3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Friday 5/26/23

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 won't touch on the Coors game. The Colorado Rockies and New York Mets have two of the night's top implied totals, but you don't need me to tell you to get exposure to Coors.

Atlanta Braves

The Atlanta Braves have been handed a 5.41 implied total, the slate's best non-Coors clip, for their home matchup against Taijuan Walker.

Walker, a right-hander, is having a blah season. Through 46 2/3 frames, he's struggled to a 4.66 SIERA, 21.0% strikeout rate and 11.0% walk rate. He's given up 1.54 homers per nine and has been shredded by both righties and lefties.

Ronald Acuna ($4,700) is an elite option each day, and he's one of the premier non-Coors sticks on this slate. The combination of power (11 homers) and speed (22 steals) is out of this world. The lone negative is the lofty salary, but Acuna is worth it.

Matt Olson ($4,100) and Sean Murphy ($3,800) are excellent plays if you have the coin. Olson has hammered right-handed pitching this season to the tune of a .418 wOBA and 47.1% fly-ball rate.

Atlanta offers some quality midrange options, too, with Ozzie Albies ($3,100) and Austin Riley ($3,000) topping the list. Eddie Rosario ($2,500) and Michael Harris II ($2,700) are good value options whenever the Braves see a righty.

Houston Astros

The Astros have flopped on a couple of the recent main slates, getting blanked on Tuesday and Wednesday. We shouldn't hesitate to go right back to them on Friday, and their 5.18 implied total says as much.

Houston is facing James Kaprielian, a right-hander who is giving up a lot of juicy contact. For the year, Kaprielian has surrendered a 43.4% hard-hit rate and 47.6% fly-ball rate, which has led to 1.93 jacks per nine and a 5.23 SIERA. Over a small sample, left-handed hitters are doing serious damage -- .460 wOBA, 48.8% fly-ball rate and 3.46 homers per nine. Once Kaprielian is out of the game, Houston can tee off on an A's bullpen that owns the league's worst xFIP (5.70) by nearly a full run.

Yordan Alvarez ($4,500) and Kyle Tucker ($3,300) are a high-upside duo, with Tucker's modest salary helping to offset Alvarez's high tag. Both will hit from the left side. Alvarez is repeating his bonkers 2022 numbers, posting a 44.0% hard-hit rate and .423 wOBA with 12 dingers. With the platoon advantage, Alvarez has recorded a 46.5% hard-hit rate and 42.3% fly-ball rate.

Jose Altuve ($3,200) is easy to love at this salary if he's recovered from the illness that has caused him to miss a little time recently. Alex Bregman ($3,000) and Jeremy Pena ($2,900) are two other modest-salaried bats who are worth a look. I keep waiting for Jose Abreu ($2,400) to get going, and it's not happening. But we know his track record, and the salary is so low.

San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres get a huge park-factor boost tonight at Yankee Stadium, and they have a friendly matchup versus Randy Vasquez.

This will be the MLB debut for Vasquez, a right-hander, and he hasn't been all that amazing in Triple-A this year, putting up a 4.64 xFIP and 11.7% walk rate. Facing a stout Padres lineup at hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium is a tall task for anyone in their debut, and it makes the Padres (4.62 implied total) a nice stack. They could go a little under the radar, too.

Fernando Tatis Jr. ($3,600) and Juan Soto ($3,600) are a high-ceiling one-two punch. Soto's salary has jumped as he's rebounded from his slow start, but it's still not at the level we're used to for him. Soto is up to a .397 wOBA and is walking (21.8% rate) more than he's striking out (21.4%). Tatis' .346 expected wOBA looks better than his .329 wOBA, and he's hit seven homers with four steals.

Xander Bogaerts ($3,100) and Jake Cronenworth ($2,900) will be in the heart of the lineup while Matt Carpenter ($2,600), Rougned Odor ($2,200) and Brandon Dixon ($2,200) are viable value targets.