3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Monday 4/17/23

Stacking is an integral part of daily fantasy baseball. Correlation drives upside, giving your lineups a slate-winning ceiling when your stacks explode.

This piece will do the digging and the dirty work each day to determine which stacks are worth rostering on FanDuel's main slate. While we want upside, we also need to factor in game theory, especially in a sport as random as baseball.

Our MLB DFS heat map is a quick way to get a feel for the overall slate and which offenses are in a good spot. You can also check out our daily fantasy baseball projections to identify the slate's best bats.

Let's look at the top stacks for this main slate. We will not talk about the Coors game. The slate's top two implied totals belong to the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates. You'll want exposure to that game, but you don't need me to tell you to stack Coors.

Atlanta Braves

Outside of Coors, this slate is wide open in terms of offense as no team has an implied total above 4.63.

The Atlanta Braves own the top non-Coors implied total for their Petco Park matchup with lefty Ryan Weathers. Across 108 1/3 career innings, Weathers has posted a lowly 17.4% strikeout rate. He's struck out only 13.2% of hitters so far in 2023 (10 innings).

Righties Ronald Acuna ($4,600) and Austin Riley ($3,500) are the Braves' top hitters, with our model ranking both as top-10 bats. As the salary suggests, Acuna is an elite option who is off to a blistering start, recording a .457 expected wOBA with three homers and seven steals thus far. Riley massacred lefties last season, putting up a .455 wOBA, 42.6% hard-hit rate and 41.7% fly-ball rate in the split.

Sean Murphy ($3,400), Vaughn Grissom ($2,800), Marcell Ozuna ($2,500) and Ozzie Albies ($2,800) will all hit from the right side. Kevin Pillar ($2,000) and Eli White ($2,000) are minimum-salaried righties who are viable dart throws if they get into the lineup.

At a gaudy salary, Matt Olson ($4,400) is a tough sell in a lefty-lefty spot. However, that should keep his draft percentage down, and he had a decent .330 wOBA with a 41.0% fly-ball rate in this split a year ago.

Los Angeles Dodgers

We were spoiled with really nice hitting weather last week. That's not the case today. The Los Angeles Dodgers' home game against the New York Mets is one of the exceptions, as the wind is blowing out and it's not too cold.

The Dodgers will see Mets lefty David Peterson. While Peterson is a solid pitcher, he's struggling with walks (11.9% rate in 2023), and LA is showing a 4.57 implied total. The walks should be a big issue tonight, as the Dodgers sit second in walk rate (13.0%).

If you're sticking with LA's righties, you can stack them fairly economically. Even Mookie Betts ($3,700) isn't that high in salary. J.D. Martinez ($3,200) and Trayce Thompson ($3,100) come at modest salaries and will likely be in the middle of the lineup. Miguel Vargas ($2,600) and Chris Taylor ($2,600) are quality salary-savers. Taylor is a handy piece who is eligible at outfield and both middle-infield spots.

Of course, you can still turn to Max Muncy ($3,600) and Freddie Freeman ($3,600) despite the lefty-lefty matchup. Freeman had a .360 wOBA in the split last season while Muncy registered a 39.1% hard-hit rate and 40.2% fly-ball rate against southpaws.

Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs have been one of the surprise offenses so far this campaign, as they sit eighth in wOBA (.337) and eighth in slugging percentage (.429). Chicago can keep it going on Monday.

The Cubs (4.52 implied total) are on the road against Oakland Athletics lefty Kyle Muller. The owner of a blah 4.93 SIERA for his career, Muller hasn't done anything this year to scare us away from stacking him, as he's recorded a 4.80 SIERA and 16.4% strikeout rate through 14 2/3 innings.

As an added bonus, the wind is blowing straight out today at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

Chicago has six hitters salaried between $3,000 and $3,400, and five of them -- Dansby Swanson ($3,300), Nico Hoerner ($3,400), Ian Happ ($3,400), Patrick Wisdom ($3,200) and Seiya Suzuki ($3,000) -- will bat from the right side. Of the bunch, Wisdom is the one I'm prioritizing. He ended 2022 with a juicy .380 wOBA against left-handers.

Trey Mancini ($2,500) is another Cubs bat I'm going to be heavy on. The salary is easy to love, he's eligible at two spots (1B/OF), and he'll have the platoon advantage versus Muller.