On Friday night, Major League Baseball starts the final weekend of August with a strong 12-game slate of action on DraftKings main DFS contests. Some marquee pitching matchups are on the board, including some of the Cy Young frontrunners in the American League. On the other end of the salary structure, there are also some nice matchups to attack as you look for some offense. With 24 teams in the player pool, let’s dive in and highlight three top lineups to build MLB DFS stacks around this Friday night.
- Atlanta Braves: Coming off a sweep of the Dodgers, the Braves get to face Tomoyuki Sugano, who has a 6.99 xERA and a 5.43 FIP. Lefties have a 17% barrel rate against him on the road.
- Minnesota Twins: The Twins take on the White Sox and Luis Castillo, who has also struggled against lefties this season. He has allowed five home runs in four games with the White Sox and at least four runs in three of thsoe four outings.
- Kansas City Royals: The Royals are rollin’, winning 10 of 11 coming into their series with the Guardians. Tonight, they’ll face Tanner Bibee, making their lefties like Jac Caglianone, Vinnie Pasquantino and Carter Jensen solid pieces to build around.
Before we break down all the selections for these contests, let’s define exactly what we’re searching for. An ideal target for an MLB DFS stack is a team well-positioned to score plenty of runs based on its matchup and ballpark. “Stacking” is the strategy of adding multiple players from the same lineup to your roster to boost each other’s production.
Ideally, MLB DFS stacks focus on players who are either back-to-back or from the same part of the lineup to allow for positive correlation. Since most run-scoring plays produce fantasy points for multiple players, stacking a high-scoring team can carry your entry to the top of the leaderboard. The key to MLB DFS stacks paying off is finding the perfect matchup to attack, so let’s take a deeper look at the top spots.
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1. Atlanta Braves
Matt Olson ($5,300)
Drake Baldwin ($4,800)
Michael Harris II ($4,300)
Ozzie Albies ($4,100)
Mike Yastrzemski ($2,800)
The Braves started the week with a three-game sweep of the Dodgers, which gives them hope for the postseason, where the Dodgers will likely stand in their way. They’ll look to avoid a letdown as they host the Rockies for the weekend, and they start with a very favorable matchup against Tomoyuki Sugano ($6,000). Sugano has gone 12-7 in his first year with the Rockies, but has a 4.96 ERA and 26 homers allowed in his 23 starts. He has a 6.99 xERA and 5.43 FIP that indicate he has given up harder contact than his ERA indicates.
Lefties have hit 19 of those 26 home runs against Sugano, and when he is on the road, lefties have a 17% barrel rate and .402 wOBA against Sugano. Those splits make the Braves’ lefties strong options, especially since they come in with strong form.
Matt Olson has led the charge with 37 homers on the season, including nine in his last 25 games with a .384 wOBA. It was Drake Baldwin, though, who came up huge with a leadoff homer for the only run of the game in Thursday’s 1-0 win over the Dodgers. Baldwin is averaging 10.8 FPTS over his last five games and seems to be finding his rhythm again after a rough stretch earlier this month.
Lefty Michael Harris has also been rolling with at least 8.0 FPTS in five of his last six games and an average of 8.2 FPTS over his last 10 contests. Ozzie Albies is a switch-hitter who will face Sugano from the left side, and he had three straight games with at least 8.0 FPTS before calming down with just 3.0 FPTS on Thursday. He has hit safely in nine of his last 10 games coming into this matchup with Sugano. If you’re looking for a cheap lefty with flier upside to round out the stack, Yastrzemski is a boom-or-bust play, who does bring some power on his side of a platoon with Lane Thomas ($3,300).
As a team, the Braves crushed the Rockies earlier this season, scoring 28 runs in a three-game sweep at Coors. They didn’t face Sugano in that series, but should be in a good spot to post another huge total on Friday.
