3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Monday 5/3/21

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.

Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers exploded for 16 runs yesterday, and they're facing a righty tonight, Kyle Hendricks, who was tattooed for seven runs in only 3 and 2/3 innings in his last start. It was Hendricks' second seven-run meltdown in five starts this year.

Hendricks has never been a flamethrower, but his fastball's down another tick, and, more alarmingly, his called strikes and whiffs have cratered. It's a recipe that's led to a 7.54 ERA and 4.54 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) as well as boatloads of bombs. According to FanGraphs, among starters who've pitched a minimum of 20 innings this year, Hendricks' 3.97 homers per nine innings is the most allowed to hitters by a wide margin over the 2.74 homers per nine innings slotted in second.

Hendricks hasn't been especially tough on lefties or righties. He's yielded a .440 slugging and .312 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to lefties since 2020 and a .455 slugging and .320 weighted on-base average to righties. According to Baseball Savant, he's responsible for an eye-popping .422 expected wOBA (xwOBA), the eighth-highest mark out of 141 pitchers with a minimum of 50 batted-ball events.

You can attack Hendricks with a stack from top to bottom with this lineup. The Dodgers have used 10 different hitters in their last three lineups facing right-handed pitchers the last three days, and eight of them have a weighted runs created plus (wRC+) north of 105 since 2018 against righties. Seriously, this group is stackable from Mookie Betts ($4,000) in the leadoff spot through the eighth spot in the order. However, the standard one-through-four stack with Betts, Corey Seager ($3,600), Justin Turner ($3,700), and Max Muncy ($3,200) is my favorite full-stack.

San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Giants open a series at Coors Field tonight against the Colorado Rockies. According to the three-year average park factors at FantasyPros, Coors Field is the top ballpark in Major League Baseball for runs (1.362), singles (1.230), and triples (2.177), and it ranks second for homers (1.257) and doubles (1.345). There's a reason why the over/under totals there are often of the double-digit variety.

Tonight's no exception. MLB odds lists the game's total at 10 runs. The Giants represent my preferred stack in this contest, taking cuts against German Marquez. The righty hasn't been particularly sharp this year, sporting a 13.3 percent walk rate and a 1.47 WHIP. Facing the Giants last week, he constantly dealt with traffic, ceding four hits and three walks in only four innings pitched.

Marquez has also struggled mightily throughout his career at home. In 316 innings pitched at home in his career, he has a 4.96 ERA and .337 wOBA. Lefties, holding the platoon advantage, have fared the best against him at home, producing a .340 wOBA. With that in mind, my favorite stacking options from the Giants include Mike Tauchman ($2,700), Brandon Belt ($3,100), and Alex Dickerson ($3,000).

Philadelphia Phillies

Picking a third stack today wasn't a slam-dunk decision. Ultimately, the Philadelphia Phillies stood out from the other options, though. One of the primary reasons why they get the nod is the homer-friendly nature of Citizens Bank Park. It has the third-highest park factor for homers at 1.202.

Another reason for including this stack is the mediocrity of Adrian Houser. The 28-year-old righty's 3.65 ERA isn't terrible, but his 4.20 SIERA is ho-hum. He also strikes hitters out at a below-average clip with an 18.6 percent strikeout rate, far below this year's league average of 24.4 percent.

The players you're best suited to attack Houser with are the lefties. Houser's been completely inept facing lefties. He's coughed up a .412 on-base percentage, .542 slugging, and .409 wOBA to 187 lefties faced since 2020.

My favorite lefties who could be in the lineup include Didi Gregorius ($2,900), Brad Miller ($2,700), and, of course, Bryce Harper ($4,200). Gregorius sports a .207 isolated power (ISO) and 110 wRC+ against righties since 2018. Miller's responsible for a .230 ISO and 120 wRC+. Harper leads the group with a .253 ISO and 135 wRC+.

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.