MLB

3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/20/21

Will the Cardinals build off a big Monday night at the plate and keep things rolling against a struggling Patrick Corbin? Which other teams should we stack?

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.

St. Louis Cardinals

Despite a contest at Coors Field tonight, neither offense playing in those dreamy hitting conditions is within shouting distance of my favorite stack. The St. Louis Cardinals are squaring off against Patrick Corbin tonight, and he's shown zero ability to keep big-league offenses at bay through his first two starts this year. The 31-year-old lefty has been set ablaze for a 21.32 ERA and 6.62 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) through two starts lasting only 6 and 1/3 innings.

He's walked seven hitters, hit two batters, and struck out only six of the 40 hitters he's faced. The most eye-popping number on his ledger this year is the four homers he's coughed up. Corbin's struggles -- although not to this extent -- go back to last year. In 13 starts since the start of the 2020 season, he has a 6.13 ERA, 4.65 SIERA, and surrendered 1.75 homers per nine innings.

Corbin's been especially inept against right-handed batters. He's ceded a .386 on-base, .555 slugging, and .400 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to the 259 of them he's faced since last year. There might not be a big-league pitcher I'd be more excited to stack against than Corbin in his current funk.

The Cardinals' lineup is filled with righties, and all have merit for usage. However, the quartet of Tommy Edman ($2,900), Paul DeJong ($2,600), Paul Goldschmidt ($3,900), and Nolan Arenado ($4,000) are my favorites.

Edman's in the catbird seat for scoring runs atop the lineup. DeJong smacked a pair of homers yesterday. Goldy and Arenado are my two favorite options from the club, though. Goldy has a .277 isolated power (ISO) and 156 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) against lefties since 2018, and Arenado's outdone him -- albeit with some help from playing home games at Coors Field -- with a .311 ISO and 160 wRC+.

New York Mets

The New York Mets are my favorite stack tonight, and I'll be blending their stack with the Cardinals. They have a chance for their own homer barrage tonight. Jake Arrieta's 3.18 ERA through three starts spanning 17 innings is misleading.

He's serving up liners and hard contact, and he's failing to keep the ball on the ground with just a 26.9 ground-ball percentage, per FanGraphs. The combo has resulted in a .310 wOBA, but he's been fortunate, as evidenced by his .370 xwOBA, according to Baseball Savant. Barring a change to his batted-ball profile, the balls are going to start leaving the yard at a much higher rate against Arrieta.

Today's wind conditions are worth monitoring, as my interest in this stack will wane if the wind is gusting in. However, this stack's appeal will rival the aforementioned Nationals if the wind is blowing out heartily. Anything in between won't damper my enthusiasm for stacking the visiting Mets.

Arrieta's been beatable by righties, surrendering a .323 wOBA to them since last year. However, he's been a punching bag for lefties, coughing up a .356 wOBA to them. Fire up the lefties with confidence.

Factoring in my love of the Cardinals stack, my favorite stacking options from the Mets include Brandon Nimmo ($2,900), Dominic Smith ($2,900), Michael Conforto ($2,800), and Jeff McNeil ($2,700).

Out of that quartet, Nimmo and Smith are the pair I'm head over heels for. Nimmo's responsible for a jaw-dropping .543 on-base percentage this year, and he has a .410 on-base percentage, .210 ISO, and 146 wRC+ in 789 plate appearances against righties since 2018.

Meanwhile, Smith boasts the power to punish Arrieta for his lack of grounders. He has a .256 ISO against righties since 2018. This year, Smith's batted balls have produced a .643 expected slugging that far outpaces his actual .429 slugging.

Washington Nationals

Corbin's struggles are the headline for the Cardinals at the Washington Nationals game, but Adam Wainwright has been shaky, as well. He allowed six runs in 2 and 2/3 innings in his first start of the year and coughed up four (three earned) in only five innings against the Nationals last Monday. The Nats let him wriggle off the hook a bit, putting seven on via hits and working a pair of walks but plating just the four.

They'll have a chance to make up for their modest showing tonight in their second look at him in less than a week. I'm not crazy about the entire lineup and stacking the bottom of the lineup. The star power resides at the top of the lineup, and that's where my attention is.

Trea Turner ($4,100) is an above-average hitter against righties, and he's come out of the gates hot. He's sporting a .273 ISO, .339 on-base percentage, and a 141 wRC+ this year, and he's shown his power/speed combo with four dingers and three stolen bases.

HItting behind Turner of late is Juan Soto ($4,200). He's tallied a 131 wRC+ through 61 plate appearances this year, and the fact that's fairly disappointing speaks volumes about how high he's set the bar for expectations. The 22-year-old superstar has plastered righties for a .434 on-base percentage, .267 ISO, and 159 wRC+ in 982 plate appearances against them.

Not feeling a full Nationals stack? No problem. Consider hooking Turner and Soto together and utilizing them with another stack or two.


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.