Hey everyone CeeGee here again to break down my favorite stacks for today’s MLB Main Slate. If you have any questions hit my up in the DFS Army VIP Slack chat @CeeGee and we can chat. Follow me on Twitter @DailyRotoSharks and if you decide to sign up here at the DFS Army make sure you use my coupon code CEEGEE and you’ll save 10% on your membership. If you sign up today your price will never go up so get on board ASAP!
If you have played MLB DFS in the past you probably know stacking is a near MUST if you want to give yourself a chance to take down a Large Field GPP. If you’re new to MLB DFS well, now you know, STACK to win GPPs!!! There really is no other way increase your upside (and your downside) more than stacking. With that in mind I’ll do my very best to point in the right direction each day with my favorite MLB Top Stacks on Fanduel and Draftkings.
I’ll be using various resources daily but most of my info will be directly from our MLB Research Station. If you’re not familiar with it Ben (the mastermind behind the RS) did a great job with the MLB Research Staion Tutorial so click here to check it out.
I’ll usually list my favorite 4 or 5 Top Stacks each day, these may be chalky some days but we’re not worried as much about Ownership in MLB as we are with some other sports like NBA and NFL. Along with to the Top stacks I’ll do my best to identify 1 or 2 value stacks that are in good spots each day. These value stacks could be a good to combine with your Top rated stacks. For example, you may get a Red Sox stack (generally more expensive bats) and a Padres stack (generally less expensive).
Since I’ve been with the DFS Army I’ve be utilizing the Domination Station aka the “DS” to run my 150 lineups daily in NBA and now in MLB. I’m hoping you’ll find my Stack Picks useful each day and use them in combination with the the settings within the DS. With the like, love, adore, dislike, hate and enrage (along with Lock and Exclude) features you can completely customize your player pool so that its truly unique. If you want some more info on the Domination Station check Kevin’s Domination Station MLB Tutorial HERE.
Before we get started, lets talk about the Types of stacks we have in MLB. First and foremost we have to understand that no matter how perfect a matchup looks on paper MLB is a fail first sport, meaning, even the best batters will fail nearly 70% of the time. Mike Trout (lefty masher) vs John Dank (slow pitch lefty) is a perfect matchup for Trout, but he can (and will) go 0-4 in that matchup more times that the numbers “that day” would lead you to believe. Knowing this, we can’t go “all in” on any 1 stack or 1 value stack for the day. I suggest about 30% to 35% max for teams you want to stack each day. 30% across 150 lineups would give you 45 lineups maximum on that single team. If you want exposure to more teams, drop that number to 20% – 25%
Types of Stacks
4-4 – this gives you 4 players from 1 team and 4 players from another. This gives you the highest upside and high downside
(note this Season Fanduel added the SP option to this stack so you can have 4 bats and 1 SP, last year you could only have 4 total players from 1 team)
4-3-1 – this stack is my favorite because it gives me the ability to snag a superstar “one off” player.
Example, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper as one off bats with my Red Sox / Padres (4×3) stack
3-3-1-1 – Similar to 4-3-1 but this stack gives you 2 “one off” batters. I’m not a huge fan of this as I feel like only having 3 bats from 1 team lowers my upside overall
In my article I’m not going to specify which stack you should or should not use. I’ll may mention from time to time “I am playing all 4 of these guys” or something like that. However I recommend you dig into the MLB Research Staion every day and combine that info with the tools of the MLB Domination Station along with this articles and stack as you see fit.
One final note before I get into today’s top stacks. I wanna give a huge shoutout to DFS Army Member Nadesify for taking down a cool $5,000 yesterday on Fanduel. Austin used my favorite 4-3-1 stack to take this down yesterday and he is just the most recent of 100’s of DFS Army members to take down big wins in the past few months. Check out our Wall of Wins for some of the rest and make sure you get on board sooner rather than later today. Use promo code CEEGEE to Save 10% on your membership and lock in your price forever!
