MLB

3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Monday 8/30/21

Josh Shepardson  —  @BChad50 Aug 30th, 2021
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays are in a great spot to put up some runs on Monday night. 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.

Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays must be licking their chops in anticipation of facing Chris Ellis and the hapless Baltimore Orioles. The 28-year-old righty has only eight innings of Major League Baseball experience. However, he's failed to provide reasons to believe he can handle big-league hitters through his Triple-A work. In 136 innings pitched at that level in 2019 and 2021 combined, he's been beaten like a drum to the tune of a 6.82 ERA, walking 11.7 percent of the batters he's faced and yielding 1.79 homers per nine innings, according to FanGraphs.

Beyond Ellis, the Blue Jays should hammer Baltimore's bullpen, too. The Orioles have the highest reliever ERA (5.36). In addition, they have the highest team ERA (7.07) since the trade deadline. To sum things up, Ellis and Baltimore's bullpen are ill-equipped to slow down Toronto's high-powered offense.

The Blue Jays are stackable from top to bottom. Regardless, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($4,400) is the piece to roster. The case can be made to use anyone else in the lineup, but Vladito's .406 on-base percentage, .307 isolated power (ISO), and 175 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) against righties this year make him a must-have inclusion in any Blue Jays stack.

Houston Astros

The Houston Astros square off with ERA estimators overachiever Chris Flexen for the third time in 2021 tonight. Flexen remarkably held the Astros to one run on 10 hits across six innings when he faced them back on April 17. The righty's luck ran out the second go-round, allowing seven runs on nine hits in only four innings. Revisiting Flexen's ERA and ERA estimators I teased initially, his 3.54 ERA is markedly better than his 4.47 expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP) and 4.61 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA).

Diving deeper, Flexen utilizes a pitch-to-contact approach that may bite him in the butt tonight. He's struck out only 16.5 percent of the batters he's faced, well below the league average of 23.4%. Ditto for his 8.0 percent swinging-strike percentage (11.3 percent is the league average). I'm skeptical of his approach faring well against the offense responsible for the highest wRC+ (118) against righties this year, a whopping seven points clear of a tie for second.

As is the case for the Blue Jays, the Astros are stackable throughout. With that in mind, I'm compelled to stack them in the middle and lower portion of the order. Carlos Correa ($4,000) is my favorite option, likely slotting fifth and sporting a .228 ISO and 136 wRC+ against righties this year.

I also love Kyle Tucker ($3,300). He's crushed righties for a .357 on-base percentage, .253 ISO, and 146 wRC+. Finally, don't let rookie Jake Meyers ($2,900) fly under the radar. He has a 107 wRC+ against righties in his big-league debut. Additionally, he raked in the minors this year, tallying a .408 on-base percentage, .255 ISO, 16 homers, 10 stolen bases, and a 144 wRC+ in 304 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

Tampa Bay Rays

The Tampa Bay Rays are a top-five offense against righties and since the Major League Baseball trade deadline. They rank tied for second in wRC+ (111) and fourth in wRC+ (123), respectively. Further, they've muscled up for an eye-popping .240 ISO since the trade deadline.

Tonight, they welcome a scuffling Nick Pivetta to town. He has a 4.85 ERA and coughed up 1.62 homers per nine innings in his last 11 starts. Pivetta's ERA estimators that include a 4.50 xFIP and 4.21 SIERA are slightly less damning. Nonetheless, they're not marks to avoid stacking against with a locked-in top offense.

Yet again, this is another stackable offense from top to bottom. However, I'm specifically fixated on the trio of Brandon Lowe ($3,800), Austin Meadows ($3,200), and yesterday's two-homer hero, Joey Wendle ($2,600). Lowe claims the leadoff spot in the order, and he has a .358 on-base percentage, .265 ISO, and 141 wRC+ against righties since 2018. Meadows has nearly been his equal, tallying a .356 on-base percentage, .256 ISO, and 137 wRC+. Wendle's not in their class of hitter, but his 114 wRC+ is nothing to sneeze at, and his salary provides valuable cap relief.

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.