3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 8/6/20
In the world of daily baseball, stacks are often the backbone of the most successful -- and profitable -- lineups. Correlation is the key.
When an offense hangs runs in bunches, it means hitters are scoring runs and teammates hitting behind them are driving them in. By rostering stacks, you’re maximizing the fantasy scoring by essentially double-dipping on a run-scoring event.
This is your daily home for the top stacks on the daily fantasy baseball slate. Whether you’re looking to identify the projected highest-scoring stacks or contrarian stacks that can help you separate from the pack in GPPs when they explode, they’ll be thrown under the spotlight here.
Gamers who are numberFire premium members can throw these highlighted stacks into an optimized lineup using our DFS Sharpstack tool. The tool allows you to select the team and number of players from that team you’d like to include in your lineup. If you’re looking to identify other potentially high-scoring stacks beyond those featured in this space, check out our hitting heat map, a tool that provides valuable info such as implied total, park factor, and stats to identify the quality of the opposing pitcher.
Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s main slate’s featured stacks.
Chicago Cubs
On a short five-game slate, the Chicago Cubs are my co-favorite stack of the night. One edge they hold over their forthcoming co-favorites is the depth of their stacking options. The top of the order should be the most-rostered collection of hitters from the Cubs tonight, but hitters down order also have the bona fides to warrant stacking as a down-order stack or a wrap-around stack.
To that point, Ian Happ ($3,000) has frequently called the ninth spot in the order home despite mashing against right-handed pitchers. Since 2017, he owns a .355 OBP, .261 isolate power (ISO), and 125 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) against right-handed pitchers, per FanGraphs. Further, after a down year in 2019 in which he spent much of the season in the minors, he's returned this year to hit well and post eye-catching Statcast data. Among qualified hitters this year, Happ's 7.9 percent barrels per plate appearance percentage and 98.9 miles per hour exit velocity on fly-ball and line-drives rank tied for 54th and tied for 22nd out of 264 hitters, according to Baseball Savant. He's a strong option capping a down-order stack or starting off a wrap-around stack that includes key cogs from the top of the order.
Among the top options at the beginning of the order, Kris Bryant ($3,700), as usual, has a good case for inclusion in daily fantasy lineups. However, after mentioning Anthony Rizzo ($3,700) as a player to toss from a Cubs stack in a lefty-lefty matchup last night, he's my favorite option in the top one-third of the order facing a right-hander tonight. Since 2017, Rizzo's pummeled righties for a .404 OBP, .229 ISO, and 142 wRC+.
With Brad Keller making his first start of the year after returning from an injured list stint spent recovering from Covid-19, there's potential for him being rusty and getting knocked around. On that note, I'll reiterate the entirety of the Cubs offense offers stacking upside, and being willing to go against the grain and do something like a wrap-around stack could be the ticket to a big cashing effort and separating from the other gamers stacking the likely chalky Cubs.
Chicago White Sox
The other MLB team from Chicago, the Chicago White Sox, join their city mates as my co-favorite stack tonight. They'll be taking cuts tonight against Josh Lindblom. This is Lindblom's first season back in MLB after pitching at a high level the last two years in the offensive-friendly Korean Baseball Organization. He left his first start after just 3 and 2/3 innings with back cramps, but the tiny sample in his first start was a mixed bag.
The 33-year-old righty struck out 5 of 17 batters faced, but he also allowed 3 hits, 2 earned runs, and 3 walks. His fastball sat in the low-90s, and he threw the kitchen sink at hitters mixing in a slider, cutter, curve, changeup, and splitter, according to the pitch data at FanGraphs. His lackluster velocity could leave him little wiggle room for mistakes, even with a deep arsenal. Further, his fly-ball heavy batted-ball profile is appealing for stacking power hitters like the White Sox boast against him.