2. Minnesota Twins
Kody Clemens ($5,200)
Ryan Jeffers ($4,700)
Luke Keaschall ($4,000)
Brooks Lee ($3,700)
Trevor Larnach ($3,50)
Kaelen Culpepper ($3,100)
While Twins’ fans will be most hyped for the debut of prospect Walker Jenkins ($3,000), the rest of the lineup is a solid stack to consider as they face Luis Castillo ($7,000) and the White Sox at Target Field. Castillo is 4-10 with a 5.19 ERA on the season. He was dealt from the Mariners to the White Sox at the trade deadline and has allowed four runs or more in three of his four starts since joining Chicago. Lefties have done most of the damage against Castillo this year, with 14 of the 21 homers against him due to an 11.5% barrel rate.
Lefty Kody Clemens has gone 2-for-5 with two homers against Castillo in the past, while Trevor Larnach is 6-for-21 with two triples and a double. Clemens has hit safely in eight of his last 10 games, averaging 8.5 FPTS per contest over that stretch, and he has been very solid in Minnesota, where he has averaged 8.1 FPTS in his 54 home games this season. Larnach doesn’t have quite as much momentum, but he did pick up a pair of hits and 17 FPTS on Wednesday with his 11th homer of the season.
Luke Keaschall and Brooks Lee have been very effective at the top of the lineup for the Twins lately. Keaschall is hitting .322 since July 31, with a .407 wOBA, four homers and a pair of stolen bases. Keaschall has been hitting leadoff in front of Lee, who has hit 18 of his 21 homers this season against righties like Castillo, and has a .306 batting average with five homers and a .400 wOBA over his last 16 games.
Rookie Kaelen Cullpepper has been one of my favorite young bargains to work into lineups lately, with both power and speed potential. The 23-year-old rising star has hit .333 in his first 16 MLB games and has three homers and a .392 wOBA.
3. Kansas City Royals
Bobby Witt ($6,100)
Jac Caglianone ($4,800)
Vinnie Pasquantino ($4,100)
Carter Jensen ($3,800)
Josh Rojas ($2,000)
The Royals have been playing spoilers with wins in 10 of their last 11 games. They took two of three from the Blue Jays to start the week, finishing with a 13-run explosion on Thursday. On Friday, they’ll face the Cleveland Guardians, another team whose postseason hopes they’ll look to spoil. Tanner Bibee ($7,600) gets the ball for the Guardians, and the 27-year-old righty has had a turbulent season, going 5-13 with a 3.97 ERA. Over his last nine starts, he has a 4.50 ERA and 4.77 FIP, with nine homers conceded during those nine outings. Like with Castillo and Sugano, Bibee has struggled against lefties, allowing them to hit 20 of the 26 homers he has allowed with a .444 slugging percentage and .316 wOBA.
Jac Caglianone had a massive 42.0 FPTS on Thursday, going 5-for-6 with a double and his 23rd homer of the season, and he has averaged 11.9 FPTS per game over his last 10. Bobby Witt Jr. is still the star of the offense, though, and has averaged 13.1 FPTS over his last 10 games to be worth a look at paying up for if you have the available salary.
Their teammate, Vinnie Pasquantino, has also looked much stronger since coming off the IL. He battled wrist soreness after returning from a hamate fracture earlier this year, but has hit well in his past 10 games. During that stretch, he has produced 11.5 FPTS per contest by going 13-for-38 (.342) with three homers and four doubles. Pasquantino has also smashed Bibee in the past, going 10-for-17 with two doubles, a triple, and two homers. It looks like a good night to build around the “Pasquatch” and the rest of the Royals.
You can supplement those two lefties with Carter Jensen, who is the rare leadoff catcher. He had at least 9.0 FPTS in each of his last three games and hit his 18th homer of the season on Thursday, as well. Josh Rojas is expected to start, and he’s available at the minimum salary, making him a solid punt play to round out the stack. Rojas has hit safely in four of his last five games with an at-bat, averaging 4.8 FPTS per game. He doesn’t bring as high of a ceiling as the other options, but the lefty can savy a ton of salary and also chip in some modest production.
