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.
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are my co-favorite offense to stack tonight. They'll be greeting non-prospect Eli Morgan in his big-league debut. Morgan didn't crack MLB Pipeline's top-30 prospects for the Cleveland Indians, failed to make Baseball Prospectus's top-10 prospect list for them, and ranked 42nd in the organization by FanGraphs.
Evaluating prospects can be challenging, and guys exceed expectations. However, those prospects are the exceptions to the rule. He reportedly throws his fastball in the upper-80s, and only his changeup was graded as a plus pitch by FanGraphs. Morgan will be tasked with facing a talented offense in his debut, and he's pitched only 18 and 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level in his career. This is a sizable leap in the caliber of competition.
I'm banking on the Blue Jays roughing him up. According to FanGraphs, they rank sixth in weighted runs created plus (wRC+) and are tied for fifth in isolated power (ISO) against righties in 2021. They're in great form of late, too. In fact, they have Major League Baseball's highest wRC+ (125) and second-highest ISO (.209) over the last 30 days.
My favorite options are their supremely talented trio of infielders claiming the top-three spots in the lineup, Marcus Semien ($3,800), Bo Bichette ($3,500), and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($4,600). Bichette's been the least productive of the three against righties this year, but that's relatively speaking, as he's still amassed an impressive .203 ISO and 118 wRC+. Semien's hammered righties for a .276 ISO and 161 wRC+. However, those numbers pale in comparison to Vladito's .380 ISO and 217 wRC+.
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are my other co-favorite offense to stack tonight. For all of last year and the beginning of 2021, stacking against Madison Bumgarner was a profitable move in daily baseball. He's returned to his vintage form of late, though. In his last seven starts spanning 40 innings, he's spun a 2.25 ERA, 3.43 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), 0.70 WHIP, walked only four percent of the batters he's faced, and punched out 27.3 percent of them. Those are hardly the numbers of a pitcher to attack with a stack.
Having said that, he's yielded a 54.1 percent fly-ball rate during his recent heater. Further, this is less about picking on him because of any shortcomings on the bump and primarily about stacking one of Major League Baseball's best offenses against lefties. The Red Birds rank third in wRC+ (118) and second in ISO (.194) against lefties this year. The power number could be beneficial with Madbum's fly-ball tendencies.
My preference for stacking this lineup is to use their one-through-four hitters, Tommy Edman ($2,700), Dylan Carlson ($2,200), Paul Goldschmidt ($3,100), and Nolan Arenado ($3,500). Edman and Carlson are salary-cap-friendly options with above-average numbers against lefties from the top-two spots in the order. Goldy and Arenado are a couple of the best lefty-mashers in the game, with a .263 ISO and 151 wRC+ and a .311 ISO and 161 wRC+ against lefties since 2018, respectively. Both also have an extensive history with Bumgarner, and while Arenado's posted moderately decent numbers against him, Goldy's set him ablaze.
Chicago White Sox
Sometimes it pays not to overthink things and simply pick on a bad pitcher. Enter the Chicago White Sox as my third-favorite stack tonight. Whatever magic pixie dust Matt Harvey used to keep his ERA in check at 3.60 through his first seven starts this year has run out. He's been taken to the cleaners in his last three starts, coughing up 18 earned runs in 10 and 2/3 innings, good for a 15.19 ERA. Yikes.
If you prefer a larger sample, Harvey's been a trainwreck since 2019. In 117 innings since then, he's coughed up a 7.23 ERA, 5.26 SIERA, 1.68 WHIP, and 1.92 homers per nine innings. Remarkably, he's still in a big-league rotation.
The Pale Hose are a top-10 offense against righties and over the last 30 days, ranking eighth in wRC+ (106) against right-handed pitching and tied for sixth in wRC+ (111) over the last 30 days.
Typically, I'd highlight a few of my favorite options from a stack. In this case, I'm declaring it a stackable offense from top to bottom. Yoan Moncada ($3,500) and Jose Abreu ($3,900) are excellent options in the heart of the order. However, gamers can get creative and use some of the lower-salary options in their lineup if prioritizing spending up for an ace and weaving in another high-salary stack.
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.