4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Opening Day

Stacks are the backbone of cashing daily fantasy baseball lineups. Correlation drives upside, creating the potential to place high or even win GPPs when your selected stacks explode offensively.

This column will do the digging and the dirty work to determine which stacks are worth rostering each day. Scoring upside will fuel the stacks that get the nod. Sometimes that will lead to chalky selections, but contrarian stacks will get their fair share of love too.

In addition to utilizing the touted daily stacks in handbuilt lineups, numberFire premium members can throw these highlighted stacks into an optimized lineup using our DFS Sharpstack tool. Our hitting heat map tool is also available to premium members looking for more stacking options. It provides valuable info such as implied total, park factors, and stats for identifying the quality of the opposing pitcher.

Let's take a look at the top stacks on today's main slate.

Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers are easily the top stack on Opening Day, and their salaries reflect that status. They're -210 moneyline favorites in the game with the only double-digit over/under total at 11 runs, per MLB odds. Even with aces abound who command high salaries on today's slate, gamers are likely to flock to the Dodgers and make them a chalky stack. They're good chalk, though.

Coors Field is in a class of its own for inflating offense, sitting atop FantasyPros' three-year-average park factors for runs at 1.362 with the next-closest park a distant second at 1.106. Coors Field also notably enhances dingers with a park factor of 1.257 for homers. This hitters' paradise humbles even the most-talented hurlers.

German Marquez has been unable to avoid the pitfalls of his home digs. For his career, he's yielded a 5.10 ERA and .340 weighted on-base average (wOBA) in 293 innings pitched at home, according to FanGraphs. The Dodgers are likely to add to Marquez's home struggles to open this year.

The lineup is stackable from top to bottom. Having said that, Corey Seager ($4,500) is my favorite option to include in any variation of Dodgers stack. The sweet-swinging lefty has recorded a .362 OBP, .239 isolated power (ISO), and 136 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) against right-handed pitchers since 2018. Seager was especially hot last year, ranking fifth among qualified hitters in expected weighted on-base average (.435 xwOBA) and second in barrels per plate appearance percentage (12.1 Brls/PA%), according to Baseball Savant.

Mookie Betts ($4,800), Cody Bellinger ($4,600), and Max Muncy ($4,000) are the other players in the lineup with salaries of $4,000 or more, and each boasts the credentials to warrant their salaries. A noticeably slimmer Justin Turner ($3,500) and either Chris Taylor ($3,000) or Gavin Lux ($3,000) -- depending on which is tabbed as the Opening Day starter at the keystone -- offer cap-conscious gamers cheaper options for stacking too.

Colorado Rockies

The Colorado Rockies are hosting my aforementioned favorite stack, and they'll enjoy the same hitter-friendly conditions. The lineup isn't as loaded as their opposition, and a matchup with Clayton Kershaw could be tough. Although, a twilight-years Kershaw could be susceptible to a blow-up start at Coors Field.

Kershaw's average fastball velocity was 91.6 mph last year, according to FanGraphs. Jeff Zimmermann's spring training velocity tracking indicates the veteran southpaw's velo is down a pinch this spring. Kershaw's compensated for his decline in fastball velocity from his peak years by throwing his fastball less and leaning on his secondary offerings more. Kershaw's reliance on his breaking balls (slider and curveball) and lack of velocity to blow hitters away could be a recipe for disaster in the thin air in Colorado.

I don't suggest being overweight in exposure to the Rockies, but Kershaw's smaller margin for error supports firing some GPP bullets on Rockies stacks. My two favorite stacking options from the Rockies are Trevor Story ($4,000) and C.J. Cron ($3,800). Story's pulverized southpaws at home, ripping them for a .407 OBP, .406 ISO, and 168 wRC+ in 236 plate appearances since 2018. Meanwhile, Cron's pummeled lefties for a .371 OBP, .277 ISO, and 152 wRC+ since 2018. These are the two must-have options. Charlie Blackmon ($3,800) isn't far behind, and the other choices to include in the stack can be made with lineup correlation in mind.

San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres could rival the Dodgers for chalkiest-stack status on Opening Day. As a whole, it's a more salary-cap-friendly stack. Fernando Tatis Jr. ($4,300) and Manny Machado ($4,000) are integral pieces who have salaries like the top options on their NL West rivals, but Eric Hosmer ($3,400) -- who shouldn't be used in stacks -- is the only other hitter on the Friars with a salary above $3,000.

The affordability of stacking the Padres opens the door to rostering an ace. An ace-plus-Padres-stack team build offers a high ceiling. The stack, specifically, has elite scoring potential against Madison Bumgarner.

Bumgarner had the seventh-highest ERA (6.48) and tied for the 10th-highest skill-interactive ERA (5.31 SIERA) among starters who pitched a minimum of 40 innings last season. He also tied for the ninth-highest xwOBA (.409) yielded to hitters in 2020. He was a trainwreck on the bump last year.

Tatis and Machado are the top options from this stack, but they're not alone as stellar selections. Considering salary, Wil Myers ($2,900) might be the best bargain not only in this stack but of any individual hitter on the slate. Myers is responsible for a .356 OBP, .265 ISO, and 135 wRC+ in 315 plate appearances against lefties since 2018.

Tommy Pham ($3,000) joins Tatis, Machado, and Myers in my preferred full, four-person stack. Pham scuffled last year, but his track record of excellence against southpaws is too good to ignore. He has a .440 OBP, .164 ISO, and 155 wRC+ against lefties since 2018.

Tampa Bay Rays

Veering from the chalk, the Tampa Bay Rays should make for a contrarian option. Even with ballpark renovations before the 2020 season, Marlins Park played extremely pitcher-friendly with a park factor of 0.817 for runs and 0.753 for homers, per ESPN's ballpark factors. Add in the unexciting over/under of 7.5 runs, and gamers will likely mostly fade the offensive options.

With many top-shelf starters getting the ball, Sandy Alcantara fits the bill of good rather than great, despite what his 3.00 ERA in 2020 might suggest. The hard-throwing righty's 4.39 SIERA is much less imposing. Ditto for his .310 xwOBA compared to his .285 wOBA. Further, his below-average swinging-strike percentage of 10.4 percent (11.3 percent was the 2020 league average) leaves him more vulnerable than his high-strikeout peers to the vagaries of batted balls and possible bad luck on them.

Additionally, Alcantara's no great shakes against lefties. He coughed up a .369 wOBA to 83 lefties last year, and he's ceded a .330 wOBA to them since 2019. Yoshitomo Tsutsugo ($2,600), Austin Meadows ($3,400), and Brandon Lowe ($3,300) are the three lefties in the lineup I'm honed in on. Tsutsugo's power translated to a solid-if-unspectacular .200 ISO against righties in his MLB debut last year. Meadows has amassed a .360 OBP, .236 ISO, and 133 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers since 2018. Lowe has gotten on base against righties a bit less than Meadows with a .350 OBP, but he's compensated for the difference with more thump, resulting in a .243 ISO and 132 wRC+.

The lone right-handed hitter I'm interested in adding to the stack is last year's postseason wunderkind, Randy Arozarena ($3,700). His batted-ball data in 2020 was glorious, and he showcased immense talent in route to 10 homers, a .442 OBP, and 239 wRC+ in 86 plate appearances in the playoffs. Thankfully, recency bias from his torrid conclusion to 2020 hasn't inflated his salary.

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.