Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Thursday 7/20/23

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, which starts at 12:20 p.m. EST.

New York Mets

The New York Mets carry the top implied total for Thursday's main slate, showing a 5.18 clip for their home matchup with Michael Kopech.

It's the same story as usual with Kopech. He can be lights out if he's on, but he's not on much and has a massive gopher-ball problem. For the year, he's surrendered a 48.6% fly-ball rate and 1.87 dingers per nine. Both lefties (.340 wOBA) and righties (.347 wOBA) have found plenty of joy against him, so anyone in the Mets lineup is viable.

Pete Alonso ($3,600) and Francisco Lindor ($3,500) are the main high-salary attractions. Alonso has mashed his way to a .373 expected wOBA (xwOBA) and is the top-projected bat on New York, per our model. Lindor has been running hot in July, recording a .402 wOBA this month while adding 4 steals.

Dan Vogelbach ($2,300) is a smashing value target. He'll likely be yanked for a pinch-hitter if he faces a southpaw later in the game, but the matchup with Kopech suits him well. Vogelbach owns a Statcast hard-hit rate of 47.7%.

Brandon Nimmo ($3,300), Francisco Alvarez ($2,900) and Tommy Pham ($2,800) are solid midrange options while Jeff McNeil ($2,500) and Brett Baty ($2,500) make some sense as salary-savers. Pham is the slate's sixth-best point-per-dollar bat, per our numbers.

San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Giants have been on the stacking radar all week thus far, as they've benefitted from playing at Great American Ball Park. They're a quality stacking option again today and have been handed a 4.82 implied total versus Andrew Abbott.

Abbott, a lefty, is a little scary to stack against because he's shown pretty good swing-and-miss stuff early in his career, boasting a 27.3% strikeout rate and 11.5% swinging-strike rate. But when he gives up contact, it's usually loud, as he's permitting a 61.0% fly-ball rate and 1.51 homers per nine. If this game was in San Fran, the Giants wouldn't be nearly as enticing, but with this game in Cincy, Abbott's fly-ball ways should lead to a nice outing for the Giants' offense.

Per usual, there's some give and take with stacking San Francisco. The positive is that they're low in salary, with no expected starters above $3,000. That makes them a perfect fit alongside one of this slate's high-salary aces. The negative with loading up on the Giants is that some of their top bats against a lefty are major pinch-hit risks if they see a righty later in the affair.

But all in all, this offense is a great source of value on a slate where we need it if we're rostering Spencer Strider ($11,400).

Wilmer Flores ($2,700) is one of the slate's top plays. He's hot, mashing three dongs in this series in Cincy, and has a strong track record against southpaws. Plus, the salary is low, and he's eligible at three positions. Our model slots Flores as the slate's second-best point-per-dollar bat.

Austin Slater ($2,600) and Patrick Bailey ($2,900) are two other Giants hitters our projections love, ranking each among the top-five point-per-dollar sticks. Slater usually hits leadoff against lefties while Bailey, a switch-hitter, should be a safe bet to play the full game if he starts. The same can be said for J.D. Davis ($2,900) and Mike Yastrzemski ($2,900), although Davis sat yesterday with an illness.

Luis Matos ($2,400) is a low-salary righty who isn't a pinch-hit risk and is off to a superb start to his young career, posting a .346 xwOBA overall and a .377 wOBA over a small sample versus lefties.

Other top options: Atlanta Braves (vs. Zac Gallen), Cincinnati Reds (vs. Alex Cobb), San Diego Padres (at Chris Bassitt).