4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 9/25/20

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 Yankees

The New York Yankees are home tonight, and that means their thump will get a lift. Yankee Stadium has a park factor of 1.075 for homers, per the three-year average used at FantasyPros. This year, though, it's playing even more homer-friendly with a park factor of 1.611 for taters, which is the third-highest mark, according to ESPN.

Opposing starting pitcher Sandy Alcantara isn't especially homer-prone allowing just 1.04 homers per nine innings, according to FanGraphs, but his below-average ability to miss bats with a 10.8 swinging-strike percentage (11.3 percent is league average in 2020) and 20.7 percent strikeout percentage (23.4 percent is the league average this year) opens the door to the hitters from the Bronx Bombers putting a charge into some of his offerings. Further, his 3.12 ERA is far shinier than his 4.67 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), making him a fine target to stack against.

The top options from the Yankees are right-handed such as DJ LeMahieu ($4,300), Luke Voit ($4,000), Aaron Judge ($4,100), and Giancarlo Stanton ($4,100), but gamers shouldn't shy away from them even though they don't hold the platoon advantage. Having said that, gamers should consider Aaron Hicks ($3,200) and Brett Gardner ($2,700) if either or both are in the lineup tonight. In addition to possibly getting them at a lower rostership rate than their higher-ceiling teammates, they'll also have the opportunity to take aim at Alcantara's .358 weighted on-base average (wOBA) coughed up to lefties this year.

Atlanta Braves

The Boston Red Sox have been trotting out starting pitchers who don't belong in a big-league rotation, and tonight's starter, Chris Mazza, fits that bill. The 30-year-old career minor-leaguer had just 16 and 1/3 innings of a 5.51 ERA under his belt in the Majors -- all pitched last year in nine relief appearances -- before pitching miserably (5.40 ERA and 5.08 SIERA in 25 innings) this season. He's also yielded a .381 expected wOBA (xwOBA) this year, according to Baseball Savant.

Mazza's struggles are good news for the Atlanta Braves and their MLB-high 130 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) against righties this year. They've also mashed righties for big-time power, ranking second with a .234 isolated power (ISO) against righties. Atlanta's entire lineup is stackable, but because I'm digging cap-conscious pitching option Jose Urquidy tonight, I'm all for committing the ample salary cap space needed to roster Atlanta's biggest bats.

The co-crown jewels of a Braves stack are superstar outfielder Ronald Acuna ($4,500) and Freddie Freeman ($4,400). Facing righties since last year, Acuna has ripped off a .376 OBP, .258 ISO, and 136 wRC+, and Freeman's been even better with a .436 OBP, .304 ISO, and 172 wRC+. Offseason addition Marcell Ozuna ($4,400) is a great play, too, and I'm also honed in on Ozzie Albies ($4,200) and Adam Duvall ($3,200) as well.

Cleveland Indians

Mitch Keller's made only four starts spanning 16 and 2/3 innings this year, and his 3.24 ERA doesn't tell the story of his quality of pitching in the admittedly small sample of work. The young righty's 5.91 SIERA is more damning, and he's coughed up 2.16 homers per nine innings. His huge gap between his .309 wOBA and .381 xwOBA further belabors the point of him being quite lucky.

The Cleveland Indians have been bad against righties this year ranking 25th in wRC+ (87) against them, and I'm not a believer in their lineup being stackable throughout the entirety of it. Instead, my favorite four-man stack includes Francisco Lindor ($3,700), Jose Ramirez ($4,100), Carlos Santana ($3,100), and Franmil Reyes ($2,900).

All four hitters have an ISO north of .200 against righties since last year with Santana barely squeaking over that threshold with a .202 ISO, followed by Ramirez's .238 ISO, Lindor's .241 ISO, and headlined by Reyes's .251 ISO. Reyes is the only hitter of the four who won't hold the platoon advantage, as the other three are switch-hitters who will be treated to the ugly .586 slugging and .393 wOBA Keller's served up to the 34 lefties he's faced this year. The sample of struggles against lefties is small, but it also lines up with the .554 slugging and .415 wOBA he ceded to the 103 lefties he faced in his debut last year.

Kansas City Royals

Like the Tribe, the Kansas City Royals are facing a pitcher whose ERA (3.83) is substantially lower than his SIERA (5.04). Spencer Turnbull also has a wide gap between his .287 wOBA and .368 xwOBA. In other words, Turnbull's not as good as he'd appear to be, and that puts the Royals into the stacking mix.

Salvador Perez ($3,700) is the first option from the Royals who comes to mind as he's white-hot. After smacking a pair of homers on Wednesday, Perez ripped another last night. For the year, he's up to 11 homers with a .326 ISO and 184 wRC+.

Leadoff hitter Whit Merrifield ($3,600) is worth a look. Ditto for Adalberto Mondesi ($2,900), Jorge Soler ($3,000), Hunter Dozier ($3,000), and, if he's in the lineup, Franchy Cordero ($2,000). Cordero's buried in the bottom-third of the order, but he's better than his minimum salary would suggest. Also of note, the strikeout-prone hitter throughout his young career has struck out in only 5.9 percent of his 34 plate appearances this year. The development is exciting for a youngster with elite raw power, a .250 ISO this year, and a .211 ISO against righties in his career.

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.