3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/13/21

Stacks are the backbone of cashing daily fantasy baseball lineups. Correlation drives upside, creating the potential to place high or even win GPPs when your selected stacks explode offensively.

This column will do the digging and the dirty work to determine which stacks are worth rostering each day. Scoring upside will fuel the stacks that get the nod. Sometimes that will lead to chalky selections, but contrarian stacks will get their fair share of love too.

In addition to utilizing the touted daily stacks in handbuilt lineups, numberFire premium members can throw these highlighted stacks into an optimized lineup using our DFS Sharpstack tool. Our hitting heat map tool is also available to premium members looking for more stacking options. It provides valuable info such as implied total, park factors, and stats for identifying the quality of the opposing pitcher.

Let's take a look at the top stacks on today's main slate.

Washington Nationals

Tonight's main slate is loaded with aces, but Jack Flaherty doesn't really fit the bill as one of them. Yes, he's the top starter for the St. Louis Cardinals, but save for his dominant second half in 2019, he has left a lot to be desired. To that point, he's been beaten up for a 4.97 ERA and 4.12 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) since the start of last year, per FanGraphs. Further, his work since 2020 compares favorably to his 4.64 ERA in the first half of 2019. His 0.91 ERA in the second half that season greatly skews the perception of the caliber of starter Flaherty is.

Also, the batted-ball data isn't pretty for Flaherty since last year. According to Baseball Savant, he had a .341 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) last year and has a .387 xwOBA in this year's small sample. Since last year, the right-handed Flaherty has been most susceptible against lefties, yielding a .326 wOBA to them.

The top option in a Washington Nationals stack is their left-handed all-world superstar, Juan Soto ($4,100). Soto burst onto the scene, but he's blossomed into arguably the best hitter in baseball. In 150 plate appearances against righties since the start of 2020, he's smashed them to the tune of a .520 on-base percentage, .288 isolated power (ISO), and 195 weighted runs created plus (wRC+).

The Nationals' lineup was bolstered last night by the debuts of a couple more hitters who bat left-handed against righties, Josh Bell ($2,500) and Kyle Schwarber ($2,500). They are two of my favorite bargain selections tonight, and both have above-average power against righties. Bell has ripped them for a .222 ISO since 2018, and Schwarber's muscled up to an even greater extent, recording a .275 ISO in the split in that time.

Tablesetters Victor Robles (2,600) and Trea Turner ($4,000) are the other hitters worth considering. As a bonus, stacking Robles, Soto, Bell, and Schwarber is a cap-friendly move, leaving space for an ace and another high-upside stack.

Houston Astros

Houston Astros carry a slate-best 5.10 implied total. Opposing starter Matt Boyd has pitched respectably through two turns in the rotation this year, but he's still the owner of a 5.92 ERA and 4.57 SIERA since the start of last year. He's also been homer prone, coughing up 1.85 dingers per nine innings.

The veteran southpaw has been at his worst facing righties, ceding a .469 on-base percentage, .567 slugging, and .393 wOBA to the 272 he's faced since last year. Fire up Houston's top righties, namely Jose Altuve ($4,000) and Alex Bregman ($3,900). The former's touched up southpaws for a .366 on-base percentage and 135 wRC+ since 2018, and Bregman has been downright dominant with a .420 on-base percentage, .315 ISO, and 184 wRC+. Yulieski Gurriel ($2,900) and Carlos Correa ($3,100) are a couple more righties who merit stacking consideration.

Lefty Michael Brantley ($3,500) is a defensible option thanks to hitting in the two-hole and being an above-average hitter against lefties, but I prefer to drop him from the stack. Fellow outfield-eligible lefty Yordan Alvarez ($3,700) is a must-use player in an Astros stack, though. He's terrorized southpaws for a .380 on-base percentage, .333 ISO, and 168 wRC+ with a massive 47.6 percent hard-hit percentage. My primary roster includes a three-person stack of Altuve, Bregman, and Alvarez with a four-man Nationals stack.

New York Yankees

Stacking the New York Yankees burned me last night, but it's paramount in DFS to be willing to turn the page. They face another lefty, Hyun-jin Ryu, tonight. Ryu's no slouch, and he already pitched respectably against New York on Opening Day, holding them to two runs on four hits, one walk, and five strikeouts in 5 and 1/3 innings. My willingness to stack the Bronx Bombers isn't so much about Ryu; it's about the location of tonight's game, and the Yanks' own excellence against lefties.

According to the park-factor data at Baseball America, TD Ballpark in Dunedin, the temporary home for the Toronto Blue Jays, is a hitter-friendly park with park factors of 1.116 for runs and 1.215 for homers. In the admittedly small sample of four games played there this year, there have been three offensive outbursts, with the Los Angeles Angels hanging seven runs twice and the Blue Jays piling up 15 runs in a game, as well.

As for the studs in New York's lineup, five of their hitters have a wRC+ above 125 against lefties since 2018, and three have exceeded a 150 wRC+. The three supreme lefty-mashers are DJ LeMahieu ($3,400), Giancarlo Stanton ($3,500), and Aaron Judge ($4,000). In that order, they've produced a 153 wRC+ and .218 ISO, 164 wRC+ and .306 ISO, and 176 wRC+ and .307 ISO, respectively, against southpaws since 2018. If you're stacking the Bronx Bombers, I suggest prioritizing using LeMahieu, Stanton, and Judge.

Gio Urshela ($2,700) and Gleyber Torres ($2,600) are my two favorite candidates to mix in with the already touted trio for a full four-man stack. They represent the other two hitters with a wRC+ above 125 -- at 128 and 132, respectively. After producing a dud last night (outside of Kyle Higashioka), this stack could prove to be a bit contrarian, increasing the GPP appeal.

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.