NOTE #1 stacks article is written early in the day so projected lineups are based on the lineup each team usually has vs the handedness of today’s opposing SP
NOTE #2 I will very rarely write up Stacks in Coors Field (Colorado) and stacks in Wrigley (Chicago) with the wind blowing OUT… Simply because it would be a waste of time for me to tell you what everyone else that day is already telling you… I will tell you this however, In Coors (generally) both teams are fully stackable every single night… And in Wrigley (Chicago) with the wind blowing OUT both teams are fully stackable
My Favorite Stacks Today
Cardinals vs James Shields (R)
Matt Carpenter, Tommy Pham, Jose Martinez, Yadi Molina + Dexter Fowler (DTD)
Total Cost $14.0k
Order 1-2-3-5 (projected)
Total DFSA Grade 318.1
James Shields is one of those pitchers that we just love to target bats against in DFS. He struggles vs right and left handed batters, but he struggles more vs lefties giving up a 377 woba and 240 iso to lefties with a 41% fly ball rate. He throws a slow Fastball (89mph) 24% of the time along with a Cutter (25%) Sinker (16%) and Knuckle Curve (22%). Some Cardinals hitters that do well vs these pitches are Matt Carpenter and Dexter Fowler who both have 400+ woba and 350+ iso against this fastball speed. Jose Martinez really handles cutters well with a 602 woba and 481 iso. Matt Carpenter and Paul DeJond do major damage vs Knuckle Curves with 232 and 269 iso’s respectively and CSwOBA (expected woba based on launch angle and velocity) both pushing 400
When we look at how the Cards do vs Sinkers we see Carpenter, Pham and DeJong pop up high on the list. Carpenter really loves the ball down in the zone and that explains why he has a 450 woba 332 iso and 48% hard contact rate vs Sinkers. He only hits them on the ground 31% of the time which tells me he loves to elevate the ball down in the zone.
The Cardinals should be a popular stack tonight vs James Shields. You can find good plays all through their lineup today vs a sub par pitcher in James Shields. I would start every Cards stack with Matt Carpenter today and even use him as my one off in my other 4-3-1 stacks.
Brewers @ Reds Homer Bailey (R)
Christian Yelich, Travish Shaw, Danny Santana, Orlando Arcia + Braun + Cain + Literally everyone else
Total Cost $12.4k
Order 2-4-5-7 (projected)
Total DFSA Grade 318.1
I always “lol” when I see Homer Bailey on the slate. Who knew a kid with the first name HOMER could become a Starting Pitcher in the MLB 😂😂😂
Today we’re hoping that HOMER lives up to his name and serves up a few to this Brewers squad who we seem to be stacking all the time. Their lineup is scary, top to bottom they’ve got a ton of pop and upside to take down GPP’s. Yesterday I had a lot of them, but not as much Lorenzo Cain who ended up having a fantastic day.
Homer Bailey throws four pitches, Fastball 93mph 38% of the time, along with Slider 17% Change 20% and Sinker 18%. Against his most popular pitch, the Fastball between 92-94mph the Brewers have a few guys that really like to tee off.
Brewers vs FB 92-94 mph
Christian Yelich 421 woba 202 iso 41% hard contact
Ryan Braun 432 woba 327 iso 45% hard contact
Travis Shaw 470 woba 323 iso 43% hard contact
Homer Bailey is a right handed SP but he’s actually a little worse vs Right Handed Batters. This is what we call a reverse split situation, as usually Pitchers are better vs the same handed batters. His splits are not extreme, he’s bad to batters from both sides of the plate but he’s slightly worse vs Right Handers. Knowing this we might be able to get some sneaky value from the Brewers Right handed hitters, as most people will probably be lazy and just stack the Lefties not realizing Bailey is worse vs Righties. I don’t think it will matter too much honestly, it was just something that literally just popped into my head. The entire Brewers lineup is in play today.
