On Wednesday night, Major League Baseball continues to roll down the stretch run with a big 10-game slate of DFS fantasy baseball action. To include the earlier evening games, the slate begins at 6:35 p.m. ET , which sets up a deep player pool of 20 teams to choose from. While there are some strong starting pitchers at the top of the salary structure, there are also some strong places to attack for offense. In this post, let’s dive into the matchups and check out the top three MLB DFS stacks to build your fantasy baseball lineup around this Wednesday night.
- New York Yankees: The Yankees take on Tomoyuki Sugano, whom they beat up last year when he was with Baltimore. With the Rockies this year, Sugano has a 5.19 ERA, 5.31 FIP and 27 homers against him, and lefties have had plenty of success against him both at Coors Field and on the road.
- Los Angeles Dodgers: The Dodgers will face the Reds’ Rhett Lowder as they go for the sweep on Wednesday night. Lowder has a 6.79 road ERA and a 6.65 ERA over his last four starts with at least three runs allowed in each of those contests.
- Miami Marlins: The Fish are a good value stack against Robert Stock, who has an 8.64 ERA and 5.68 xFIP on the road this season and has allowed 17 runs in his last five starts.
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. New York Yankees
Aaron Judge ($6,000)
Ben Rice ($5,500)
Luis Garcia Jr. ($5,000)
Cody Bellinger ($4,500)
Spencer Jones ($3,100)
The Yankees got Aaron Judge back in the lineup on Tuesday, and they cruised past the Rockies, 5-3. With Judge back in place as an anchor, the Yankees lineup is in a great spot as they face Tomoyuki Sugano ($5,000). In his first year with the Rockies, Sugano has gone 12-8 in his 25 starts, but he still has a 5.19 ERA, 5.31 FIP and 27 homers against him. Lefties have done most of the damage against him with 20 of those 27 homers, a .378 wOBA and a 13.3% barrel rate. Sugano faced the Yankees four times last year when he was with the Orioles, giving up 11 runs on 23 hits in 16 innings and allowing six home runs.
Judge dominated Sugano, going 7-for-9 with three homers in their past meetings. He went 0-for-3 with a pair of strikeouts on Tuesday in his first game action since the end of May, but he gets a very favorable spot to get back in the groove against Sugano. He’s $6,000, and his rust makes him higher risk than usual, but he still brings a very high ceiling.
For the rest of this option in today’s MLB DFS Stacks, I prefer loading up on the left side due to Sugano’s splits. Rice will likely move back to the leadoff spot against righties with Judge back, and he’s averaging 8.3 FPTS in his last 10 games while hitting .325. Garcia has brought a nice power boost since coming over at the trade deadline, while Bellinger has hit safely in nine of his last 10 games, averaging 7.1 FPTS over that stretch. He’s 3-for-6 in his career against Sugano and will likely bat in a premium lineup spot between Rice and Judge near the top of the lineup.
I highlighted Spencer Jones as one of my best value plays in today’s MLB Targets, and getting his power potential at just over $3,000 makes him one of my favorite plays on the board.
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
Shohei Ohtani ($6,600)
Freddie Freeman ($5,100)
Mookie Betts ($4,900)
Tommy Edman ($4,500)
Teoscar Hernandez ($4,100)
The Dodgers have been dealing with multiple injuries on offense, but they keep on winning. On Wednesday night, they’ll take on Rhett Lowder ($6,000), who has allowed 18 runs in 21 2/3 innings over his last four starts with four homers against him during that span. He has a 6.79 road ERA in his 13 road starts, and he has allowed eight homers in those games with a dangerous 1.68 WHIP. Lefties have done most of the damage against him as well, with 12 homers and a .359 wOBA against him. Lefties have a 40.4% hard-hit rate and an 11.7% barrel rate against Lowder, while righties only have a 34.8% hard-hit rate and 5.7% barrel rate. The Dodgers have plenty of lefties to stack, though, putting them on the strong side of the splits against Lowder, especially since he’s on the road.
Ohtani has been in and out of the lineup for the last week, returning on Monday but only earning 2.0 FPTS while going 0-for-3. Like Judge, he may be a little rusty and not at 100%, but he still brings lots of upside in this favorable matchup. Freddie Freeman is averaging 8.0 FPTS in his last 10 games while helping to carry the load without Ohtani, while Mookie Betts has posted three games of 20+ FPTS in his seven games in September, averaging 13.6 FPTS over that short span.
The switch-hitting Tommy Edman will face Lowder from the left side, and he has also stepped up and started September hot. Over his first eight games in September, Edman has five games of 11+ FPTS and is averaging 10.6 FPTS.
Even though he’s a righty, it’s hard to leave Teoscar Hernandez out of the Dodgers stack after he posted 30 and 20 FPTS in the first two games of this series and has 11+ FPTS in five of his last seven games, averaging 15.0 FPTS per game in that short span. Hernandez has had a down year overall but is catching fire down the stretch to keep the Dodgers rolling despite their injury issues.
3. Miami Marlins
Kyle Stowers ($4,700)
Otto Lopez ($4,500)
Javier Sanoja ($3,800)
Jakob Marsee ($3,500)
Graham Pauley ($2,700)
Since both the Yankees and Dodgers are expensive to build around as options in today’s MLB DFS stacks, let’s finish out this post with a more affordable option that can be mixed in but still gets a good matchup. The Marlins have dropped the first two games of their series against the Mets and five of six overall, but they are in a good spot at home against spot-starter Robert Stock ($5,800). Stock is 1-3 with a 5.81 ERA and 4.00 FIP in his 26 1/3 innings this year, allowing 17 runs in his last five starts. Both righties and lefties have a wOBA over .350 against him, and he has an 8.64 ERA and 5.68 xFIP on the road. He was effective in his most recent road start against the Rays but was hammered by the Pirates and Brewers earlier in August.
Kyle Stowers has moved to the top of the Marlins’ order and produced at least 10 FPTS in five of his last 10 games, averaging 9.0 FPTS per contest. He has three homers in those 10 games and 19 long balls on the season. He can be paired with Otto Lopez from the right side, who has averaged 7.4 FPTS over his last 10 games and 8.9 FPTS in his 73 home games this year. Lopez brings a higher floor with his average and speed, while Stowers has showcased a little more power.
Javier Sanoja and Jakob Marsee are also solid midrange options to add to the Marlins stack. Sanoja has at least 5.0 FPTS in nine straight games, averaging 10.7 FPTS during that run with two homers and a .429 batting average. Marsee had 15 FPTS on Tuesday and has at least that many FPTS in three of his eight games in September. He comes in with multiple hits in three straight games.
As a bargain play, Graham Pauley has brought great value in a couple of games this month, posting 30 FPTS on Sept. 1 and 20 FPTS on Sept. 7. He homered in both of those games and provides a little left-handed pop from the lower part of the Marlins’ order. He’s boom-or-bust but brings sneaky upside as a value way to round out the stack.
