3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 8/13/20
In the world of daily baseball, stacks are often the backbone of the most successful -- and profitable -- lineups. Correlation is the key.
When an offense hangs runs in bunches, it means hitters are scoring runs and teammates hitting behind them are driving them in. By rostering stacks, you’re maximizing the fantasy scoring by essentially double dipping on a run-scoring event.
This is your daily home for the top stacks on the daily fantasy baseball slate. Whether you’re looking to identify the projected highest-scoring stacks or contrarian stacks that can help you separate from the pack in GPPs when they explode, they’ll be thrown under the spotlight here.
Gamers who are numberFire premium members can throw these highlighted stacks into an optimized lineup using our DFS Sharpstack tool. The tool allows you to select the team and number of players from that team you’d like to include in your lineup. If you’re looking to identify other potentially high-scoring stacks beyond those featured in this space, check out our hitting heat map, a tool that provides valuable info such as implied total, park factor, and stats to identify the quality of the opposing pitcher.
Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s main slate’s featured stacks.
Cincinnati Reds
On this afternoon and evening's four-game main slate, the Cincinnati Reds are my favorite stack in their homer-friendly home digs. Great American Ball Park has the fourth-highest park factor for homers at 1.186, according to FantasyPros. The homer-amplifying nature of Great American Ball Park could prove especially tricky for Trevor Williams to work around tonight.
The veteran right-handed pitcher has just a 39.0 percent ground-ball percentage this year and posted a 37.1 percent ground-ball percentage last year, per FanGraphs. Unlike some pitchers who fail to coax worm burners, Williams doesn't offset that shortcoming with an above-average strikeout rate. Rather, he's struck out 21.9 percent of batters this year while the league average is 23.4 percent. Last year, he was even worse with a 17.8 percent strikeout percentage compared to a league average of 23.0 percent.
The top half of the lineup is filled with hitters who can take advantage of the homer-boosting confines for today's contest. Joey Votto ($3,200) remains a terror for right-handed pitchers to face in his home park. In 689 plate appearances against righties at home since 2017, Votto's rattled off a .434 OBP, .212 isolated power (ISO) and 144 weighted runs created plus (wRC+). Votto will also hold the platoon advantage against Williams, and that's been a big advantage with Williams coughing up a .524 slugging and .374 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to the 312 lefties he's faced since last year.
Fellow lefty hitter Jesse Winker ($2,500) will also hold the tantalizing platoon advantage. Additionally, he's done an impressive Votto impression when facing righties at home in his career with a .416 OBP, .214 ISO and 149 wRC+ in 369 plate appearances against right-handed pitchers at Great American "Small" Park.
Williams hasn't been as giving against right-handed hitters, but his .477 slugging and .324 wOBA ceded to the 388 righties he's faced since last year hardly sounds the death knell for the stacking appeal of Nick Castellanos ($4,000) and Eugenio Suarez ($2,900).
Castellanos is a monster against lefties, but his .211 ISO against righties since 2017 is nothing to sneeze at. Further, he's demolishing opposing pitching this year with 7 homers, a .409 ISO, .360 OBP and 175 wRC+ through his first 75 plate appearances in 2020.
Suarez, too, is tougher on lefties, but like Votto and and Winker, he's crushed righties at home since 2017 with a .347 OBP, .279 ISO and 126 wRC+.
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Reds should be the more popular stack on today's slate, but the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates are also treated to the homer-boosting park factors. As such, stacking a few of their key players, namely their hitters batting lefty against Anthony DeSclafani, is an appealing move on today's slate.
As an added bonus, because this was initially expected to be a Trevor Bauer turn in the rotation, it's likely their salaries are depressed relative to what they would be if DeSclafani was initially expected to get the ball when FanDuel released salaries.
DeSclafani has yet to allow a run through two starts spanning 11 innings, and his stingy start should help keep ownership rates down on all of the Pirates hitters. Looking at his numbers against lefties since last year that include a .456 slugging and .327 wOBA allowed, there's some potential for a few Pirates hitters getting the better of him. Adam Frazier ($2,300) is primarily worth a look due to hitting leadoff against righties, but his .344 OBP and 107 wRC+ are decent enough to make him a bit more than usable only due to his lineup spot.
The hitters who I'm might interested in, however, are Josh Bell ($2,800), Colin Moran ($3,200) and Bryan Reynolds ($2,500). The switch-hitting Bell's .225 ISO against righties since 2017 fits in nicely in Cincinnati today.
Moran has more modest power over recent seasons, but he might be in the midst of reinventing himself with 5 homers, a .302 ISO, and new career-best marks -- albeit in an admittedly small 2020 sample -- in percentage of pulled balls (51.4 percent) and hard-hit percentage (54.1 percent). Additionally, out of 261 qualified hitters this year, Moran ranks 12th in barrels per plate appearance and tied for 26th in fly-ball and line-drive exit velocity (97.4 miles per hour), according to Baseball Savant.
Reynolds is the least experienced member of the trio, but his .384 OBP, .182 ISO and 132 wRC+ in 438 plate appearances against righties over his career are stellar marks.
Tampa Bay Rays
The Tampa Bay Rays laid the wood to the Boston Red Sox in a 9 to 5 win last night. Tonight, they'll face a lefty, Kyle Hart, who's making his first start in the Majors and didn't appear on MLB Pipeline's top-30 prospect list for Boston. The Red Sox aren't a farm system that's stacked from top to bottom with top-shelf prospect talent, making Hart's omission of note and me dubious of his ability to keep the Rays in check tonight.
Hart pitched 55 2/3 innings in Double-A and 100 1/3 innings in Triple-A last year. His 3.86 ERA at the Triple-A level was fine, but his 4.32 fielding independent pitching (FIP) and 5.17 expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP) further my belief he's overmatched tonight at the big-league level.
With a lefty on the hill, Michael Brosseau ($2,600) could be tabbed for leadoff duties after slotting there the last time the Rays faced off with a lefty starter on Tuesday. In 93 plate appearances against lefties in his young career, he's ripped off a .344 OBP, .289 ISO and 156 wRC+. He's a candidate to be lifted for a pinch-hitter later in the game if the Red Sox bring in a righty reliever for his lineup spot, but Brosseau's a stack option.
Yandy Diaz ($2,600) hit second behind Brosseau in the Rays' last lineup against a lefty starter, and he's another stack option. However, I'm okay with dumping him from the stack in favor of Suarez or Moran from the previously discussed stacks.
My three favorite stacking options from the Rays are outfielders Austin Meadows ($3,600), Hunter Renfroe ($2,800) and Jose Martinez ($2,900).
Meadows is a left-handed hitter, but he's showcased excellent pop against lefties with a .242 ISO and 44.7 percent hard-hit percentage against them in 260 plate appearances against lefties in his career.
Renfroe has a track record of mashing against southpaws, and his .293 ISO, 132 wRC+ and 44.2 percent hard-hit percentage against them makes him an excellent stacking option or standalone play to tack onto one of the other two touted stacks.
Martinez rounds out the trio of my favorite stacking options and owns the highest wRC+ (155) of the three outfielders against lefties since 2017. Martinez's .393 OBP and .249 ISO against lefties in that time frame also get the juices flowing.
Joshua Shepardson is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Joshua Shepardson also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username bchad50. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.
