3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Wednesday 5/3/23

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 teams playing at Coors. The Milwaukee Brewers and Colorado Rockies have the night's top two implied totals, but you don't need me to tell you to get exposure to Coors.

Toronto Blue Jays

Same as yesterday, the Toronto Blue Jays own the night's best non-Coors implied total as they bring a 5.14 clip into a Fenway clash with Nick Pivetta.

Pivetta, a righty, is pretty much the same guy he's been for a while. His 4.34 SIERA, 10.0% walk rate and 10.0% swinging-strike rate are all in line with his 2022 numbers -- just a tad worse, in fact -- and a 44.1% fly-ball rate has resulted in 1.82 taters per nine.

It's the same song and dance with Toronto. Bo Bichette ($4,000), Matt Chapman ($4,200) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($3,900) are superb plays but are way up in salary. If you can get there, go for it, but that might not be easy to do tonight given that we'll want to have some of Shohei Ohtani ($11,100) at pitcher. Our model has Vladdy and Bichette as the slate's first- and second-ranked bats, respectively.

George Springer ($2,800) and Daulton Varsho ($2,700) are fantastic point-per-dollar plays. We rate Springer, who will likely hit leadoff, as the top point-per-dollar hitter outside of Coors. Varsho donged last night and might be emerging from his slow start.

Brandon Belt ($2,500) will have the platoon advantage versus Pivetta, and Alejandro Kirk ($2,700) offers good pop at a modest salary.

Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs boast a 4.86 implied total for a road date with Jake Irvin.

This is Irvin's MLB debut, and he hasn't been very good this year in Triple-A, posting a 5.30 xFIP, 11.2% walk rate and 20.4% strikeout rate.

Chicago's offense has been one of the surprises of the year thus far. The Cubbies rank second in wOBA (.346) with the sixth-most homers (40).

Cody Bellinger ($4,000), Nico Hoerner ($3,700) and Patrick Wisdom ($3,800) are off to stellar starts, and their salaries have been adjusted accordingly. Bellinger is the one I'll prioritize from this group. He'll have the platoon advantage against the right-handed Irvin, and Bellinger has torched righties for a .385 wOBA and 49.1% fly-ball rate so far this campaign.

Ian Happ ($3,000), Dansby Swanson ($3,100), Eric Hosmer ($2,500) and Seiya Suzuki ($2,800) come at friendly salaries. If Edwin Rios ($2,300) gets into the lineup, he'll be a sweet value option.

Baltimore Orioles

I wrote up the Baltimore Orioles yesterday, and they delivered 11 runs, with Ryan Mountcastle going wild (57.1 FanDuel points). The O's are in another good spot today and are showing a 4.87 implied total against Zack Greinke.

Greinke has a 13.2% strikeout rate and 4.80 SIERA since the start of last season. He doesn't have much left in the tank, and he's been tagged for 2.03 homers per nine so far in 2023.

Cedric Mullins ($3,800) is an elite option who should be back atop the order with a righty on the bump. Mullins pairs a 48.1% fly-ball rate with 11 steals, giving him gobs of upside.

Anthony Santander ($2,900), Gunnar Henderson ($2,500) Adley Rutschman ($3,300) and Adam Frazier ($2,600) come in at easy-to-like salaries. Mountcastle ($3,500) might attract extra attention after last night's big game, but with Greinke allowing a 42.6% fly-ball rate to righties this year, Mountcastle is capable of going deep once again.