MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 9/15/20

The New York Mets are among the top stacks on Tuesday. Which other teams are in good spots?

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.

Colorado Rockies

Let's start with the elephant in the room. There's a game at Coors Field tonight, and it's highly stackable starting with the host Colorado Rockies. Coors Field remains the unquestioned top dog for offensive fireworks, leading the way in park factor for runs (1.335), ranking second in park factor for homers (1.249), and also boosting singles (1.168), doubles (1.313) and triples (2.140), according to the MLB park factors at FantasyPros.

Visiting starter Sean Manaea has been a man on fire, stringing together four straight starts in which he's ceded just one earned run and pitched at least five innings. His last turn was his best, surrendering just 1 earned run on 2 hits, 0 walks, and 4 strikeouts in 7 innings. In his last five starts spanning 27 and 1/3 innings, Manaea owns a 1.98 ERA and 3.66 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), according to FanGraphs.

As good as he's been, he's relied on batted balls for outs with just a 10.5 swinging-strike percentage and a 20.8 percent strikeout percentage. Relying on batted balls at Coors Field is playing with fire.

Nolan Arenado ($4,200) was out of Colorado's lineup in their last game due to a shoulder injury, but he's avoided the injured list at the time of writing this piece, so he's in the stacking mix if he returns to the lineup tonight. Anyone in the lineup is a viable stacking option given the way scoring can snowball at Coors Field in any given game, but Trevor Story ($4,400) and Charlie Blackmon ($4,200) join Arenado -- again, if he's back in the lineup tonight -- as the key cogs of any stack of the Rockies.

In 289 plate appearances at home against lefties since 2017, Story's tallied a .398 OBP, .417 isolated power (ISO) and 162 weighted run created plus (wRC+). The left-handed hitting Blackmon has been unfazed by same-handed matchups at home, too. In fact, he's excelled with a .433 OBP, .290 ISO and 160 wRC+.

Oakland Athletics

Like the Rockies, the Oakland Athletics will enjoy the drool-inducing park factors for hitters at Coors Field and make for a highly-stackable lineup from top to bottom.

Additionally, they're also facing a pitch-to-contact hurler. Antonio Senzatela has a 9.0 swinging-strike percentage and 14.8 percent strikeout percentage this year, both well below the league averages of 11.2 percent and 23.1 percent, respectively. He's also been quite lucky on batted balls coughing up only a .308 weighted on-base average (wOBA) that's well below his .348 expected wOBA (xwOBA), according to Baseball Savant.

As you can see in this table from FanGraphs, the A's have exceptional depth on their active roster with players posting above-average numbers against righties since 2017 (or since debuting in the Majors for players in the table who reached the Majors after the 2017 season). Sean Murphy ($3,000) leads the group in ISO (.324) and wRC+ (159) against righties, albeit in a small sample of 123 plate appearances since reaching the Majors last year. Suffice to say, he's worthy of a look in stacks. Really, everyone in the lineup is worth a look.

Having said that, Matt Olson ($3,900) is the only member of their lineup I believe is a must-use hitter. In 1,138 plate appearances against righties since 2017, he has a .353 OBP, .291 ISO and 141 wRC+. This year, he's smashed 13 homers with a .257 ISO.

New York Mets

The only park with a higher park factor for homers than Coors Field is Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia with a park factor of 1.251 for dingers. The New York Mets will get a power bump from playing their tonight. Their lineup will also benefit from seeing Jake Arrieta on the bump.

Arrieta's lasted only 39 innings in his eight starts, and he's been touched up for a 5.54 ERA and 4.97 SIERA. He's also responsible for an unsightly .381 xwOBA. Enter the Mets and their MLB-high 128 wRC+ against righties this year to pile onto Arrieta's season-long struggles. Lefties have knocked Arrieta around for a .476 slugging and .342 wOBA this year, and the Mets' lineup is often filled with six of them when a righty starts against them. Don't discount the stacking value of the right-handed hitters such as J.D. Davis ($2,600) and Pete Alonso ($3,500), though, as Arrieta's coughed up a .353 wOBA to them this year.

Circling back to the lefties, Michael Conforto ($3,500), Dominic Smith ($3,400) and Robinson Cano ($3,200) are my three favorite options. Conforto's creamed righties for a .389 OBP, .249 ISO and 144 wRC+ since 2017. Smith has been a beast at the dish with regular playing time this year, ripping off a .396 OBP, .304 ISO and 173 wRC+. Meanwhile, Cano's turned back the clock with a .358 OBP, .224 ISO and 141 wRC+ this season. The Mets are my co-favorite stack with the final remaining one up next.

Los Angeles Angels

The mystery didn't last long for my other co-favorite stack, the Los Angeles Angels.

Madison Bumgarner's first season with the Arizona Diamondbacks has been an unmitigated disaster. In six starts spanning 26 and 1/3 innings, he has an eye-popping 7.52 ERA and 6.15 SIERA. He's also been giving up gopher balls at an absurd rate, allowing 3.76 homers per nine innings. The southpaw's had no answers for righties. The 93 right-handed hitters he's faced this year have teed off on him for a .722 slugging and .444 wOBA.

I don't love an Angels stack from top to bottom. Instead, I'm fixated on the star-studded duo of Mike Trout ($4,500) and Anthony Rendon ($4,000) as well as Justin Upton ($2,700). Among qualified hitters facing lefties since 2017, Trout ranks 12th in wRC+ (153) and fifth in OBP (.429) while amassing a strong .242 ISO. As great as Trout has been, Rendon's bested him in ISO (.303) and wRC+ (159) while getting on base at a superb .414 clip.

Upton doesn't have the bona fides of Trout and Rendon, but his .228 ISO and 110 wRC+ against lefties since 2017 are nothing to sneeze at. He's also distanced himself from a frigid start to the 2020 season and totaled a sizzling .458 OBP, .220 ISO and 191 wRC+ in 48 plate appearances since August 28.


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.