jason mezrahi 
Welcome to the Sunday edition of the Stack City, where I’ll be going through the top MLB DFS Stacks on DraftKings and Fanduel.
The nine-game main slate on both sites begins at 1:10 p.m. EST. And both DK and FD have a smaller, five-game slate that kicks off at 4:07 p.m. EST that, for our purposes, we’ll call the late slate. ESPN’s Sunday night game of the week (a 7:08 p.m. tilt between the Brewers and Phillies) is left off both slates and stands alone for showdown contests.
By now, you should be aware that starting off your research with Adam’s Starting Rotation, is as important as eating a healthy breakfast. After I browse the slates and start to formulate which stacks I’m going to feature, I usually run right back to that piece and see where he’s landed. Today, we’re definitely on the same page regarding our top tow stacks.
Before we get to the top three stacks of the main slate, it’s important to point out that Wrigley Field appears to be another windy, weather chaos factory for DFS dabblers. It’s blowing hard again out to right field, and there’s plenty of precipitation possible throughout the day, so staying attuned to the Doppler and checking in with our experts on Discord will be imperative as we approach lock. The Cubs again have the better side of that matchup and went bat-guano crazy with a 21-0 win over the Pirates. It’s perfectly fine to build around that lineup if you think it’ll play again, and pivot to another of the stacks (one of our featured teams starts their game about ten minutes before the PIT-CHC game locks).
Now let’s begin our Sunday Funday and build that bankroll!!
MLB DFS Stacks – Main Slate
San Francisco Giants vs. Joan Adon
We can go right back to the well with the Giants, focusing on lefthanders against Nationals starter Joan Adon. As Adam discuses in his writeup, Adon is a wild thrower who sports a questionable 5.05 xFIP and a K rate that barely exceeds 18% — putting the entire Giants lineup in play. Once again, Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford are the two most expensive hitters we should look to, but there’s plenty of value all around on this team. Joc Pederson is my next favorite play, and then Mike Yastrzemski, Darrin Ruf, Wilmer Flores, Thairo Estrada and Steven Duggar, in that order.
The Giants could put a hurt on Adon today and continue their assault on imposing pitching, especially in a road contest in 80-degree weather. There will soon be a time when the salaries bump up to near unplayable levels and they go a little cold at the plate, but now’s the time to take advantage of a team that makes good contact and mashes fastballs.
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Nick Lodolo
The Cards are 9-4 and have primarily been relying on excellent pitching to win ballgames, but this is a lineup that will rank among the best in MLB by year’s end. Nolan Arenado is their best hitter, and both he and Paul Goldschmidt absolutely murder left-handed pitching, rocking wOBAs around or well north of .400 over the past couple of seasons along with slugger Tyler O’Neill and Dylan Carlson.
On FD, those will be the four I go to in most instances, but there’s plenty of value with Tommy Edman, Paul DeJong and even future HOFer Albert Pujols. On DK, running a full five-man stack might be the way to go, especially since none of these guys are slouches against RHP, which will inevitably be their matchup after a couple ABs when Lodolo has hit the showers.
Houson Astros vs. Yusei Kikuchi
The Astros have a lot going their way against Kikuchi today, including an excellent history versus him and other LHP. Alex Bregman, Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Pena and Yulieski Gurriel are the “first four” that I identified after considering salary, situation and upside, but we can look a little further down the lineup if we need additional savings.
I always love looking toward Martin Maldonado against LHP, and he’s dirt cheap with oodles of upside in this matchup. Chase McCormick is also just $2,700 on DK and makes sense if you’re running the full five man stack with the 1-3-4-8-9 hitters for Houston, which could help you grab some of the top-tier arms that Adam has highlighted in his piece.
MLB DFS Main Slate Summary
Aside form the three stacks and the Pirates-Cubs game, the best options are with the Tigers (Robbie Grossman and Spencer Torkleson are very cheap fillers), Rays and the Yankees, who haven’t quite gotten into the white-hot mode we traditionally see in the sweltering days of summer in the Boogie Down. I may have one lineup with the Yankees 5-7 hitters if they roll out Josh Donaldson and Gleyber Torres — both of whom seem to be improving their approach at the dish.
Rounding out the slate are one-off plays and two-man stacks from the Braves (Ozzie Albies and Matt Olson) and Jays (Zack Collins).
MLB DFS Late (4:07 p.m.) Slate Summary
I’m sticking primarily to the Angels against Baltimore SP Chris Ellis (Mike Trout, Jared Walsh and Shohei Ohtani) and Mets vs. Madison Bumgarner (Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Starling Marte) but both of those lineups could also feature some value plays in good spots, including punt play James McCann ($2,200 on DK) for the Mets and Brandon Marsh for the Angels.
We can also give the Seattle Mariners another look today, as their starting to heat up offensively and draw another good matchup against Royals SP Carlos Hernandez.
Good luck today and show us those green screens in Discord!
