MLB

3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Tuesday 4/27/21

Josh Shepardson  —  @BChad50 Apr 27th, 2021
Will the Baltimore Orioles take advantage of a struggling Corey Kluber tonight? Which other spots stand out on Tuesday's large slate?

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.

New York Yankees

The New York Yankees face lefty Bruce Zimmermann tonight. The rookie lefty got a taste of the bigs last year, and he broke camp in the rotation this year. He's pitched 28 and 2/3 innings for the Baltimore Orioles, and they've left a lot to be desired. According to FanGraphs, Zimmermann is responsible for a 5.34 ERA, 4.63 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), and 1.88 homers per nine innings.

He does a poor job of avoiding bats with only an 18.2 percent strikeout rate. That's fine for pitchers who generate poor contact, but Zimmermann doesn't do that. Baseball Savant credits him with a .384 expected weight on-base average (xwOBA), much higher than the league average of .313. Compounding Zimmermann's shortcomings is his home ballpark's hitter-friendy park factors. Oriole Park at Camden Yards has park factors of 1.022 for runs and 1.171 for homers, using FantasyPros' three-year averages.

Righties have teed off on Zimmermann, amassing a .513 slugging and .359 wOBA. The Yankees' lineup is chock full of righties. My favorite options are Aaron Judge ($3,500) and Giancarlo Stanton ($3,700). Since 2018, Judge owns a .380 on-base percentage, .258 isolated power (ISO), and 144 weighted runs created plus (wRC+).

San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Giants hung a dozen runs on the visiting Colorado Rockies last night, and they should resume the beatdown of their National League West rival tonight. Chi Chi Gonzalez has a 3.00 ERA through 15 innings this year, but his 5.53 SIERA is a better indicator of his caliber of pitching.

Gonzalez has walked nearly as many batters as he's struck out this year with seven free passes and eight punchouts. A small disparity between his strikeouts and walks is nothing new, as he has an 11.8 percent walk rate and 13.8 percent strikeout rate in his career. Gonzalez isn't a big-league caliber starter despite his spot in Colorado's rotation.

The 29-year-old righty sports a .369 xwOBA this year, and that's on par with his norm. Colorado's bullpen stinks, too, with the fifth-worst ERA (5.30) in 2021. Overall, this is a mouthwatering draw for the Giants.

Left-handed hitters Brandon Belt ($2,700) and Alex Dickerson ($2,700) are my two favorite batters from this stack, hitting in the heart of the order in the cleanup and fifth spot, respectively. Since 2018, Belt has a .362 on-base percentage, .212 ISO, and 124 wRC+ against righties. Dickerson's been even better in that time frame with a .346 OBP, .241 ISO, and 129 wRC+ against righties.

Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles will enjoy the same favorable hitting conditions I gushed about in the Yankees' write-up above. They, too, have a plus matchup. Corey Kluber is a shell of his Cy Young Award-winning self. He has a 5.40 ERA, 5.55 SIERA, 15.1 percent walk rate, 19.2 percent strikeout rate, and allowed 1.80 homers per nine innings. He's pitched 51 and 2/3 innings since 2019, and he's been beaten like a drum to the tune of a 5.57 ERA and 4.95 SIERA.

This year, his batted-ball data has resulted in a .349 xwOBA. Couple that with his wretched control, and you have a powder keg ready to explode. The O's lack star power in their lineup, but they have enough offensive threats to get after Kluber in his current state.

Baltimore's bats in the top-five spots are the top targets. Having said that, the only hitter I'll explicitly draw your attention to is Cedric Mullins ($2,900). The team's leadoff hitter mashed a pair of taters last night. The 26-year-old outfielder is scalding hot this year with a .419 on-base percentage, .212 ISO, and 183 wRC+. He even adds a speed element to enhance his upside with two stolen bases.

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.