3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Thursday 9/1/22

Stacks are an integral part of daily fantasy baseball. They can push a team to the top of a GPP by driving upside. However, they're also viable in cash games, namely smaller (two-person or three-person) stacks that mitigate the volatility of a full four-person stack.

This article is your home throughout the 2022 Major League Baseball season for the day's top stacks. The primary goal is to identify the highest-scoring upside stack. Still, game theory will play a role in contrarian stacks making the cut as GPP options. Nevertheless, chalky stacks will make appearances in this space, too.

Beyond my analysis in this space, I strongly suggest numberFire premium members using our DFS Sharpstack tool and hitting heat map tool. The DFS Sharpstack helps plug stacks into optimized lineups, allowing you to change parameters and lock or exclude players and teams. Meanwhile, the heat map offers a one-stop-shop for the opposing starting pitcher, implied total, park factor, and other notable goodies.

Now, let's look at the top stacks on today's main slate.

Atlanta Braves

There will be two popular stacks tonight -- the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox. Both are in smash spots against bad pitchers.

Let's start with Atlanta.

The Braves -- owners of a 5.18 implied total, the second-highest -- get a home date with Chad Kuhl. He's exactly the kind of pitcher we want to stack against -- even outside of Coors. Kuhl doesn't get many strikeouts (16.6% rate) and allows plenty of fly-balls (40.8% rate). Lefties have a .365 wOBA against him while righties own a .349 mark. Yes, please.

Everyone in Atlanta's lineup is stackable. Matt Olson ($3,900), Austin Riley ($4,100) and Dansby Swanson ($4,000) are three of the top-four bats tonight, per our model. Ronald Acuna ($4,200) is Ronald Acuna, and Michael Harris II ($3,600) boasts a big-time power-speed combo.

Eddie Rosario ($2,200) and Robbie Grossman ($2,400) are precious salary-saving options -- especially if you're trying to roster Spencer Strider or Brandon Woodruff at pitcher.

Boston Red Sox

Boston is also in a stellar matchup, and their 5.23 implied total narrowly edges the Braves' mark for the night's highest (as of early Thursday).

The Sox are taking on Glenn Otto, and just like Kuhl, Otto checks basically all the boxes we're looking for when trying to find a pitcher to pick on. He's struggled to a 5.20 SIERA and is striking out just 16.9% of batters while walking 12.4%.

Rafael Devers ($3,700) is the belle of the ball for Boston. With the platoon advantage in 2022, he's mashed his way to a .387 wOBA, 39.1% hard-hit rate and 42.2% fly-ball rate. He's been lights out at home this year, too, posting a .390 wOBA at Fenway. Even at Devers' $3,700 salary, our projections have him as the fifth-best point-per-dollar hitter.

Trevor Story ($3,500) and Xander Bogaerts ($3,600) join Devers as appealing high-salary options. Tommy Pham ($3,300) is expected to lead off and is easy to love at this salary. J.D. Martinez ($3,000), Alex Verdugo ($3,100) and Franchy Cordero ($2,500) need to be on our radars, as well. Cordero is a handy value play.

If Christian Arroyo ($2,600) gets in the lineup, he's a valuable puzzle piece as a guy who is eligible at outfield, second and third.

Arizona Diamondbacks

The Braves and Red Sox will be super chalky. Any other stack should be at least somewhat contrarian. While you can certainly make a case for the Texas Rangers against Rich Hill, let's get weird.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are at home versus Brandon Woodruff, someone a decent amount of people -- myself included in some lineups -- will use as their pitcher. But I think the Snakes are an interesting way to differentiate today.

As good as Woodruff is -- and with a 3.19 SIERA and 29.6% strikeout rate, he's real good -- he gives up a lot of fly-balls. He's permitted a 44.4% fly-ball rate on the year, and he had allowed exactly two taters in three straight games prior to his most recent start.

That's enough to pique my interest in Arizona, and even if you don't want to full-on stack the D-Backs, I like the idea of going to them for one-offs and mini stacks.

Josh Rojas ($3,200) is a modest-salaried leadoff bat, and Jake McCarthy ($3,000) has been on fire, producing a .376 wOBA with 10 steals in 35 second-half games. They're the two top Arizona sticks, per our numbers.

Daulton Varsho ($3,300), Ketel Marte ($3,100) and Christian Walker ($3,600) are also fine options. Walker is particularly intriguing as Woodruff has been more homer prone versus righties (1.49 per nine) than left-handers (0.68). Walker should slip through the cracks altogether.