MLB

3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Wednesday 5/19/21

Josh Shepardson  —  @BChad50 May 19th, 2021
The Red Sox have a plus matchup tonight and plenty of power you want in your lineups. Which other teams should we consider stacking?

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.

Houston Astros

The Houston Astros face Frankie Montas tonight, a plus matchup for them. No matter the time frame, Montas hasn't been good. This year, he has a 4.93 ERA with 1.71 homers per nine innings surrendered to opponents in eight starts. In the last 30 days, he's sporting a 4.94 ERA with 1.98 homers per nine innings allowed. Dating back to last year, he has a 5.31 ERA and 1.71 homers per nine innings allowed in 19 starts spanning 95 innings, per FanGraphs.

I rarely let batters-versus-pitcher data influence my lineup decisions because of the lack of reliability for predicting future success. Still, it doesn't hurt that the Astros have obliterated Montas, per Baseball Savant. The righty has been fairly tough on right-handed hitters, allowing a .297 weighted on-base average (wOBA) them since last year. He's cosplayed Santa Clause facing lefties, though, coughing up a slate-high .385 wOBA to them.

I'm fixated on attacking him with Houston's left-handed hitters. Namely, Michael Brantley ($2,700), Yordan Alvarez ($3,500), and Kyle Tucker ($2,900). The trio is setting righties ablaze this year, with each recording a 140 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) or higher in 2021. Alvarez and Tucker derive big-time value with their power against righties, with a .292 isolated power (ISO) and .308 ISO in 2021, respectively.

Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox could not take advantage of Major League Baseball's most hitter-friendly ballpark, TD Ballpark, in 2021 last night. They'll have another opportunity to do so in a less challenging matchup with Ross Stripling tonight. The 31-year-old righty has been tattooed for a 5.91 ERA and 1.69 homers per nine innings allowed in five starts lasting a measly 21 and 1/3 innings. Last year, he was torched for a 5.84 ERA and 2.37 homers per nine innings allowed.

I don't project him to turn things around in a brutal matchup with the Red Sox tonight. Boston ranks fifth in wRC+ (109) and second in ISO (.186) against right-handed pitchers this year, per FanGraphs.

As is often the case when I tout stacking the Red Sox, I'm advocating using their big-three hitters, J.D. Martinez ($4,300), Xander Bogaerts ($3,400), and Rafael Devers ($3,900). Devers has the platoon advantage, and he's made the most of it this year, punishing righties for a team-high .385 ISO. Martinez and Bogaerts don't have the platoon advantage but don't fret. Martinez leads the team in wRC+ (197) this year against righties, and Bogaerts ranks second, with a 177 wRC+. Further, Stripling's allowed a slate-high .442 wOBA to right-handed batters since 2020.

Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays are the hosts to the visiting Red Sox, and they've made the most of playing in their hitter-friendly temporary home. They rank first in home wRC+ (132) and second in home ISO (.221). They face a hot Garrett Richards, creating the potential for them being an against-the-grain stack.

Richards has recorded a sterling 2.16 ERA in his last four starts spanning 25 innings. Before his hot stretch, the Blue Jays gave him fits. He was actually lucky to hold them to four runs in only 4 and 2/3 innings, as he allowed four hits and six walks. The six walks were a season-high. However, the righty has below-average control. His 9.9 percent walk rate is nearly a full percentage above the league average of nine percent this year.

His 21 percent strikeout rate is three percentage points below the league average of 24 percent. This is all a winded way of saying he can shoot himself in the foot, and his bat-missing ability isn't so great it can necessarily bail him out.

Despite Toronto's best hitters being right-handed, they've fared well in same-handed matchups this year. Bo Bichette ($4,100) has a 122 wRC+ against righties. Teoscar Hernandez ($3,100) has been a couple of ticks better with a 124 wRC+. The two best healthy hitters have been Marcus Semien ($3,800) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($4,200) with a 137 wRC+ and 194 wRC+, respectively. They're the top four hitters in the lineup, and they're the best four-person stack.

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.