3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/12/21

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.

New York Yankees

The New York Yankees are head and shoulders above the two forthcoming stacks as my favorite for today's main slate. Robbie Ray is making his first start of the year after opening the season on the Injured List. Ray turned heads in the spring, but I need more than an excellent showing in games that don't matter to dissuade me from stacking a loaded lineup against a pitcher who recorded a 6.62 ERA and 5.49 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) in 51 and 1/3 innings pitched in 2020, per FanGraphs.

Ray walked an eye-popping 17.9 percent of the batters he faced and coughed up 2.26 homers per nine innings. It's possible Ray's offseason work results in significant improvement this year, but consider me skeptical of his ability to keep the Bronx Bombers at bay.

Eight of nine projected starters for the Yankees have a weighted runs created plus (wRC+) of 105 or higher. Out of the eight, five have a wRC+ north of 125, and three are over 150. It's an elite lefty-killing offense that's stackable from top to bottom.

My preferred four-person stack is their top-four hitters as measured by wRC+, including Gleyber Torres ($2,700), DJ LeMahieu ($3,600), Giancarlo Stanton ($3,600), and Aaron Judge ($4,100), with marks of 132, 153, 164, and 176, respectively. Additionally, they all boast the requisite top-shelf power to add to Ray's homer woes with Torres rocking a .262 isolated power (ISO), LeMahieu with a .218 ISO, Stanton at a .306 ISO, and Judge leading the way with a .307 ISO.

Cincinnati Reds

The Cincinnati Reds are my second favorite offense to stack tonight. Further, my top stack blends perfectly with stacking the Yankees. The Reds have a dreamy draw with Aaron Sanchez in hitter-friendly Oracle Park.

You read that right; the San Francisco Giants' home ballpark is now a hitter-friendly park after renovations before the 2020 season. According to ESPN's 2020 MLB Park Factors, Oracle Park has park factors of 1.048 for runs, 1.083 for homers, 1.070 for hits, 1.372 for doubles, and 1.154 for triples. Sanchez's stellar first start in which he held the San Diego Padres to 1 run on 6 hits, 0 walks, and 4 strikeouts provides more reasons to doubt continued success than reasons for optimism.

He missed all of last year recovering from shoulder surgery, and his fastball velocity was notably down from pre-surgery level. His average fastball velocity in 2019 was 93.6 mph, but it was only 90.7 mph in his first start this year. He's missed bats at a significantly below-average level for his entire career, and diminished velocity leaves him little room for error. I expect the Reds to jump all over him.

My top daily baseball lineup includes a three-person Reds stack blended with my top four-person Yankees stack I discussed above. Joey Votto ($2,600) has ugly surface stats so far this year. Still, his batted-ball data is encouraging, resulting in a .470 expected slugging (xSLG) and .325 expected weighted on-base average (wOBA), according to Baseball Savant. I'm using him.

I'm also rostering Jesse Winker ($3,100) and Eugenio Suarez ($3,000). Winker should be back in his perch atop the order after being relegated to pinch-hitter duties Sunday and sitting out Saturday following leaving Friday's game with a calf cramp. He's terrorized righties to the tune of a .393 on-base percentage, .211 ISO, and 136 wRC+ since 2018.

Suarez has a .339 OBP, .268 ISO, and 121 wRC+ against righties in the same timeframe. The infielder's power is already in mid-season form, with a pair of dingers and a .241 ISO through 37 plate appearances. Nick Castellanos ($3,800) and Mike Moustakas ($3,300) are other defensible stacking options.

Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies will get a second crack at David Peterson in a one-week span after roughing him up for 6 runs on 7 hits, 2 homers, 2 walks, and 5 strikeouts last Wednesday in Philadelphia. Moving beyond one good showing against Peterson already this year, the young lefty's stark contrast between his 4.19 ERA and 5.15 SIERA in 53 and 2/3 inning pitched in his career for the New York Mets since debuting last year makes the Phillies an appealing offense to stack.

The Phillies aren't lefty-mashing juggernauts to the Bronx Bombers' degree, but they have six starters with a wRC+ north of 115. Their most-accomplished hitters against lefties are Andrew McCutchen ($2,800), Bryce Harper ($3,700), and Rhys Hoskins ($3,900). McCutchen has a .379 on-base percentage and 131 wRC+ against lefties since 2018. Harper's posted a .384 on-base percentage, .260 ISO, and 140 wRC+, and Hoskins has done the most damage with a .419 on-base percentage, .239 ISO, and 142 wRC+.

The three other above-average hitters against lefties are J.T. Realmuto ($3,300), Jean Segura ($2,300), and Alec Bohm ($3,100). I'm willing to spin down from the top pitchers to the second-tier options so that I can have the cap space to stack the Yankees' biggest boppers. However, if your preference is to roster one of the top arms, the Phillies offer a high ceiling for less cap space.

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.