MLB

3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Monday 4/26/21

The Houston Astros have a plus matchup versus Justus Sheffield tonight. 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.

Houston Astros

The Houston Astros have one of the highest implied totals on tonight's nine-game slate. The juicy implied total is understandable with lefty Justus Sheffield getting the ball for the Seattle Mariners. The Astros hammer lefties. According to FanGraphs, they rank tied for fourth in weighted runs created plus (wRC+) against lefties this year with a 124 wRC+.

Houston's lineup is largely right-handed, so it's not surprising they hit left-handed pitching hard, holding the platoon advantage. The platoon advantage has played well for righties facing Sheffield, too. The southpaw starter has yielded a .317 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to 234 right-handed batters since 2020.

Sheffield's not pitching in top form this year, either. He's sporting an ugly 4.86 ERA, 4.27 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), 1.62 homers per nine innings, and, according to Baseball Savant, a .384 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA).

The Astros expect Jose Altuve ($3,500) back from the COVID-19 injured list this week, and he'll add a high-end bat to the lineup if he's in there tonight. Although, I'm not crazy about using him off of his layoff and after testing positive for coronavirus.

The players I'm most interested in from this stack are headlined by Alex Bregman ($3,800). The third baseman's ripped the cover off of southpaw offerings, recording a .422 on-base percentage, .308 isolated power (ISO), and 184 wRC+ in 486 plate appearances against lefties since 2018. Yulieski Gurriel ($2,900), Yordan Alvarez ($3,100), and Carlos Correa ($3,600) make up the remaining players who comprise my favorite four-person stack.

San Francisco Giants

Austin Gomber has started four games totaling 21 and 1/3 innings this year for the Colorado Rockies, and his 3.38 ERA is deceiving. He hasn't been very good. The lefty's walked an absurd 17.2 percent of the hitters he's faced, and a .160 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is keeping his ERA in check. His BABIP is due for regression. Additionally, he's riding an unsustainable .258 wOBA that's out of whack from his .338 xwOBA.

The San Francisco Giants have a patient offense capable of exacerbating Gomber's poor control. Their 11.2 walk percentage against lefties this season is tied for the sixth-highest mark. Just how much I love this stack is contingent on the health of Wilmer Flores ($2,400) and Evan Longoria ($2,600). The former left yesterday's game early feeling under the weather, and the latter has missed three straight games with a sore hamstring. If one or both are back in the lineup, I'm fully enamored with a complete stack.

Others I'm planning to use in stacks are Austin Slater ($2,600) and Darin Ruf ($2,300). Since 2019, Slater has a .393 on-base percentage, .255 ISO, and 148 wRC+ against lefties. Ruf returned stateside from the Korean Baseball Organization last year, and he's muscled up for a .324 ISO against lefties in 84 plate appearances. I also draw your attention to the salaries of my favorite options for this stack, as the value they provide extends beyond their hitting abilities to the cap savings they provide.

Oakland Athletics

Rich Hill hasn't had it this year, as evidenced by his hilariously bad 8.82 ERA and 2.20 homers per nine. Sure, his 4.32 SIERA is much better than his actual ERA, but it's not a number to avoid stacking against.

Further, Hill's not a pitcher to avoid with an Oakland Athletics offense sitting third this year in wRC+ (129) and fourth in ISO (.205) against lefties. Enhancing the appeal of using the A's, seven of their hitters have a wRC+ above 100 against lefties since 2018. Three members of that group have a wRC+ above 120.

My two favorite stacking options are leadoff hitter Mark Canha ($3,500) and Matt Chapman ($2,900). Both have above-average power against lefties. Canha's smashed lefties for a .265 ISO and 146 wRC+ since 2018. Chapman's responsible for a .223 ISO and 124 wRC+ against lefties since 2018.

Even in a lefty-lefty matchup, Matt Olson ($3,800) is worth a look given his top-shelf pop. Ramon Laureano ($3,200) and Jed Lowrie ($3,100) are above-average hitters against lefties and have favorable lineup spots, slotting cleanup and second in the order against a lefty yesterday respectively. Finally, Sean Murphy ($2,500) and Stephen Piscotty ($2,600) could fly below the radar in a stack I'm not expecting to be chalky anyway.


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.