side. Cronenworth put up a 49.4% fly-ball rate against righties last season while Carpenter had a .454 wOBA in the split in 2022.
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are at home against Jhony Brito and have been handed a 4.97 implied total. While Jimmy Cordero is set as the Yankees' opener tonight, Brito is expected to pitch the bulk of innings after him.
Brito, a righty, isn't getting strikeouts (15.9% strikeout rate) and is giving up a lot of fly-balls (43.4% fly-ball rate). That's pretty much exactly what we're looking for.
George Springer ($2,800) and Daulton Varsho ($3,000) will be core pieces to my Jays' stacks.
Springer continues to be pretty low in salary and is hitting leadoff. Of course, his salary is staying at this level because he hasn't been great, but he's suffering from some bad luck. His .248 BABIP is way below both his .300 career BABIP and his .285 BABIP from last season. He's still got five jacks with six steals and hits atop a powerful lineup. Springer is one of my favorite plays of the slate.
As for Varsho, he'll have the platoon advantage against Brito and has posted a 48.8% fly-ball rate in the split this season. He's projected to hit fourth and is easy to get behind at his salary.
While Bo Bichette ($3,800), Matt Chapman ($3,700) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($3,800) offer no such salary discounts, they're smashing plays. Brandon Belt ($2,500) is worth a look, too, as a value dart throw.
Atlanta Braves
Cody Bradford is making his MLB debut tonight versus the Atlanta Braves. The Braves are a tough matchup for anyone, so this is a very difficult spot for the rookie southpaw. On top of that, Bradford's Triple-A numbers from this season aren't that impressive as he's giving up a 43.4% fly-ball rate with a good-not-great 24.7% strikeout rate. He also gave up a 45.2% fly-ball rate across 118 2/3 innings in Double-A last season.
Atlanta's 4.87 implied total is just the eighth-best mark on the slate, so they may slip through the cracks a bit. I'm skeptical they do, but if draft percentage projections around the industry reflect that they might, I'll be all in.
Ronald Acuna ($4,600), Sean Murphy ($4,200), Austin Riley ($2,900) and Ozzie Albies ($3,300) will all hit from the right side. Riley is someone I want to be overweight on today. There are a lot of worrying signs in his profile right now -- strikeouts are up while the hard-hit rate and fly-ball rate are down -- but this is a guy who recorded 71 taters and a .378 wOBA over the past two seasons. I'm more than willing to roll the dice on Riley at his friendly salary.
Marcell Ozuna ($2,800) has a 43.3% fly-ball rate with the platoon advantage in 2023, and Kevin Pillar ($2,500) is a viable salary-saver if he gets into the lineup.
