3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Friday 5/19/23

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.

Houston Astros

The Houston Astros boast the night's top implied total (5.66) for their home clash with left-hander Ken Waldichuk.

Waldichuk is having a brutal season, struggling to a 5.37 SIERA and 18.3% strikeout rate. Righties are pummeling him, with Waldichuk surrendering a .430 wOBA, 44.0% fly-ball rate and 2.80 homers per nine in the split. You want exposure to the Astros.

Houston is welcoming back Jose Altuve ($3,400), and that's a big lift for their offense. Altuve hammered southpaws last year to the tune of a .458 wOBA, 41.5% hard-hit rate and 44.7% fly-ball rate. He'll likely be atop the lineup and is a fantastic option today.

Alex Bregman ($3,000), Jeremy Pena ($3,100), Chas McCormick ($3,500) and Jose Abreu ($2,400) will all hit from the right side. Abreu's salary is awfully handy, and I'll go to him some despite the fact he's got an ugly .239 wOBA so far in 2023.

Mauricio Dubon ($2,800) is worth a look if he's in the lineup, although Altuve's return might relegate Dubon to the bench.

Yordan Alvarez ($4,300) and Kyle Tucker ($3,100) are fully in play in spite of the lefty-lefty matchup. Alvarez owns a .375 wOBA in the split this year. Our model ranks him as the slate's fifth-best hitter.

Texas Rangers

While Houston has the night's highest implied total, the Texas Rangers are my favorite stack of the slate, and the Rangers' 5.33 implied total is the slate's second-best clip.

Houston is taking on Karl Kauffmann, who is making his MLB debut. Kauffmann, a righty, has posted pedestrian numbers down on the farm, recording a 14.9% strikeout rate in 37 innings this year at Triple-A. In 2022, he had a 19.7% strikeout rate in 64 frames at Triple-A. Making his first start against one of baseball's premier offenses, Kauffmann is likely in for a rough night.

Factoring in salary, Nate Lowe ($3,200) and Corey Seager ($3,000) are two of my favorite bats on this slate. Both will have the platoon advantage against Kauffmann, and Lowe has mashed his way to a .360 wOBA in the split. Seager returned last night from a long layoff, and he registered a 40.1% hard-hit rate and 39.8% fly-ball rate with the platoon advantage a year ago.

Marcus Semien ($4,200) and Adolis Garcia ($4,100) are high-upside options if you have the salary while Robbie Grossman ($3,000) and Josh Jung ($3,000) are modest-salaried bats who are solid choices. Semien has hit safely in eight straight games with a pair of taters in that span.

New York Mets

The Astros and Rangers will be popular today, so let's go off the radar a bit for the third stack.

The New York Mets are up against Cal Quantrill, and it's a great matchup for them. Quantrill is the owner of a 5.61 SIERA and 11.7% strikeout rate this season. He normally does an OK job suppressing fly-balls and hard contact, but I love the thought of getting an offense at low draft percentages against a hurler who doesn't get many whiffs.

New York's implied total is 4.59. That's only the seventh-highest, and it is where it is because the Mets have struggled offensively. I think they can come through in this spot, though.

Pete Alonso ($3,600) certainly hasn't struggled in 2023. He smacked his 15th jack of the year on Thursday and has his expected wOBA (xwOBA) up to .405. Early draft percentage projections around the injury have him going completely overlooked.

Francisco Lindor ($3,400), Brandon Nimmo ($3,100), Dan Vogelbach ($2,500), Brett Baty ($2,600) and Jeff McNeil ($2,700) will all hit from the left side against Quantrill. Vogelbach and Baty catch my eye as they offer good pop at economical salaries. Baty doesn't carry the pinch-hit risk that Vogelbach does and has put up a .369 xwOBA this year.