4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 9/1/20

In the world of daily baseball, stacks are often the backbone of the most successful -- and profitable -- lineups. Correlation is the key.

When an offense hangs runs in bunches, it means hitters are scoring runs and teammates hitting behind them are driving them in. By rostering stacks, you’re maximizing the fantasy scoring by essentially double dipping on a run-scoring event.

This is your daily home for the top stacks on the daily fantasy baseball slate. Whether you’re looking to identify the projected highest-scoring stacks or contrarian stacks that can help you separate from the pack in GPPs when they explode, they’ll be thrown under the spotlight here.

Gamers who are numberFire premium members can throw these highlighted stacks into an optimized lineup using our DFS Sharpstack tool. The tool allows you to select the team and number of players from that team you’d like to include in your lineup. If you’re looking to identify other potentially high-scoring stacks beyond those featured in this space, check out our hitting heat map, a tool that provides valuable info such as implied total, park factor, and stats to identify the quality of the opposing pitcher.

Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s main slate’s featured stacks.

New York Mets

Whether looking at Asher Wojciechowski traditional measures of performance in the form of a 5.13 ERA this year or his advanced numbers such as his 4.82 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), per FanGraphs, he's been bad. He's surrendering 2.39 homers per nine innings this season, and his home digs, Oriole Park at Camden Yard, will make it tough to reel in his long-ball problems with the third-highest park factor for homers (1.209), according to FantasyPros.

The right-handed hurler's been especially giving to left-handed hitters. The 230 lefties he's faced since the start of last year have rocked him for a .525 slugging percentage and .362 weighted on-base average (wOBA). Power-packed righty Pete Alonso ($3,600) isn't an insta-toss from New York Mets stacks, but it's the myriad of talented lefties in the lineups who are the apples of my eye from my favorite stack of the night.

Brandon Nimmo ($2,900) and Michael Conforto (3,100) offer massive ceilings that bely their respective salaries right out of the gate. A resurgent Robinson Cano ($3,500) has drilled righties for a .460 OBP, .246 isolated power (ISO) and 204 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) in 63 plate appearances this year. Also, Dominic Smith ($3,600) has been a stud in a regular role this year, battering righties for a .395 OBP, .403 ISO and 199 wRC+. This quartet of lefties makes up my favorite full Mets stack.

Cleveland Indians

The Cleveland Indians are nipping at the Mets' heels tonight for the distinction of my favorite stack. The reason is simple -- they're facing a beyond washed-up Matt Harvey. The veteran righty has made two starts for the Kansas City Royals and yielded 7 earned runs on 9 hits, 2 walks and 2 homers in just 6 and 2/3 innings.

Harvey's batted-ball data is downright awful. Out of 491 pitchers who have a minimum of 25 plate appearances against them, Harvey's .447 expected wOBA (xwOBA) is 19th-highest, according to Baseball Savant. The league average for xwOBA this year is only .334, a whopping 113 points below Harvey's astronomical mark.

Harvey's ineptitude on the hill these days makes the entirety of the Indians' lineup stackable, but the guys who can put a charge into the ball and reside in the top half of the order are the ones who merit the most attention. That starts with Jose Ramirez ($3,900) from the second spot in the order. In 1,405 plate appearances against righties since 2017, he owns a .270 ISO. Number-three hitter Francisco Lindor ($3,300) has amassed a strong .243 ISO against righties during the same time period and is substantially cheaper than his infield mate.

Carlos Santana ($3,200) lags behind Ramirez and Lindor, but his .201 ISO during the same timeframe is good. The final option I'm intrigued by is mashing outfielder Franmil Reyes ($3,000). He debuted in only 2018, but he's posted eye-catching power numbers including a .250 ISO against righties. He also shows well on the Statcast leaderboard, ranking tied for 37th out of 257 hitters in fly-ball and line-drive exit velocity at a sizzling 96.1 miles per hour.

Colorado Rockies

The Colorado Rockies aren't going to fly under the radar at home. When in doubt, you can do worse than stacking at by far MLB's most hitter-friendly park. Coors Field's 1.335 park factor for runs is way ahead of the second-highest mark of 1.096 at Nationals Park.

Opposing starter Kevin Gausman's component stats that include a juicy 31.6 percent strikeout percentage and 3.13 SIERA suggest his 4.54 ERA has been unlucky, but he significantly underperformed his 4.10 SIERA in 2019 when compiling a 5.72 ERA. A common thread between both seasons is struggles stranding baserunners, and he previously demonstrated the same woes early in his career.

If Gausman's unable to work around the runners he puts on base, that's a recipe for blowup potential for the host Rockies. Per usual, a Rockies stack revolves around their trio of studs -- Trevor Story ($4,400), Charlie Blackmon ($4,200) and Nolan Arenado ($4,100). The rest of the lineup is stackable given the park factors at Coors Field, but the highest-ceiling stack of Colorado's bats includes the trio of their pricy stars.

If you're shopping in the bargain bin at pitcher tonight, the Rockies are worth a look. Having said that, you can always use any member of this stack as a one-off option tacked onto any of the other stacks touted in this space.

Atlanta Braves

The Boston Red Sox are desperate enough for starting pitching help that they're turning back to Ryan Weber. He's held his own in five relief appearances since getting rocked in three starts to open the year. He lasted only 10 innings in those three starts, getting blasted for a 9.90 ERA and 7.99 SIERA. Further, even including his respectable bullpen work fails to bring his gaudy .396 xwOBA down to respectability.

Compounding Weber's awful batted-ball issues is his pitch-to-contact profile. He's struck out only 10.4 percent of the batters he's faced this year, and his 4.9 swinging-strike percentage is the lowest among pitchers who've thrown at least 20 innings this year. If Ronald Acuna ($4,100) returns to the lineup tonight, he's a top option hitting leadoff for the Atlanta Braves.

Freddie Freeman ($4,000) is also a great option in the stack. He has the platoon advantage against Weber, and Weber has given up a .567 slugging and .391 wOBA to 144 lefties faced since the start of last year. For his part, Freeman's a masher of right-handed pitchers with a .409 OBP, .253 ISO and 150 wRC+ against them since 2017.

However, price considered, Austin Riley ($2,500) is probably the best bargain. Even excluding last night's single and triple in five plate appearances, Riley's in a nice groove with a .328 OBP, .230 ISO and 125 wRC+ in 64 plate appearances from August 9 through August 30. The fly in the ointment in Riley's game is his swing-and-miss issues, but Weber's ill-equipped to exploit Riley's punch-out problem with just a 15.4 percent strikeout percentage against righties since last year.

Marcell Ozuna ($3,300), Nick Markakis ($2,700) and, if he's in the lineup, Adam Duvall ($2,300) offer varying degrees of stacking appeal tonight, too.

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.