Stacks for Thursday, March 29

 

The first day of the season features all the teams this year, but we do have a key postponed game in WSH/CIN and another postponed game in PIT/DET.  Please make sure to monitor the weather, as well as the lineups.In my opinion, stacking is the best way to go about creating tournament lineups.  Of course, if also playing cash games, you should always enter that in one GPP as well.

Each person may have their own approach to stacking, so you’ll likely receive different stacking routes in each daily stacking article. Below are my top stacks for opening day this year. Please note that my stacks are geared towards Fanduel and DraftKings, but can be transferred for use on the other sites as well.

Stack Tip of the Day:  FanDuel now allows you to stack four hitters plus the pitcher from the same team

 

Paying Up for Pitching:

With a large number of elite pitchers taking the mound for opening day, targeting those pitchers will be a popular route to take tonight.  The start of any season means that sites are slightly looser with their pricing in order to help the newer players out. 

For FanDuel, the addition of the three evening games provides the opportunity to pay up for Kershaw and Kluber over the popular afternoon pitcher in Sale.  I’m a fan of the 4 x 4 stack method even if salary is left on the table, and currently liking the idea of a Royals and Dodgers stack.  This targets two of the weaker pitchers taking the mound today, but also avoids what could be the popular stack teams in Houston and the Yankees. For this stack I didn’t mess around, and targeted the 1-4 hitters from both teams today. The minimum price Jon Jay leading off provides much needed salary relief in order to pay up for pitching, and the two lefty Dodgers will likely be low owned on a stacked opening day.  Taking those two combos leaves you with $10.8K for pitching, and where the strategy really takes shape. Severino and Verlander are both available, but making just one pivot with replacing Bellinger with Grandal or Puig to Kiki will provide you enough salary to go with Kluber or Sale.

On the DK side, it’s tough to pay top price for two pitchers, but was able to spend over $20K for the two pitchers with a Royals and Yankees stack.  DK still has the catcher spot, and with the injury to Perez, I don’t mind punting the catcher spot with Butera at $2.4K.  The pitchers used in this stack were Sale and Nola, but can use a different combo with the salary.

 

Top Options from description above:  

Royals:    Jon Jay, Lucas Duda, Mike Moustakas, Whit Merrifield, Drew Butera (catcher sites only).

Dodgers:  Chris Taylor, Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager, Yasiel Puig.

Yankees:  Aaron Hicks, Didi Gregorius, Neil Walker, Brett Gardner.

 

Paying Up for Hitting:  

There is a ton of great info on players and teams to target today from Howard in the playbook, James and Jon on the podcast, and through conversations in the new, live chat room.  Houston, Baltimore, KC, and NYY would be my top teams to target, but you’ll have to pay up for some of those overpriced teams. 

If not a max or multi entry player, try not to look for exposure to everyone, but find a few teams you like, and a few pitchers to target.  I really don’t want to go cheap for pitching, but if you want the big bats, you’ll need to today.

For DK, the pricing for me is the tightest out of all the sites, and went with both the pitching coach and playbook’s value pitcher play in Garrett Richards.  I don’t mind Duffy, but Richards will save you $900.  I paired Richards with Nola, but dropping him to Archer or Duffy opens up even more salary.  I’m an Altuve fan, and went with a Houston stack of Altuve, Bregman, Springer, and Gonzalez, but Correa exposure would be nice in this spot.  You’ll be left with roughly $3.8K per player, but punting catcher with Butera again jumps you to $4.3K per player for a 1B, and two OF spots.  I used one of the spots for Trout, leaving the last OF and 1B spots wide open.

On FanDuel, paying up for hitting doesn’t mean you totally have to punt with your only pitcher spot, but I’m leaning that way today.  Of the cheaper options, I’ll take the risk with Corbin vs. the Rockies away from Coors vs. a lefty.  What that allowed me was the ability to take Sanchez, Judge, and Stanton from the Yankees, as well as Altuve, Correa, and Bregman from the Astros.  I used the cheap Aaron Hicks batting behind those three as the fourth Yankee, but have just $2.1K left for the last OF spot.  Since I was high on Jay for other contests, I pivoted to a possible sneaky play in Matt Kemp instead.

 

Top Options from description above:  

Yankees: Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sanchez, Aaron Hicks

Astros:  Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, Marwin Gonzalez.

 

Wanting a Little of Both:

I would rather go all in for opening day on either pitchers or hitters, but I like Nola’s spot today, and our team is high on Richards.  Either of those two likely won’t destroy your team, but will allow you to take an extra hitter or two today for gpp’s.

For one pitcher sites, I like Nola with a Royals stack once again.  Duda, Whit, Mous, and Jay cost you just a little bit more than Kershaw alone today.  With those four and Nola, I went with a selection of players I think will have a big day, or in a nice spot that may be overlooked.  Feel free to use the Brewers here, but I went with Machado, Trout, Taylor, and Braun.  Dropping Trout to a player like Kemp opens up enough salary to go Kershaw or any other pitcher.