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.
Seattle Mariners
Among tonight's starters, Casey Mize has the fourth-highest skill-interactive ERA (4.85 SIERA). Despite his lackluster performance, it's possible gamers will overlook stacking against him due to his seemingly decent performance lately.
Mize has spun three straight quality starts for the Detroit Tigers, recording a 3.00 ERA across 18 innings. A look under the hood reveals less impressive numbers. During that stretch, he's struck out only 17.8 percent of the batters he's faced while walking 12.3 percent of them, per FanGraphs. His 5.17 SIERA in his last three starts looks more like a number to attack with a stack, and I'm going to do just that.
In addition to loving the matchup for the Seattle Mariners, I'm digging their salaries, which are conducive to building around one of the affordable pitchers or a stud like Gerrit Cole. The wide variety of roster builds using this stack is alluring.
As for who I'm specifically focused on, Mitch Haniger ($3,600), Kyle Seager ($3,000), and Jarred Kelenic ($2,900) immediately come to mind. Haniger's mashed a dozen dingers with a .307 isolated power (ISO) and 149 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) this year. Seager's putting together a stellar 2021 campaign, with eight homers, a .238 ISO, and 120 wRC+. Kelenic is one of Major League Baseball's top prospects, and he's already launched a homer with a pair of doubles in his first 18 plate appearances.
Others to consider include Kyle Lewis ($2,600), Dylan Moore ($2,400), and J.P. Crawford ($2,300).
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are getting their second look at J.A. Happ in less than a week. The lefty was riding high before that start, entering it with a 1.91 ERA. However, his 5.21 SIERA indicated regression was in order, and the Pale Hose provided it swiftly, creaming him for nine runs in just 3 1/3 innings.
His ERA now sits at 4.26 with a 5.24 SIERA, the second-highest on tonight's slate. The veteran lefty also has the lowest called strikes and whiffs rate (21.9 CSW percentage) on tonight's slate.
The hitters I'm honing in on from the Pale Hose are their righties. Namely, Tim Anderson ($3,800), Jose Abreu ($3,800), Yermin Mercedes ($2,800), and Andrew Vaughn ($2,300).
Abreu and Anderson have lengthy track records of hammering lefties, with a 140 wRC+ and 157 wRC+ against them since 2018, respectively. Rookies Mercedes and Vaughn are acquitting themselves nicely against lefties this year, with Mercedes ripping them for a .438 on-base percentage, .267 ISO, and 206 wRC+, and Vaughn recording a .484 on-base percentage, .304 ISO, and 208 wRC+. Vaughn also hit his first big-league homer against Happ the last time they met.
Chicago Cubs
Jon Lester has a 2.25 ERA in three starts totaling 16 innings. It's not going to last. In fact, his matchup with the Chicago Cubs has similar vibes to Happ's against the White Sox before they erupted for nine runs against him.
Lester's 5.38 SIERA is the worst among tonight's pitchers. He's struck out only 15.2 percent of the batters he's faced, and he's walked 10.6 percent of them. I won't talk you off of using anyone in this stack.
However, my favorite options are Willson Contreras ($3,400), Kris Bryant ($4,300), and Javier Baez ($4,100). Baez is the most volatile option of the bunch. Still, his .222 ISO this year against lefties and .264 ISO against them since 2018 is worthy of usage. Contreras has amassed a .366 on-base percentage, .228 ISO, and 129 wRC+ against southpaws since 2018. He's also in good form this year, with a .366 on-base percentage, .351 ISO, and 171 wRC+ in 41 plate appearances against lefties.
Bryant's the top dog in this group, though. Facing lefties since 2018, he's crushed them for a .432 on-base percentage, .355 ISO, and 190 wRC+. He's playing at an otherworldly level against lefties this year, too. In 34 plate appearances against lefties in 2021, he's reached the seats five times, with a .500 on-base percentage, .690 ISO, and 309 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.