Digging into today’s MLB DFS slate to highlight your best bats to stack.
This article will cover two to three teams that we think are the most stackable for MLB contests. If you are newer to DFS or MLB or want a general refresher on the impact of stacking in MLB, check out our research done this off-season, where we analyzed over 2,000,000 lineups to determine how many times a team of four or five hitters stacked from the same team won contests. In brief, 80.3% of winning lineups across 71 Main Slate tournaments (from 2020) had a stack of at least four players. 71.9% of that 80.3% had a stack of five players. Stacking is the main strategy to focus on when it comes to MLB. Therefore we will be approaching our hitter’s content from a stacking perspective.
Athletics (at Royals)
We have a very small slate of day baseball today with some decent arms going as well. This Athletics/Royals game will likely be the one to carry the highest overall total on this slate and I think we can really target either side here as Paul Blackburn and Daniel Lynch take the mound for their respective teams. That being said, I do prefer the Athletics side a bit more here against Daniel Lynch – the Royals #2 prospect who has shown a ton of promise, but also has had some rough outings. Overall for Lynch, it is a 5.37 ERA and a 1.61 WHIP, but a lot of that was racked up early in the season as he was tagged for 14 earned runs over his first eight major league innings. Lynch posted a 1.93 ERA in two July starts and a 2.39 ERA in five August starts. So far in September though, Lynch has been hit a little harder, allowed 12 hits and 10 earned over 8.2 innings spanning two starts. one thing Lynch has struggled with a bit is his home starts, as his home ERA is sitting at 6.83, compared to 3.99 on the road in an equal amount of innings. Lynch has controlled lefty bats pretty well this year, holding them to a .185 batting average, but righties are hitting .308 and slugging .502. While there is great upside to Lynch over a longer period of time, he currently ranks in the bottom 20% in almost all advanced categories. Athletic right-handed bats, like Starling Marte and Matt Chapman, top my two favorite plays on this slate with Mark Canha, Josh Harrison, and Yan Gomes/Sean Murphy rounding it out.
For the rest of the slate, some notes! Marquez/Anderson in the Rockies/Braves game is likely one I am going to avoid. Tyler Mahle takes the hill for the Reds with his mound opponent to be determined from the Pirates. Without even knowing a name, at this point in the season, I think anyone reading this can digest that the Reds are a pretty strong play against a poor Pittsburgh starting staff and an even weaker bullpen. [Update] The Pirates are starting Connor Overton on Thursday. In 7.2 innings, Overton has allowed only four hits and no earned runs. That being said, Overton carries a WHIP of 1.46 over six minor league seasons and an ERA over 4. Reynaldo Lopez and Kevin Gausman are starting for the Sox and Giants, each carrying an ERA under 2.65 on the season. Because this is such a small slate, I am only focusing on the A’s above, but I think the Royals are an equally strong play against Paul Blackburn, who carries a 5.24 ERA over his only five starts on the season and a career ERA of 5.61 in 23 career starts.
