3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 9/10/20

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.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Usually, when I include the Los Angeles Dodgers in this space, they're facing a right-handed pitcher. The lineup features a number of elite left-handed hitters. However, tonight, they face the struggling Madison Bumgarner, putting some of their righties who require a small salary commitment in the crosshairs for stacking usage.

Bumgarner's the owner of an 8.44 ERA and 6.00 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) through five starts spanning 21 and 1/3 innings, according to FanGraphs. He's throwing borderline batting-practice quality pitches, and hitters are putting on a home run derby in games against him. Bumgarner's coughed up an eye-popping 3.80 homers per nine innings this year.

Right-handed batters have done the bulk of the damage against him. The 78 right-handed batters who've faced Bumgarner this year have hit nine homers with a .742 slugging and .451 weighted on-base average (wOBA). Out of 136 pitchers with a minimum of 100 plate appearances against them this year, Bumgarner's .455 expected wOBA (xwOBA) is the highest by a whopping 25 points, according to Baseball Savant.

Mookie Betts ($4,700) is an obvious option, and even the lefties with top-shelf power like Corey Seager ($4,000), Cody Bellinger ($4,200), and Max Muncy ($3,700) warrant consideration. Having said that, I'm fixated on the trio of A.J. Pollock ($3,000), Chris Taylor ($2,700), and Enrique Hernandez ($2,400) -- listed as Kiké Hernández in FanDuel contests. All three have above-average power against lefties since 2017 with Taylor bringing up the rear with a still-good .207 isolated power (ISO), followed by Hernandez's .210 ISO and headlined by Pollock's .241 ISO. As a fringe benefit of turning to the cheaper hitting options in this stack, gamers will have ample cap space for either of the two pitchers with five-figure salaries to roster tonight as well as some of the more expensive hitting selections.

Cincinnati Reds

Even if the wind is blowing in at Wrigley Field tonight, I'm digging stacking the Cincinnati Reds. If, however, the wind's blowing out, they are easily my favorite stack at that point.

Righty Adbert Alzolay gets the ball for the Chicago Cubs tonight, and to say his control is below average would be underselling his control issues. He's walked 18.4 percent of the batters he's faced in 8 and 2/3 innings this year and 16.3 percent of the batters he's faced in 21 innings including his Major League debut last season. He also walked 11 percent of the batters he faced in 65 and 1/3 innings pitched at the Triple-A level last year, indicating his control problems weren't merely a small sample issue in the Bigs.

Targeting pitchers who struggle with control is one of my favorite stacking moves since struggles with putting baserunners on via self-inflicted damage can result in offensive outbursts -- namely when coupled with favorable batted-ball results for the stacked hitters. The lineup's stackable from top to bottom, but my favorite options are Nick Castellanos ($3,300), Jesse Winker ($2,800), and Eugenio Suarez ($3,500).

All three are hitting with thunderous power this year. Suarez has smacked a dozen homers with a .291 ISO. Castellanos has reached the seats a dozen times as well with a .311 ISO. Winker's homered "only" 10 times with a .303 ISO, but he's been the best overall hitter with a .406 OBP and 161 weighted runs created plus (wRC+). He also has the platoon advantage as a lefty facing a right-handed hurler tonight.

Tampa Bay Rays

The Tampa Bay Rays are the least sexy of the stacks, but they're facing a 31-year-old career minor-leaguer, Mike Kickham, tonight. Prior to this season, Kickham last appeared in the Majors in 2014. In 35 and 1/3 innings in his career, he has a 10.19 ERA. That's an eye-catching number to stack against. As an added bonus, if the Rays do thump Kickham and chase him early, the hits should keep on coming against a bullpen sporting MLB's fourth-highest ERA at 6.00.

Manuel Margot ($2,500) typically frequents the top spot in the order against lefties for the Rays. The lineup spot alone makes him worth a look at $2,500, but he's also been a slightly above-average hitter against lefties since 2017 with a 106 wRC+.

Hitting behind him of late is rookie Randy Arozarena ($2,800). The Rays traded for Arozarena in the offseason, and he's making the most of his limited playing time this year with four homers, a .500 OBP, .600 ISO, and 290 wRC+ in just 24 plate appearances. Glancing over his minor-league splits at Baseball-Reference reveals Arozarena is no stranger to hammering southpaws.

Austin Meadows (2,800), Michael Brosseau ($2,600), Willy Adames ($2,800), and Hunter Renfroe ($2,700) are a few other names to file away as stacking options. Also, Brandon Lowe ($3,300) often sits against southpaws, but if he is in the lineup tonight, don't dismiss him from consideration. Lowe has only 41 plate appearances against southpaws this year, but he's made the most of them with a .388 OBP, .366 ISO, and 175 wRC+.

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.