3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Tuesday 4/18/23

Stacking is an integral part of daily fantasy baseball. Correlation drives upside, giving your lineups a slate-winning ceiling when your stacks explode.

This piece will do the digging and the dirty work each day to determine which stacks are worth rostering on FanDuel's main slate. While we want upside, we also need to factor in game theory, especially in a sport as random as baseball.

Our MLB DFS heat map is a quick way to get a feel for the overall slate and which offenses are in a good spot. You can also check out our daily fantasy baseball projections to identify the slate's best bats.

Let's look at the top stacks for this main slate. We will not talk about the Coors game. The slate's top two implied totals belong to the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates. You'll want exposure to that game, but you don't need me to tell you to stack Coors.

New York Yankees

Coors is the big draw on this slate. Outside of Denver, no team has an implied total above 4.82 (as of Tuesday morning).

The New York Yankees are one of two teams with a 4.82 implied total, and they're in a pretty sweet spot in a home date with Jose Suarez. It doesn't hurt that the wind is blowing out to right-center.

A lefty, Suarez hasn't been much of a strikeout pitcher in his career, and that's carried over to 2023. Through 8 1/3 innings, he's fanned just 13.3% of hitters. A year ago, right-handed hitters tagged him for a 40.7% fly-ball rate, and that's where I'm going to focus.

Aaron Judge ($4,300) is the obvious top option for the Bronx Bombers. Judge was actually better against righties a year ago, but he still put up a .412 wOBA with the platoon advantage. He's good.

Gleyber Torres ($3,700) posted a .352 wOBA against southpaws a year ago. After Torres, no other Yankee righty is above $3,200. Anthony Volpe ($2,800), DJ LeMahieu ($3,200), Oswald Peraza ($2,400), Jose Trevino ($2,500), Aaron Hicks ($2,100). and Oswaldo Cabrera ($2,400) are all projected starters. LeMahieu and Cabrera are eligible at three positions apiece, making them useful options.

Anthony Rizzo ($3,500) may be the only left-handed bat in New York's lineup, and he's well worth a look despite the lefty-lefty matchup. He did better against left-handers (.383 wOBA) than righties (.342 wOBA) in 2022.

Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles are the other offense with a 4.82 implied total. They're at home against Josiah Gray.

Gray came into the year as a hurler who could generate a decent amount of swings and misses but really struggled with the longball. Well, through 16 2/3 frames this season, the homer issues are still there (2.19 per nine) and he's not getting many strikeouts (18.1% strikeout rate).

That puts the Orioles in a money spot tonight -- particularly the O's lefties. Gray has surrendered 2.98 jacks per nine and a .386 wOBA in the split for his career.

Cedric Mullins ($3,400) and Adley Rutschman ($3,900) will likely hit atop the order, and both will swing from the left side against Gray. Gunnar Henderson ($2,800) and Adam Frazier ($2,800) are left-handed hitters who have multi-position eligibility while switch-hitter Anthony Santander ($2,800) had a gaudy 51.2% fly-ball rate against righties last year.

Lefties Kyle Stowers ($2,100) and Ryan O'Hearn ($2,000) are interesting dart throws if they get in the lineup.

Ryan Mountcastle ($3,600) and Austin Hays ($3,200) are righties who should hit in the middle of the order. While lefties have done more damage against Gray in his career, right-handed hitters have still launched 1.87 dingers per nine off him, so we can target anyone in the Orioles' lineup.

Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs plated 10 runs last night, and it was the third time over their last six games that they scored at least 8 runs. They're up to fifth in wOBA (.348) this season, and they're really hammering left-handers (.383 wOBA).

Their Monday outburst came in a game started by southpaw Kyle Muller, and they'll see another lefty tonight in Ken Waldichuk. The Cubs' 4.43 implied total may get lost in the shuffle a bit, but they have nice upside, especially with the wind blowing out in Oakland.

Most of the Cubs' top bats are right-handed, which should lead to success against Waldichuk, a pitcher who has been tagged for a .417 wOBA by righties in his brief career.

The projected first five in Chicago's order are Nico Hoerner ($3,400), Dansby Swanson ($3,300), Ian Happ ($3,400), Seiya Suzuki ($3,000) and Patrick Wisdom ($3,200) -- all of whom will hit from the right side against Waldichuk. Wisdom has eight taters on the year, including two last night.

Don't sleep on Trey Mancini ($2,500). While he was pretty much the lone Cub to have a bad day on Monday, Mancini will have the platoon advantage and is a capable power bat who offers cap relief.