Dodgers @ Diamondbacks Matt Koch (R)
Chris Taylor, Cody Bellinger, Matt Kemp, Max Muncy + Yasmani Grandal
Total Cost $12.0k
Order 1-4-5-8
Total DFSA Grade 298.1 (just below the 300 I look for)
Today the Dodgers get a nice matchup vs right hander Matt Koch from the D’Backs. They get a park boost going from the 24th ranked Dodger stadium into Arizona. Humidor or no Humidor this is a good thing for Dodgers bats today. Yesterday we found out that Corey Seager will miss the rest of the season with Tommy John surgery so that’s a big blow to this Dodgers lineup but I think we can still find some solid bats today and take advantage of the young right hander.
Koch throws four pitches Fastball 90-92mph 42% along with a Cutter 26% Knuckle Curve 20% and Change 10%. Cody Bellinger and Matt Kemp are the players that handle the fastball well with 380 and 503 woba respectively. The iso numbers are great as well which tells me they are generating great power off this pitch. Bellinger 257 iso and Kemp 343 iso to go along 50% + Hard Contact rates.
Kemp handles the cutter well also, with a 426 expected woba and 250 iso. Max Muncy, who went deep last night has done very well vs cutters albeit in a small sample size with a 592 woba and 600 iso, these numbers will come down over time but maybe we can catch him while he’s hot today. Cody Bellinger destroys the Knuckle Curve with a 401 woba 320 iso and 48% hard contact rate so look for him to go deep tonight if he gets that pitch.
I’m not sure yet how popular the Dodgers will be tonight. I think people may be scared off for awhile until we see how the team performs without Seager in the lineup. Someone is going to have to step up to replace his value so we need to monitor this team closely going forward. Tonight I think they have some nice pieces for a stack and also a few nice players that could fit in well as one offs in some other 4-3-1 stacks
Other Stacks
Blue Jays vs Twins Kyle Gibson (R)
Granderson, Hernandez, Smoak, Pillar
Order 1-2-3-5
Nationals vs Pirates Chad Kuhl (R)
Turner, Kendrick, Zimmerman, Adams
Order 1-2-4-5
My Favorite Value Stacks
Twins vs Blue Jays Marco Estrada (R)
Eddie Rosario, Max Kepler, Logan Morrison, Robbie Grossman + Dozier (always has dong potential)
Total Cost $10.7k
Order 4-5-7-8
Total DFSA Grade 299.7 (just below 300 I target)
I left Dozier off the list because if I add him the stack doesn’t fit into my VALUE Stack threshold of $11.0k or under but he is without question 100% IN PLAY against Marco Estrada who is a fly ball reverse splits Right Hander. Dozier was in a great spot yesterday and didn’t go deep, but I fully expect him to show us his Dong Face tonight. The only real problem is that Dozier hits “fast” fastballs better than he hits “slow” fastballs. Estrada throws an 88-90 mph “fast”ball 54% of the time and vs that speed Dozier only has a 231 woba and 100 iso. Just for reference, against fastballs 94-96 Dozier has a 515 woba and 535 iso.
Ok enough with Dozier, he can dong vs anyone we all know this, so what does Estrada throw and who hits those pitches well. Estrada throws four pitches, but really its only two pitches but I’ll list all four here just so you know. Fastball 88-90 mph 54% Change 77 mph 31% Cutter only 7% and Curve only 7%.
Against fastballs that slow Joe Mauer is the best Twin. He has a 494 woba but a pretty low iso only .091 so we can’t expect too much power from him. Eddie Rossario and Eduardo Escobar however, bring 372/375 woba and 286/310 iso’s to the plate tonight vs those slow fastballs of Estrada. Rossario also does well vs Estrada’s 2nd favorite pitch, his 77 mph changeup. He has a 403 woba and 275 iso vs that particular pitch. Both Rossario and Escobar will be batting left handed today, and Escobar is much better vs lefties than he is vs righties so they carry some risk for sure but the numbers tell me they should be able to have success tonight.
Bottom line Estrada is a fly ball pitcher pitching in a park that plays well for hitters as the weather warms up. Its supposed to be mid 60’s today in Minnesota and the wind is blowing out slightly so it think the Twins could put up a few crooked numbers tonight.
Thanks for taking the time to check out the article. If you’re in the slack chat, hit me up with any questions @CeeGee
Follow me on Twitter @DailyRotoSharks
