3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Wednesday 8/18/21
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.
Boston Red Sox
Andrew Heaney has a homer problem, and the Boston Red Sox are equipped to amplify it. According to FanGraphs, expanding upon Heaney's homer woes, he's allowed 1.98 homers per nine innings in 21 starts. Remarkably, things have gotten worse lately, too, allowing 2.91 homers per nine innings in his last nine starts.
Overall, he's responsible for a 5.78 ERA. Joining the New York Yankees hasn't helped him right the ship, either. He has a 9.00 ERA through his first three turns with the Bronx Bombers.
There's no shortage of options to pick from to stack against him. Nonetheless, I'm specifically focused on Xander Bogaerts ($3,900), J.D. Martinez ($4,000), and Bobby Dalbec ($2,600). The duo of Bogaerts and Martinez are ripping lefties this year, and each has an extensive history of annihilating them.
Dalbec has a .263 isolated power (ISO) and 127 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) in his young career against southpaws. In addition, he's cooking in the second half, sporting a .269 ISO and 130 wRC+ in 74 plate appearances since the MLB All-Star break.
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves have a mouthwatering matchup with Jesus Luzardo. The young lefty has been a trainwreck this year. He's coughed up a 7.52 ERA, 2.39 homers per nine innings, and 4.80 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) in 52 and 2/3 innings pitched in The Show this year. Things weren't much better for him at the Triple-A level, either, resulting in a 6.52 ERA in eight starts.
The southpaw's provided right-handed batters batting practice this year. Specifically, he's ceded a .606 slugging percentage and .414 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to the 185 righties he's faced. So naturally, I'm fixated on Atlanta's top righties.
Technically, Ozzie Albies ($4,400) isn't a righty. However, the switch-hitting second baseman bats righty against southpaws. He also excels in recording a .368 on-base percentage, .290 ISO, and 158 wRC+ in 133 plate appearances this year.
Jorge Soler ($3,300) slots behind Albies, and he's muscled up for a .286 ISO in 131 plate appearances in 2021 against lefties. Austin Riley ($3,800) and Travis d'Arnaud ($2,800) aren't having banner years against lefties. However, the former has a .249 ISO, and the latter has a .212 ISO against them since 2019.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers draw another underwhelming righty tonight. That's great news for Major League Baseball's second-best offense against righties (113 wRC+). Revisiting the underwhelming righty, JT Brubaker has a 5.13 ERA, 2.00 homers per nine innings, and 4.03 SIERA for the year. However, the wheels have come off the bus lately, resulting in a 7.52 ERA, 3.10 homers per nine innings, and 4.56 SIERA in his last eight starts.
Brubaker's been thoroughly mediocre against righties, allowing a .320 wOBA. However, he's been worse against lefties, coughing up a .349 wOBA to them. Brubaker's inability to hold either handedness of hitter in check forbodes a long night on the horizon for him.
Gamers can stack the Dodgers from top to bottom. The sheer depth they have allows them to award talented regulars the night off, so it's anyone's guess who gets a breather tonight. Having said that, Max Muncy ($3,900) will presumably be back in the lineup tonight after a rest day yesterday. He's my favorite option in their offense, owning a .393 on-base percentage, .283 ISO, and 152 wRC+ against righties in 2021.
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.
