Welcome to our new daily article breaking down some of the other stacking targets on this slate. We covered our system's top value plays in our daily picks article and brief pitcher breakdown but here we will look at other dudes to consider.
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Stacking in DFS MLB is such an important concept if you’re looking to take down a big tournament on FanDuel or DraftKings. It’s also a good way to diversify cash games because the variance in baseball can mean wild swings (ahem) in the scoring on a particular slate. The concept is easy. You want to pile players from one or two teams into your lineups because those guys compound scores by helping each other score runs when the going is good.
Early Slate
Toronto Blue Jays vs. CC Sabathia (Yankees)
The early slate is a little short, but if you're into that type of thing I can't see how you would be able to pass up a Blue Jays stack against a lefty in one of the best hitters parks in all of baseball. Sabathia has some pretty decent numbers this season, but he's also benefitted from some unsustainably good run (check the main article to read Brent's breakdown). Not to mention that he's been significantly worse this season in the hitters haven that is Yankee Stadium. So moving on to the hitters for Toronto, there isn't much surprise as to who you should target for this stack. The usual suspects such as Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion, and Jose Bautista are definitely in play, as well as cheaper options such as Russell Martin, Justin Smoak, and Devon Travis (who believe it or not is hitting .322 with an OPS of .958 vs lefties in 63 career PA). If you want to pay up for Fernandez it might be wise to incorporate some of the cheaper guys into this stack, but I'd say that Donaldson and Encarnacion are near must-starts today.
Main Slate
Boston Red Sox vs. Jon Gray (Rockies)
This is probably a given but the Red Sox probably your best bet if you want to stack the main slate tonight. The Red Sox offense has been nothing short of sensational this season, leading the league in just about every offensive category imaginable. The next victim to step foot into Fenway Park tonight is Jon Gray, who for all intended purposes has actually been a fairly impressive pitcher this season despite what his ERA might suggest. He's got an above average K/9 rate, although that is somewhat lessened by the fact that the Red Sox have one of the lower strikeout rates vs righties in the league. All in all, I'm still stacking the Sox today, and I'm going to target guys like David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Xander Bogaerts, and Mookie Betts. Also if you're looking for a slightly cheaper option (relatively speaking), Travis Shaw is coming in much cheaper than the guys mentioned above and he's got an OPS of .981 against right-handed pitching this season.
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Joe Ross (Nationals)
Other than the Red Sox there aren't really a ton of good stacking options out there, but one that I could see working out is a left-handed batter stack against Joe Ross. Ross's numbers look pretty good from a distance, but a closer look at his splits against lefties tells another story. Against a left-handed split, Ross is nearly walking as many batters as he's striking out (5.03 BB/9 vs 5.95 K/9), has an xFIP of 4.96, and hitters have a soft hit % of just 6.2% (meaning they're making at least solid contact 93.8% of the time they hit the ball). Taking all that into consideration, I'd say that Ross is pretty lucky to have the numbers he does, but that luck very well could change tonight. The Cardinals have arguably the 2nd best offense in baseball this season, and this is largely due to the fact that they rake against right-handed pitchers. Guys like Matt Adams, Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina and Kolten Wong are all in play here (even though Molina isn't a lefty he's hitting .325 against right-handed pitching). This stack is a distant second to a Red Sox stack, but something to consider if you want to differentiate in a GPP.
For what it's worth the system likes an Orioles stack against Lance McCullers, but they've really been struggling on offense as of late. Also, a Rockies stack against Clay Buchholz looks like a pretty good option although I see pretty much everyone stacking this game due to the lack of pitching and high O/U.
So yeah, baseball season! And we've got some goodies you can take with you. At the end of the post, we have our MLB eBook that you really ought to check out before setting even a single daily fantasy MLB lineup. It's free, below.
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