MLB

3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/14/21

The Tampa Bay Rays and the Atlanta Braves have some of the best matchups on the slate. What other teams should we target?

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.

Tampa Bay Rays

The Tampa Bay Rays have a drool-inducing matchup with Kohei Arihara. This is Arihara's first year in the majors, and he's exhibiting a dead-ball-era level of pitching to contact through a pair of starts spanning nine innings. He's allowed a 97.8 percent zone-contact percentage, induced only a 4.1 swinging-strike percentage, and struck out just two batters, per FanGraphs. Pitching to contact can be effective, but Arihara's taking it to the extreme.

Further, he's allowing loud contact. According to Baseball Savant, out of 307 qualified pitchers, Arihara has the 18th-highest expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) for his batted balls, a blistering .470. The MLB average for xwOBA is only .327. Yikes.

Suffice to say; I'm expecting him to get lit up. Additionally, when he gets chased from the game, the Texas Rangers' bullpen could struggle to slow Tampa Bay's offense down. The Rangers have the fourth-highest bullpen ERA this year at 5.36.

The Rays lack lineup depth, but Willy Adames ($2,500) is a usable option from down in the order. Joey Wendle ($3,500) is off to a hot start with a 135 weighted runs created plus (wRC+), prompting manager Kevin Cash to elevate him to the third spot in the order yesterday. He's a viable option in stacks, too.

However, I'm locked in on the trio of Austin Meadows ($3,700), Randy Arozarena ($4,000), and Brandon Lowe ($2,900). I'm giving Lowe a pass on his slow start and leaning toward his track record of success against righties that includes a .340 on-base percentage, .242 isolated power (ISO), and 128 wRC+ since 2018 showing up in games sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, Meadows and Arozarena are off to fast starts, with the former responsible for a .316 ISO, .396 on-base percentage, and 167 wRC+ so far this year, and Arozarena tallying a .341 on-base percentage, .184 ISO, and 132 wRC+ out of the chute.

Atlanta Braves

The case for stacking the Atlanta Braves is easy to make. They have a tasty implied total and tantalizing matchup. Nick Neidert is a rookie righty who doesn't miss bats at a high rate. He made the first start of his big-league career last week, miraculously holding the New York Mets to one run despite walking five batters and allowing three hits in only 4 and 1/3 innings. Further, Neidert did a poor job of enticing hitters to chase out of the strike zone, netting a 20.9 percent outside-zone swing percentage.

The Braves lineup has a few hitters throughout it who can put a charge into the ball, starting with Ronald Acuna ($4,600). The supremely talented outfielder is en fuego, slugging four homers, stealing three bases, and amassing a 257 wRC+ through his first 49 plate appearances this season.

Reigning National League MVP, Freddie Freeman ($4,100), was bumped up to the two-hole last night, and he's the club's best hitter against righties since 2018. During that time, he's thumped them for a .397 on-base percentage, .238 ISO, and 144 wRC+. The combo of Acuna and Freeman are my favorite stacking options from the lineup, but they're not alone.

Marcell Ozuna ($2,800), Ozzie Albies ($2,900), Dansby Swanson ($2,500), and Austin Riley ($2,200) are others I'm willing to mix into stacks. Swanson and Riley have the potential to fly below the radar. Both players are off to a slow start and striking out at high rates, but they can also hit the ball hard and take advantage of Neidert's low swinging-strike percentage.

Philadelphia Phillies

Let's try this again with the Philadelphia Phillies. They were initially slated to face David Peterson on Monday, and I suggested stacking them for that game. Ultimately, the game was postponed, and they played a doubleheader yesterday. Peterson was skipped in the rotation in favor of Taijuan Walker and Marcus Stroman, so I get a do-over for touting the Phillies again tonight.

Peterson has pitched 53 and 2/3 innings for the New York Mets since debuting last year, spinning a solid-if-unspectacular 4.19 ERA. His underlying stats are less impressive, resulting in a 5.15 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA). The Phillies started the ugly regression process in his first start of the year, hammering him for six runs on seven hits, two homers, two walks, and five strikeouts in four innings.

The Phillies offer stacking potential throughout the entire lineup. Six of their hitters have a wRC+ of 118 or higher against lefties since 2018, headlined by Rhys Hoskins ($4,000) and his 143 wRC+. Hoskins also owns a .417 on-base percentage and .246 ISO. Bryce Harper ($4,300), though he doesn't have the platoon advantage in a lefty-lefty matchup, is a high-upside inclusion in stacks with a .382 on-base percentage, .258 ISO, and 138 wRC+.

J.T. Realmuto ($3,400) and Andrew McCutchen ($3,000) join Harper and Hoskins in the top-four spots in the order, and they have cases for being used in a Phillies stack. Finally, don't forget about Alec Bohm ($3,200) and Jean Segura ($2,200).


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.