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.
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are home for another series against a National League West foe. That's good news for their bats. Colorado's offense ranks second in weighted on-base average (.351 wOBA) and tied for third in isolated power (.204 ISO) in 2021, per FanGraphs.
Alex Wood is the unlucky bloke tasked with trying to navigate Coors Field tonight. According to FantasyPros, Coors Field has the second-highest park factor for doubles (1.345) and homers (1.257), leading the way in runs (1.362), singles (1.230), and triples (2.177). Wood's an above-average pitcher. However, he's not an elite hurler. Thus, I'll side with Coors Field's park factors and the Rockies' hitters getting the better of him tonight.
There are two hitters from the Rockies I'm explicitly targeting as building blocks. First, Trevor Story ($4,000) is a no-brainer selection with a career of dominance against lefties at home under his belt. In 452 plate appearances at Coors Field against southpaws, Story's destroyed them for a .404 on-base percentage, .385 ISO, and 159 weighted runs created plus (wRC+).
Second, I'm locking in C.J. Cron ($3,700). This is his first year on the Rockies, and he's made the most of his plate appearances at Coors Field, unloading for a .421 on-base percentage, .357 ISO, and 163 wC+.
San Francisco Giants
As the visitors to Coors Field, the San Francisco Giants will be treated to the same luxurious hitting accommodations. Moreover, they're sizable favorites, have a better offense, and are facing a lesser pitcher.
San Francisco's tied for second in wRC+ (111) and tied for first in ISO (.202) against right-handed pitching in 2021. They're also en fuego lately. Over the last 30 days, they rank fourth in wRC+ (119) and fifth in ISO (.205). As for the pitching matchup, righty Peter Lambert is making his first start of 2021 for the Rockies and has a 7.25 ERA, 5.29 expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP), and 5.51 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) in 89 and 1/3 innings -- all in 2019 -- in his big-league career.
The depth of San Francisco's lineup makes it stackable from top to bottom. However, some of my favorite options include LaMonte Wade Jr ($3,300), Brandon Crawford ($3,600), and Brandon Belt ($3,800). The trio is San Francisco's top three hitters against righties, with Wade bringing up the rear with a 146 wRC+ and Belt and Crawford tying for top honors with a 156 wRC+.
Tampa Bay Rays
The fireworks won't necessarily be confined to Coors Field tonight. The Tampa Bay Rays have the upside to crash the party at the top of GPP leaderboards tonight. They're facing a struggling rookie righty tonight in the form of Edward Cabrera. In five starts, he's been knocked around for a 5.31 ERA, 5.66 xFIP, and 5.74 SIERA.
Remarkably, it gets better. Cabrera's coughed up an eye-popping 2.21 homers per nine innings this year, and he's completely lost against lefties. He's surrendered a .458 on-base percentage, .718 slugging, and .485 wOBA to left-handed batters. Yikes.
Predictably, I'm keying in on three of Tampa Bay's best left-handed hitters. Namely, I'm targeting Ji-Man Choi ($2,500), Austin Meadows ($3,100), and Brandon Lowe ($3,500). Choi's sandwiched between Meadows' 140 wRC+ against righties and Lowe's 151 wRC+ with a sterling 142 wRC+ of his doing. Their hitting exploits against righties mesh perfectly with Cabera's ineptitude against lefties, fueling a sky-high ceiling capable of rivaling the scoring output at Coors Field tonight.
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.