3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Friday 7/30/21
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.
Detroit Tigers
It feels weird. However, I'm suggesting stacking the Detroit Tigers on back-to-back days. Yesterday, they delivered. Tonight, they have an even more tantalizing matchup against Matt Harvey.
The former ace has a 6.65 ERA, 4.83 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), 1,58 WHIP, and allowed 1.23 homers per nine innings in 20 starts this year, per FanGraphs. Remarkably, this is the best he's pitched since 2018. He sported a 7.09 ERA in 2019 and an 11.57 ERA last year.
Adding to the appeal of stacking against Harvey, he's underwhelming against all hitters. The veteran right-handed hurler has ceded a .319 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to lefties. He's been even more inept against righties, getting rocked for a .381 wOBA.
Akil Baddoo ($3,600) headlines my favorite plays from the leadoff spot. The rookie has a .378 on-base percentage, .286 isolated power (ISO), and 158 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) against righties. Jonathan Schoop ($3,400), Robbie Grossman ($3,200), and Eric Haase ($3,500) are others on my radar.
Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Reds square off with Carlos Carrasco in his debut for the New York Mets. The club is reportedly hoping to get four to five innings out of him tonight. The Reds might chase him before he reaches that threshold, though, as Carrasco's been shaky on his rehab assignment.
Carrasco's lasted only 4 and 2/3 innings in a pair of Triple-A rehab starts, recording a 9.64 ERA, and coughing up three homers to 22 batters faced. If he still has rust to shake off, Cincinnati is capable of making that a painful process tonight.
Any discussion of stacking the Reds must start with mentioning the locked-in Joey Votto ($4,200). Votto's riding a six-game homer streak. That would be remarkable in and of itself. However, he has a pair of two-homer efforts during that stretch, bringing the total to eight homers in his last six games.
The potential for Carrasco struggling in his first start of the year puts everyone in play for the Reds. However, the other player I'm specifically focused on locking into my stack is Jesse Winker ($4,300). He's recorded a .411 on-base percentage, .291 ISO, and 175 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers this year. Further, he's in good form, raking since the all-star break.
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are only a pinch above average against lefties this year, ranking tied for 13th with a 101 wRC+. Tonight, they're facing a talented hurler, Framber Valdez. The lefty has a tiny 2.97 ERA and rock-solid 3.86 SIERA. At first blush, he doesn't look like a pitcher to stack against, namely on a 15-game slate with tons of alternatives.
However, there's reason to believe the Giants can rough him up. Further, the vast number of alternatives should result in San Francisco being a contrarian stack. As for why I'm enamored with the Giants tonight, they're extremely patient. The Giants have the third-highest walk rate (10.7 percent) against southpaws in 2021. Their patience could be Valdez's undoing, as he's walked 10.5 percent of the batters he's faced this year and 18.2 percent of the batter he's faced in his last three starts.
Buster Posey ($2,900) is one of the top options from the Giants if he returns to the lineup tonight. Lefty-masher Darin Ruf ($2,200) is my favorite option. He's destroyed lefties, recording a .432 on-base percentage, .359 ISO, and 183 wRC+ this season. Beyond those two, I don't have particularly strong convictions about the other stacking options. Rostering hitters near Posey and Ruf in the lineup is a sound strategy, though. By doing so, you'll enhance the scoring ceiling via correlation.
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.
