3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Friday 7/2/21
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.
Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Reds are at home tonight. That in and of itself provides a reason to stack them. However, a favorable pitching matchup makes their outlook shine even brighter.
The Reds play in one of Major League Baseball's most hitter-friendly parks. According to the park factors at FantasyPros, Great American Ball Park has the second-highest park factor for runs (1.106) and is tops for homers (1.347). The home team has given Cinci faithful plenty to cheer about offensively this year, ranking sixth in weighted runs created plus (118 wRC+), third in isolated power (.209 ISO), and second in weighted on-base average (.352 wOBA) at home in 2021, per FanGraphs.
As for the pitching matchup, Alec Mills has a 5.11 ERA and 4.39 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) in 37 innings split between starting (four starts) and relieving (12 relief appearances). The right-handed pitcher has struggled mightily against left-handed batters this year, coughing up a .516 slugging percentage and .420 wOBA to them.
My favorite option from the Reds, Jesse Winker ($4,000), holds the platoon advantage against Mills. The left-handed-hitting outfielder has hammered righties this year for a .436 on-base percentage, .340 ISO, and 203 wRC+. Fellow lefty Joey Votto ($3,300) is another great option to use in this stack, amassing a .372 on-base percentage, .248 ISO, and 146 wRC+ against righties in 2021.
Leadoff hitter Jonathan India ($3,000) is also worth a look. Finally, Nick Castellanos ($4,000) caps my favorite four-person stack. He's pummeled righties this year. However, let me call your attention to his excellence at home instead. Castellanos has recorded a .447 on-base percentage, .411 ISO, and 233 wRC+ at Great American Ball Park this year. The Reds are my favorite stack tonight.
St. Louis Cardinals
It's the second game of the series for the St. Louis Cardinals visiting Coors Field. As a reminder, Coors Field is by far the most hitter-friendly venue in Major League Baseball. It has a park factor of 1.362 for runs, well clear of the second-highest mark of 1.106. The goodies don't end there. It also leads the way for singles (1.230) and triples (2.177), and it merely ranks second for homers (1.257) and doubles (1.345).
The park factors alone make the Red Birds a desirable stack. When factoring in a plus pitching matchup, facing Chi Chi Gonzalez, it becomes easy to understand why they'll likely be chalky. Their upside's through the roof tonight.
Gonzalez owns a 5.81 ERA this season that's the fifth-highest among tonight's probable pitchers. He ranks even more poorly for SIERA, with the second-highest mark (5.31 SIERA) among tonight's starters. Complicating matters for Gonzalez is his struggles against lefties and righties. He's ceded a .371 wOBA to left-handed batters and a .360 wOBA to right-handed batters in 2021.
The Red Birds are stackable from top to bottom. However, their two most productive hitters against right-handed pitching this year are my favorite options. Muscled-up outfielder Tyler O'Neill ($4,000) leads the team in wRC+ (149) against righties, and his .295 ISO is excellent, too. Long-time Rocky Nolan Arenado is the team's second-best hitter against righties this year with a 118 wRC+ and .235 ISO.
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants face righty Zac Gallen tonight. Gallen's not a pitcher I'd normally go out of my way to stack against. His 3.69 ERA and 4.08 SIERA are solid-if-unspectacular marks.
This stack is primarily about the excellence of the Giants against righties. They've been Major League Baseball's fifth-best offense against righties this year, owning a 109 wRC+. They also boast the most pop against righties with a .195 ISO. San Francisco's raking of late, too, ranking fourth in wRC+ (119) over the last 30 days.
Additionally, the Giants are a salary-cap-friendly stack. Buster Posey ($3,100) commands the highest salary, and Mike Yastrzemski ($3,000) is the only other hitter on the team with a salary of $3,000 or more. They're both excellent options. Others I'm interested in are Brandon Crawford ($2,900), LaMonte Wade Jr ($2,800), and Steven Duggar ($2,700).
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.
