3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Tuesday 5/4/21
Stacks are the backbone of cashing daily fantasy baseball lineups. Correlation drives upside, creating the potential to place high or even win GPPs when your selected stacks explode offensively.
This column will do the digging and the dirty work to determine which stacks are worth rostering each day. Scoring upside will fuel the stacks that get the nod. Sometimes that will lead to chalky selections, but contrarian stacks will get their fair share of love too.
In addition to utilizing the touted daily stacks in handbuilt lineups, numberFire premium members can throw these highlighted stacks into an optimized lineup using our DFS Sharpstack tool. Our hitting heat map tool is also available to premium members looking for more stacking options. It provides valuable info such as implied total, park factors, and stats for identifying the quality of the opposing pitcher.
Let's take a look at the top stacks on today's main slate.
(Editor's note: Jacob deGrom has been scratched with side tightness. Be sure to remove him from your lineups.)
Cleveland Indians
For full disclosure, all three stacks I'm suggesting are with rostering Jacob deGrom ($12,500) in mind. In other words, they're an affordable trio with upside. The Cleveland Indians lead the suggestions off.
Mike Minor is on the bump for the Kansas City Royals tonight, and he enters the contest with a 5.26 ERA, 4.15 skill interactive ERA (SIERA), and 2.10 homers per nine innings, per FanGraphs. The veteran southpaw is coming off of an even worse 2020 showing, supporting the notion that his ERA and SIERA gap isn't small-sample bad luck.
According to Baseball Savant, Minor's also responsible for a .364 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA), considerably higher than the league average this year of .327. Yet another reason to buy into the gap between his ERA and SIERA.
Some of my favorite stacking options from The Tribe include Jordan Luplow ($2,800), Cesar Hernandez ($2,300), Amed Rosario ($2,400), Jose Ramirez ($4,100), and Franmil Reyes ($3,400). Luplow's a platoon outfielder who sits second in the order against southpaws and has hammered them to the tune of a .332 isolated power (ISO) and 162 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) since 2018. Hernandez is a lineup-slot-based suggestion from the leadoff spot, and Ramirez is a well-above-average hitter against southpaws with a .130 wRC+ since 2018.
Rosario and Reyes are a pair of righties with above-average numbers against southpaws. Rosario's tallied a 120 wRC+ against lefties since 2018. Reyes has ripped them for a .215 ISO and 135 wRC+. If you're looking for a sleeper consideration in this stack, consider Roberto Perez ($2.400).
Philadelphia Phillies
Eric Lauer pitched surprisingly well in his first start of the year, holding the Los Angeles Dodgers scoreless through five frames. Still, that's not enough to dissuade me from suggesting stacking against a pitcher who keeps the ball on the ground at a poor rate (38.1 percent ground-ball rate in his career) with a career 4.67 ERA, 4.74 SIERA, and 1.20 homer per nine innings.
The lefty's aversion to worm-burners could get him into trouble at Citizens Bank Park tonight, and that's what I'm counting on stacking against him. According to the three-year average park factors used at FantasyPros, Citizens Bank Park has the third-highest park factor for homers (1.202).
The Philadelphia Phillies have a few hitters with notable thump -- even excluding Bryce Harper ($4,100), who was out of last night's lineup tending to a wrist issue. Four of their hitters have an ISO north of .200 against lefties since 2018, starting with Didi Gregorius ($3,100) and his .205 ISO. Next up is J.T. Realmuto ($3,400), with a .213 ISO.
The two best power-hitters against lefties -- again, excluding Harper -- are Rhys Hoskins ($3,900) and Alec Bohm ($2,600). Hoskins has raked against lefties with a .245 ISO and 142 wRC+. Bohm's been excellent, too, with a .279 ISO and 132 wRC+ in his first 72 plate appearances against lefties since debuting last year. They're my two favorite options in this stack.
Seattle Mariners
Jorge Lopez is a terrible pitcher. Full stop. He has a 7.48 ERA and 4.35 SIERA in five starts spanning 21 and 2/3 innings this year. He's the owner of an unsightly 6.16 ERA and 4.68 SIERA in 250 innings pitched in his career.
The 28-year-old pitcher's turned into a homer-yielding machine. He's coughing up 2.49 homers per nine innings this year, and he's ceded 1.95 homers per nine innings in 184 and 1/3 innings pitched since 2019. Despite T-Mobile Park suppressing homers slightly with a park factor of 0.964 for dingers, I'll gleefully stack a few power-hitters from the Seattle Mariners.
Perhaps surprisingly to some (myself included), the Mariners have ample thump against righties. Five of their hitters projected in tonight's lineup have an ISO above .200 against righties since 2018 -- or since debuting after that season in a few cases. My favorite options from that quintet include Mitch Haniger ($3,400), Kyle Lewis ($2,800), and Jose Marmolejos ($2,200).
Joshua Shepardson is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Joshua Shepardson also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username bchad50. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.
