3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/2/21

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 disappointed as the chalk stack yesterday, scoring only five runs. Their score doesn't tell the whole story, though. They left an army of runners on base, totaling 15 hits and eight walks. It's a great night to go back to the well.

Coors Field is the unquestioned premier venue for offensive production. It sits atop the pack in park factor for runs (1.362), singles (1.230), and triples (2.177), and it ranks second in homers (1.257) and doubles (1.345), according to the three-year average used at FantasyPros. The game-time temperature isn't frigid, and the pitching matchup is mouthwatering.

Righty Antonio Senzatela miraculously spun a 3.44 ERA last year, a number that was in stark contrast to his 5.02 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA). The 26-year-old righty relies on his fielders, pitching to contact with only a 13.5 strikeout rate and 8.1 swinging-strike rate in 2020, per FanGraphs. Even after twirling a 2.10 ERA in 34 and 1/3 innings at home last year, his career ERA at home sits at 4.94 in 220 2/3 innings, along with a .339 weighted on-base average (wOBA).

Lefties and righties alike can knock around Senzatela, putting everyone in the Dodgers' lineup in play. They'll likely be chalky again tonight, so gamers wishing to get creative can turn to potential down-the-order options such as Gavin Lux ($3,000), Chris Taylor ($3,100), and A.J. Pollock ($3,300) -- depending on who LA starts.

The top stacking targets are their big-boppers, though -- Mookie Betts ($4,800), Corey Seager ($4,500), Justin Turner ($3,500), Cody Bellinger ($4,700), and Max Muncy ($4,100). I'm specifically locked in on Seager, Turner, and Bellinger. Turner offers valuable salary relief compared to his star-studded teammates. Still, he's no slouch in righty-righty matchups with a .387 OBP, .180 isolated power (ISO), and 137 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) in same-handed matchups since 2018. Seager and Bellinger have the platoon advantage and massive pop. The former has recorded a .239 ISO, and the latter's ripped a .279 ISO against right-handed pitchers since 2018.

Oakland Athletics

Another team that calls California home gets the stacking endorsement today. The Oakland Athletics boast a lineup of hitters with a track record of above-average production against right-handed pitchers. Righty Cristian Javier doesn't strike me as a pitcher to avoid, either.

He twirled a stellar 3.48 ERA in 54 1/3 innings as a rookie, but the underlying numbers aren't convincing me he's that caliber of starting pitcher. Javier netted a paltry 26.3 O-Swing%, far lower than the league average of 30.6%. He also fell well short of the league average swinging-strike rate (11.3%) at only 8.7%. Javier's 4.43 SIERA is also uninspiring for continuing to pitch at a sub-four ERA level.

He's a fly-ball pitcher with a 52.2% fly-ball rate yielded last year, and I want to attack that with power. Matt Olson ($3,400) is my favorite piece of exposure to an A's stack as he's amassed a .263 ISO against right-handed pitchers since 2018. Fellow corner infielder Matt Chapman ($3,600) has an identical ISO during that time frame, and he's a fine option in this stack, too, although I'm not as crazy about using him since he won't hold the platoon advantage.

Instead, I'm eyeing Mitch Moreland ($2,900) at a sizable salary discount. Like Olson, he'll have the platoon advantage against Javier and the .487 slugging percentage and .332 wOBA he coughed up to left-handed hitters last season.

Ramon Laureano ($3,000) is another hitter I'll call your attention to, and he's a bit easier pill to swallow in a righty-righty matchup than Chapman thanks to a $600 salary discount. He's responsible for a .347 OBP, .211 ISO, and 125 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers since 2018.

Jed Lowrie ($2,000) missed all of 2020 after playing in only nine games in 2019, but he's listed at the bare minimum and was slotted sixth in the lineup yesterday. The switch-hitting veteran has such a low bar to clear at the minimum salary, and he should be on our radars.

Miami Marlins

My primary focus in lineup building tonight is to stack the Dodgers and slot Pablo Lopez ($7,800) as my starting pitcher. The A's stack can easily be blended with the Dodgers' stack, and a Miami Marlins stack tonight also pairs well with the Dodgers and Lopez.

The Marlins were blanked yesterday by electric righty Tyler Glasnow. They'll take cuts at a completely different style of pitcher tonight. Southpaw Ryan Yarbrough makes hay by preventing hard contact. He did a fantastic job of netting empty swings with a 13.3% swinging-strike rate last year, but he parlayed the bat-missing into a below-average 18.8% strikeout rate. His larger body of work suggests some negative regression with the swinging-strike percentage, and relying on batted balls finding gloves is riskier than blowing hitters away.

To Yarbrough's credit, his .296 wOBA was only 10 points lower than his .306 xwOBA, according to Baseball Savant. Still, his xwOBA isn't terrifying.

Starling Marte ($3,200), Brian Anderson ($2,900), and Jon Berti ($2,400) -- the latter of whom didn't start against a righty yesterday but could start over left-handed hitters Corey Dickerson ($2,600) or Jazz Chisholm ($2,100) -- are viable stacking options. However, my two favorite pieces are thumpers Jesus Aguilar ($2,800) and Adam Duvall ($3,000). Aguilar's tagged lefties for a .208 ISO since 2018, and Duvall's hit them even harder with a .244 ISO.