Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Thursday 8/12/21
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, which begins at 7:15 pm ET.
San Francisco Giants
It's only a four-game slate tonight, and there aren't many obvious pitchers to stack against getting the ball. Hence, it's a little easier pill to swallow stacking against the talented German Marquez. Further, the San Francisco Giants are one of the top offenses in baseball against righties.
To the latter point, they rank tied for sixth in weighted runs created plus (108 wRC+) and first in isolated power (.200 ISO), per FanGraphs. They also could present the occasionally wild Marquez problems as a result of their patience. The Giants are tied for the seventh-highest walk rate (9.6 percent) against righties this season.
If you're looking for further encouragement to stack the Giants, they've handled Marquez well through three starts. The right-handed hurler was chased after only 2/3 of an inning the last time he faced them, allowing eight runs on six hits and two walks. In three starts spanning 10 and 1/3 innings, he's coughed up 16 hits, 8 walks, and 15 runs. San Francisco's had his number this year.
They're a stackable group from top to bottom. Although some of my favorite options include LaMonte Wade Jr ($2,900), Brandon Belt ($3,300), and Brandon Crawford ($3,300). Wade's come out of nowhere this year, raking with the platoon advantage and homering last night against a righty. Belt has amassed a .345 on-base percentage, .307 ISO, and 138 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers this year. Finally, Crawford's been better than both, ripping righties for a .379 on-base percentage, .245 ISO, and 146 wRC+.
San Diego Padres
While there are a handful of exquisite starting pitchers toeing the rubber tonight, the San Diego Padres aren't facing one of them. Opposing starter Taylor Widener's been roughed up this year to the tune of a 4.89 ERA that fails to fully tell the tale of how poorly he's pitched in 10 starts lasting 46 and 2/3 innings. He also has a 5.00 expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP) 5.71 expected ERA (xERA).
Widener's struggled mightily with homers. He's coughed up 2.15 homers per nine innings. He also has the dubious distinction of being responsible for the highest weighted on-base average (wOBA) allowed to lefties and righties among tonight's probable starters. Yikes.
Manny Machado ($3,900) headlines my favorite options from the Friars. He's pummeled righties this year for a .356 on-base percentage, .237 ISO, and 138 wRC+. I'm also enamored with Jake Cronenworth ($3,700), who owns a .343 on-base percentage, .200 ISO, and 119 wRC+ against righties in 2021. Some of the other hitters worthy of consideration for stacking include Tommy Pham ($3,000), Adam Frazier ($2,800), and Eric Hosmer ($3,200). In fact, I don't begrudge gamers for choosing to use any hitters in this lineup as part of their stack. Yet, these are the options I'm most intrigued by.
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.
