MLB

Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Thursday 9/23/21

Josh Shepardson  —  @BChad50 Sep 23rd, 2021

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

Quick, what team leads Major League Baseball with a 126 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) over the last 30 days, per FanGraphs? If you guessed the Toronto Blue Jays, you're correct. Further, they're knocking the snot out of the ball during that stretch, too, ranking first with a .222 isolated power (ISO). Also, if you've been sleeping through the entire season and dismiss this as a flukey hot stretch, you're incorrect. The Blue Jays rank second in wRC+ (112) and third in ISO (.199) against righties in 2021.

Facing Michael Pineda shouldn't dampen your enthusiasm for stacking Toronto. On the contrary, his 4.66 expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP) and 4.71 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) are marks to celebrate over stacking against. In addition, Toronto's righty-laden lineup can take aim at the 1.30 homers per nine innings he's coughed up to right-handed batters this season.

The top stacking options obviously open with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($4,500). He's chasing a Triple Crown, and he's destroying right-handed pitching in the process. Vladito's pulverized them for a .412 on-base percentage, .316 ISO, and 179 wRC+.

I also love George Springer ($3,600). He sits atop the order, and he's amassed a .295 ISO and 126 wRC+ against righties. Guerrero and Springer are my two favorite building blocks, with the rest of the roster in the mix to stack around them.

Minnesota Twins

The Minnesota Twins are the other team I like on tonight's small slate. Judging by lefty Steven Matz's fabulous 2.50 ERA in his last nine starts (50 and 1/3 innings), you'd think he's pitching at an ace level. Not exactly, as getting ace results doesn't necessarily equate to producing sustainable numbers. To that end, his 4.34 xFIP and 4.44 SIERA are more indicative of the quality of his work and reflect he's pitching over his head.

As a result, I'm willing to take a chance on his play coming back to Earth tonight against the host Twins. While Minnesota doesn't have the depth of Toronto's lineup, the Twins' lineup features a few high-end lefty-killers.

Byron Buxton ($3,800) was out of yesterday's lineup after getting plunked on his foot in his final at-bat on Tuesday night, but he was reportedly available to pinch-hit, so I'm expecting him back in there tonight. He's drilled southpaws for a .279 ISO and 144 wRC+ this year.

Josh Donaldson ($3,300) is another thorn in the side of lefties, mashing them to the tune of a .378 on-base percentage, .254 ISO, and 131 wRC+ since 2018. My favorite options to round out a full four-person stack with are Jorge Polanco ($3,800), and Mitch Garver ($2,500).


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.