3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Tuesday 5/2/23

Stacking is an integral part of daily fantasy baseball. Correlation drives upside, giving your lineups a slate-winning ceiling when your stacks explode.

This piece will do the digging and the dirty work each day to determine which stacks are worth rostering on FanDuel's main slate. While we want upside, we also need to factor in game theory, especially in a sport as random as baseball.

Our MLB DFS heat map is a quick way to get a feel for the overall slate and which offenses are in a good spot. You can also check out our daily fantasy baseball projections to identify the slate's best bats.

Let's look at the top stacks for this main slate. We will not talk about the teams playing at Coors. The Milwaukee Brewers and Colorado Rockies sport two of the night's top implied totals, but you don't need me to tell you to get exposure to Coors.

Toronto Blue Jays

The second-best implied total of the day -- better than one of the clips from Coors -- lies with the Toronto Blue Jays, who own a 5.21 implied total for a road clash with Tanner Houck at hitter-friendly Fenway

Houck is starting this season after bouncing back and forth between the bullpen and rotation up to this point in his career. Things are going decently well as he's got a 4.35 SIERA and 11.8% swinging-strike rate. But oddsmakers are backing the Jays' offense, and once Houck is out of the game, Toronto will take hacks against a Boston Red Sox 'pen that has the seventh-worst xFIP (4.63).

The only issue with the Blue Jays is their salaries as Bo Bichette ($4,000), Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($4,200) and Matt Chapman ($4,200) are all at least $4,000. They're great plays if you can get to them, but those salaries are tough to stomach on a slate with three quality arms at tags of at least $11,000.

George Springer ($3,100) -- who sat out last night due to an illness -- would be a valuable source of cap relief if he returns to the lineup. Daulton Varsho ($2,800), Alejandro Kirk ($2,800) and Brandon Belt ($2,600) are three other modest-salaries Jays who can help out. Varsho and Belt will have the platoon advantage versus Houck.

Baltimore Orioles

There's a lot to like about the Baltimore Orioles tonight. Not only are they in a nice matchup, but the O's can be stacked economically and will likely fly under the radar.

Baltimore (4.79 implied total) is on the road against Ryan Yarbrough. A lefty, Yarbrough has a putrid 9.3% strikeout rate so far in 2023 and is giving up a 42.1% fly-ball rate. In 2022, he mustered a mere 14.9% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters.

Adley Rutschman ($3,600), Ryan Mountcastle ($3,900), Anthony Santander ($3,300), Austin Hays ($3,100) and Ramon Urias ($2,600) will all hit from the right side against Yarbrough. Mountcastle has put up a .389 expected wOBA (xwOBA) this season, and Santander has been better against left-handers over his career.

Lefties Gunnar Henderson ($2,500), Adam Frazier ($2,700) and Cedric Mullins ($4,000) are worth a look, too, although they won't be a priority for me.

St. Louis Cardinals

Given the salaries for the slate's top arms, I want to highlight one value stack. Prior to the year, I wouldn't have thought the St. Louis Cardinals could fit that bill, but here we are.

The Cards (4.75 implied total) have a lineup that is tough on southpaws, and because the Red Birds are struggling overall this season, their salaries are down nearly across the board, with Paul Goldschmidt ($3,900) the lone exception.

St. Louis is hosting lefty Patrick Sandoval. Sandoval is a quality pitcher -- 3.94 SIERA last season -- but he's off to a rocky start, struggling to a 5.02 SIERA, 17.7% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate so far this campaign.

While the aforementioned Goldschmidt is a great play if you have the salary, I'm zeroing in on Nolan Arenado ($2,900), Willson Contreras ($3,000) and Tyler O'Neill ($2,600) as core pieces to my Cardinals stacks.

Arenado has been brutally bad this year, and there are no positives in his 2023 profile that I can point to. However, the track record is great, and he'll surely pick it up at some point. It's easy to like the idea of getting him at this salary against a lefty.

Taylor Motter ($2,100) would be an appealing dart throw if he gets in the lineup, and Paul DeJong ($3,200) will have the platoon advantage against Sandoval.