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.
New York Mets
Matt Harvey is awful, and I'm going to stack against him every single time he takes the bump, including tonight, using the New York Mets. According to FanGraphs, in his last five starts totaling 16 and 2/3 innings, he's been creamed for a 12.96 ERA, 4.31 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), 2.28 WHIP, and 2.70 homers per nine innings allowed.
It's remarkable Harvey continues to get big-league starts. In 370 and 2/3 innings pitched since 2017, he has a 6.17 ERA, 4.84 SIERA, 1.53 WHIP, and 1.82 homers per nine innings allowed. Pitching at Oriole Park at Camden Yards should exacerbate Harvey's issues. According to FantasyPros, it has the 11th-highest park factor for runs (1.022) and the fourth-highest mark for homers (1.171).
Adding to the appeal of stacking the Mets is you can use either handedness of hitter from their lineup, as Harvey's been incompetent against lefties and righties. He's served up a .344 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to lefties and a .381 wOBA to right-handed batters this year.
My favorite stacking options include Francisco Lindor ($3,300), Pete Alonso ($3,800), and Dominic Smith ($3,200). Lindor's snapped out of his early-season funk. Over his last 10 games, he's hit two homers with a .262 isolated power (ISO), .349 on-base percentage, and 160 weighted runs created plus (wRC+). Alonso and Smith have plus power to exploit Harvey's homer woes.
Tampa Bay Rays
It looks like Patrick Corbin's 2020 struggles weren't merely a product of the unusual stop-and-start situation caused by the pandemic. Instead, he's actually worse this year, sporting a 6.28 ERA, 4.65 SIERA, and 1.88 homers per nine innings allowed.
The veteran lefty's biggest bugaboo is taming right-handed hitters. He remains tough on lefties, holding them to a .253 wOBA this year. However, righties have teed off for a .567 slugging percentage and .404 wOBA.
Facing southpaw Jon Lester last night, the Tampa Bay Rays trotted out a lineup featuring five righties and a switch-hitter. Predictably, my favorite stacking options are their righties. Namely, I'm honed in on Manuel Margot ($3,000), Yandy Diaz ($2,900), Randy Arozarena ($3,600), and Mike Zunino ($2,700).
Margot benefits from hitting leadoff, and Diaz is in the mix as a fellow table-setter from the two-hole. Arozarena and Zunino are my favorite members of the quartet, though. Since reaching the majors in 2019, Arozarena's compiled a .353 on-base percentage, .252 ISO, and 146 RC+ against lefties. Zunino's been a below-average hitter against lefties since 2018. However, he's used his high launch-angle, all-or-nothing approach to smack six homers with a .467 ISO in 49 plate appearances against southpaws this season.
Cincinnati Reds
Being a pitch-to-contact hurler toeing the slab at hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park is a risky proposition, and Brett Anderson fits the bill. He's struck out only 12.7 percent of the batters he's faced this year.
As for Great American Ball Park, it's earned the nickname Great American "Small" Park for a good reason. It has the second-highest park factor for runs (1.106) and the highest for homers (1.347). Additionally, despite Anderson's ground-ball tendencies, he's coughed up 1.72 homers per nine innings this year.
Nick Castellanos ($4,000) headlines my favorite stacking options from the Cincinnati Reds. Since 2018, he has a .407 on-base percentage, .264 ISO, and 170 wRC+. This year, he's been even better, recording a .425 on-base percentage, .333 ISO, and 214 wRC+.
I'm also interested in Eugenio Suarez ($3,000), despite his struggles this year. Tyler Stephenson ($2,700) and his .344 OBP, .276 ISO, and 134 wRC+ against southpaws this year are worth a look. Also, don't count out Jesse Winker ($4,500). Anderson's been smashed for a .538 slugging percentage and .390 wOBA in 2021.
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.