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.
Mariners (at Angels)
While the 4.77 ERA of Jaime Barria isn’t that bad at face value, Barria has been a pitcher who has absolutely been playing with fire this season. Barria carries a 1.57 WHIP and a lot of this stems from the 67 hits allowed in just 54 innings. In those 54 innings, Barria also has just 35 strikeouts and 19 walks. So, how has he only allowed 29 earned runs on the year? Truthfully, I don’t know. While Barria does sport a sinker, it is his third pitch and his ground ball rate is nothing crazy at 43%. Barria ranks in the bottom third of the MLB for HardHit% and Exit Velocity. Between his top two pitches in his slider and 4-seam fastball, which make up 71% of his pitches, batters are averaging .282 combined and a slugging around .460. All of these things are above league average and overall on the season hitters are hitting Barria for a .303 batting average. In his last start, the Astros hung 10 hits on Barria, yet only two runs crossed the plate. For me, there is more to the box scores than the earned runs, as everything really points to him having should have giving up more. The splits from each side of the plate are pretty dead even here and while this offense isn’t incredibly threatening, the lower prices on the Mariners really open up the possibility of rostering some key arms on this slate.
Giants (at Rockies)
I was on the Giants yesterday in Coors and the Giants ended up putting up seven runs on 11 hits. While it actually was a little below the ceiling I was hoping for, some big bats like Belt and Crawford had strong showings for us. Jon Gray takes the hill for the Rockies tonight and while the overall picture is a 4.17 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP, since injuring his forearm and missing a start he has allowed seven earned over 14 innings. These two teams met two weeks ago, in which Gray allowed six hits and three earned over five innings. Gray also struck out eight Giants in that start, which os on the higher side for Gray on the season. Gray does have better numbers at home than on the road, which is weird because Gray is also allowing the highest flyball rate of his career. Ultimately, Gray has had a strong season, but he also hasn’t thrown more than 90 pitches in any of his last four starts and hasn’t seen the sixth inning in either. The Rockies bullpen carries the third-worst ERA at 4.96 in the majors and even if Gray is on, he only has one start over his last ten where he has allowed less than two earned runs. There is a little risk in this play, but if Gray can’t go deep we may get the Giants at a lower than normal ownership for a game at Coors Field.
