4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 9/9/20
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.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Taylor Clarke toes the slab for the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight. The righty has spent time relieving and starting for the Diamondbacks with 23 appearances (15 of them for starts) last year and nine appearances (three of them for starts) this year. He's been appreciably worse as a starter. In 18 starts spanning 76 and 1/3 innings, he has a 5.54 ERA, a 5.12 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), and yielded 2.12 homers per nine innings, according to FanGraphs.
Lefties and righties alike have hit him hard, putting the entirety of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the stacking mix. To further elaborate, since reaching the Majors last year, Clarke's coughed up a .335 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to lefties and a .346 wOBA to righties. Clarke's ill-equipped to handle MLB's top offense against right-handed pitchers. This year, the Dodgers lead the way in isolated power (ISO) with a .252 ISO and weighted runs created plus (wRC+) with a 128 wRC+ against righties.
Take your pick of who you'd like to stack from the Dodgers. Mookie Betts ($4,500), Cody Bellinger ($4,100), and Corey Seager ($4,000) each command a salary commitment of $4,000 or more, but they're all worth using. Ditto for Max Muncy ($3,600) for a slightly smaller share of your salary cap space. A.J. Pollock ($3,000) and his .246 ISO and 125 wRC+ in 2020 shouldn't be slept on, either.
New York Mets
Ranking just behind the Dodgers in wRC+ against righties this year are the New York Mets with a gaudy 126 wRC+. They have an even more favorable pitching matchup, too. Jorge Lopez has pitched 19 and 1/3 innings between the bullpen and as a starter this year and amassed a 5.59 ERA and 4.92 SIERA. His batted balls allowed this year have resulted in an expected wOBA (xwOBA) of .361, per Baseball Savant.
The Mets waste no time, offering gamers a strong stacking option in the form of leadoff hitter Brandon Nimmo ($2,900). Since 2017, Nimmo's tallied a .405 OBP, .213 ISO, and 142 wRC+ against righties. The combo of Michael Conforto ($3,200) and Jeff McNeil ($2,800) best Nimmo's excellent wRC+ with the former rattling off a 143 wRC+ against righties since 2017 and the latter ripping righties for a 145 wRC+ since reaching the Majors in 2018.
Others such as reigning home run champion and National League Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso ($3,700), slugger Dominic Smith ($3,400), and the resurgent Robinson Cano ($3,300) each have the bona fides against righties to warrant stack inclusion, too.
Los Angeles Angels
Rookie Kyle Cody is the probable starter for the Texas Rangers, and he might be something closer to an opener than a traditional starter tonight. After appearing as a reliever in his first three games this year, Cody started his last time out and was stretched out to only 45 pitches. The team's 25th-ranked prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, is likely to give way to one of MLB's worst bullpens early.
The Rangers bullpen has the seventh-highest ERA this year at 5.02, and the fourth-highest expected fielding-independent pitching (xFIP) at a 5.01 xFIP. The wretchedness of Texas' bullpen adds to the appeal of stacking the Angels, though, my preferred stack of their lineup are the three studs and an honorable mention for current leadoff hitter, Andrelton Simmons ($2,600).
Shohei Ohtani ($2,800) is the one member of the trio of studs who's struggling this year. Having said that, Ohtani's .169 ISO and 83 wRC+ convery promising batted-ball data. Out of 255 qualified hitters this year, Ohtani ranks tied for 76th in barrels per plate appearance percentage and tied for 96th in fly-ball and line-drive exit velocity, per Baseball Savant. Neither of those ranks are elite by any stretch, but both are comfortably above average.
Speaking of comfortably above average, Anthony Rendon ($4,000) and Mike Trout ($4,700) are piling up top-shelf numbers at the dish this year. Rendon's smacked eight homers with a .427 OBP, .242 ISO, and 163 wRC+ in 164 plate appearances in his first campaign with the Angels. Meanwhile, Trout's responsible for 15 homers (tied for the MLB high), a .398 OBP, .371 ISO, and 178 wRC+. Each has a longstanding history of rocking righties, too.
Texas Rangers
When you think of stackable offenses, the Texas Rangers are probably in the bottom-five options. When you think of top pitchers to stack against, however, Julio Teheran might come to mind. Teheran has an unsightly 7.94 ERA in 22 and 2/3 innings this year, and his 5.88 SIERA suggests he hasn't just been exceptionally unlucky. The veteran righty's coughed up a line drive on 29.9 percent of balls put in play against him and ceded 2.78 homers per nine innings. Additionally, out of 379 qualified pitchers, Teheran's .427 xwOBA ranks as the 14th-highest.
Teheran's ineptitude puts the entirety of a mostly bad Rangers' lineup into the stacking equation. Although, there are two players I'm laser-focused on using specifically. Joey Gallo ($3,300) and his prodigious power is the more obvious of my two favorite options. He's having a down year at the dish, but his power checks out well in the Statcast data, and there's nothing wrong with his .223 ISO -- even if it's low by his lofty standards.
Ronald Guzman ($2,500) is the less obvious player I'm enamored with from this stack. For his young big-league career that dates back to 2018, Guzman has a .336 OBP, .209 ISO, and 105 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers. In just 37 plate appearances this year, he's reached the seats twice with a .432 OBP, .273 ISO, and 179 wRC+. The sample is obviously tiny, but he's putting in work this season.
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.