Highly-touted rookie Luis Robert ($3,200) is quickly showing off his ability and has already zoomed up to the top of the order. Through his first 53 plate appearances, he's hit three doubles and a pair of homers, reached base at a .415 OBP, tallied a 177 wRC+, and even stolen four bases in five attempts. Number-two hitter Yoan Moncada ($3,600) is also off to an excellent start with a .404 OBP, .196 ISO, and 168 wRC+ through his first 52 plate appearance. The switch-hitting third baseman also has a stellar track record against righties with a .351 OBP, .216 ISO, and 128 wRC+ against them since 2017.
Jose Abreu ($3,200), Yasmani Grandal ($2,700), and, if he's back in the lineup, Edwin Encarnacion ($2,700), each have cases for stacking inclusion, too. However, sophomore Eloy Jimenez ($3,400) is my third-favorite stacking option behind Robert and Moncada. He's shown off big pop against righties in his young career with a .275 ISO. Jimenez is also doing an elite job of squaring the ball up this season, ranking sixth among qualified hitters with a 16.2 percent barrels per plate appearance mark and checking in 13th in fly-ball and line-drive exit velocity at a whopping 100.4 miles per hour.
Miami Marlins
There are no pitchers with five-figure salaries tonight, and not a single hitter is priced north of $3,900. The lack of high-priced options alleviates the need to rummage through the bargain bin for a stack, but it also opens the door to differentiating your roster from the field by leaving substantial cap space on the table. For full disclosure, I'm not infatuated with using a full-blown four-man stack, but gamers who are hell-bent on doing so can use either Jonathan Villar ($2,600) and/or Jon Berti ($2,100) to accomplish that. Instead, my eyes are fixated on a three-man stack with a couple of options in the trio I truly love.
Corey Dickerson ($2,400) is the hitter in the three-man stack who I don't love but do like due to being sandwiched between the duo I'm infatuated with tonight. The left-handed-hitting outfielder has been an above-average hitter against southpaws since 2017 with a 111 wRC+. His decent production against lefties also plays well against lefty Wade LeBlanc's struggles in lefty-lefty matchups. Last year, LeBlanc coughed up a .567 slugging and .358 weighted on-base average (wOBA) to 134 left-handed batters faced.
LeBlanc was also roughed up by right-handed batters to the tune of a .515 slugging and .352 wOBA yielded to a much larger sample of 440 batters faced. The two hitters I'm fired up to use from the Marlins tonight who bat right-handed and pack pop are Jesus Aguilar ($3,000) and Brian Anderson ($3,100).
Aguilar's been on a bit of a rollercoaster the last few years, flashing power and offensive prowess in a part-time role in 2017 with the Milwaukee Brewers, breaking out unexpectedly in a full-time role with them in 2018, and then crashing back to Earth last year. This season, he has just a .190 batting average and .250 OBP, but he's avoiding punch outs with an excellent 16.7 percent strikeout rate. Further, he's hitting for significant power with a .429 ISO and three dingers. Aguilar's contact quality has been high, too, ranking tied for fifth in barrels per plate appearance. His ups and downs have ultimately resulted in a .357 OBP, .205 ISO, and 118 wRC+ in 417 plate appearances against lefties since 2017.
Anderson's .329 OBP, .155 ISO, and 101 wRC+ against lefties since 2017 are hardly head-turning numbers, but he's continuing a promising trend this year. Yesterday, he slugged his second homer of the season, lifting his ISO to .316. His gaudy ISO has been fueled by his continued uptick in hitting fly balls, pulling the ball more frequently, and hitting the ball harder. Labeling it former Marlin Christian Yelich-like fly-ball growth might set an unrealistic expectation for Anderson's trajectory -- bad pun most definitely intended -- but it's hard to ignore the batted-ball data.
As for all of the Marlins hitters, they should benefit collectively from the park dimensions changes implemented in the offseason. I wrote about those renovations for FantasyPros back in late January, and you can check that piece out here. Basically, it would be a mistake to treat Marlins Park as an offensive wasteland.
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.
