3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Opening Day

Stacking is an integral part of daily fantasy baseball. Correlation drives upside, giving your lineups a slate-winning ceiling when your stacks explode.

This piece will do the digging and the dirty work each day to determine which stacks are worth rostering on FanDuel's main slate. While we want upside, we also need to factor in game theory, especially in a sport as random as baseball.

Our MLB DFS heat map is a quick way to get a feel for the overall slate and which offenses are in a good spot. You can also check out our daily fantasy baseball projections to identify the slate's best bats.

Let's look at the top stacks for this main slate, which starts at 1:05 p.m. EST.

Atlanta Braves

Opening Day is usually a pretty tough slate for stacks as each team sends out its ace, but when that "ace" is Patrick Corbin, we need to pounce.

The Atlanta Braves are the lucky opposition, and they're sporting a 4.51-run implied total, the third-best on the slate.

Atlanta is going to be popular, but they're a loaded lineup and are facing one of the slate's worst hurlers. The Braves could erupt, and they battered Corbin last year, plating 15 earned runs across 14 1/3 innings against him.

Overall in 2022, Corbin pitched to a 4.33 SIERA with a blah 18.0% strikeout rate. Righties tagged him for a .388 wOBA and 41.1% hard-hit rate, and that's where we should focus our attention, although lefties struck out just 16.4% of the time against Corbin last year and are also well worth considering.

Spearheaded by right-handed mashers like Ronald Acuna ($3,900) and Austin Riley ($3,600), Atlanta mauled southpaws a year ago to the tune of a .341 wOBA. While Dansby Swanson is gone, Ozzie Albies ($3,500) is back, and Sean Murphy ($2,900) has been added to the mix. Marcell Ozuna ($2,500) and Murphy are handy salary-savers.

Lefties Matt Olson ($3,700) and Michael Harris II ($3,800) get dinged a bit by the matchup but can still deliver against Corbin and should get a couple of plate appearances versus the Washington Nationals' bullpen.

Boston Red Sox

Kyle Gibson is another meh starter who is going on Opening Day, and that makes the Boston Red Sox a quality stacking option. The Red Sox hold the slate's top implied total (4.69).

Outside of one bat, Boston's salaries are super easy to get to, which is huge on a slate with so many enticing high-salaried arms.

By some measurements, Gibson had the best campaign of his career last year, recording a career-best 4.06 SIERA. But a 4.06 SIERA isn't that great, and he finished with a middling 20.1% strikeout rate. Lefties gave him a hard time as he struggled to a 4.66 xFIP and 16.8% strikeout rate in the split.

Boston has left-handed bats who can take advantage, starting with Rafael Devers ($3,900). Devers hammered righties for a .392 wOBA last year, hitting 23 of his 27 homers in the split. He's the clear top piece on the Red Sox.

Other than Devers, no other Boston hitter is salaried above $3,000. Alex Verdugo ($3,000), Masataka Yoshida ($2,900) and Triston Casas ($2,700) will also have the platoon advantage. Verdugo is likely to be atop the order. Casas showed good power in the minors, and Yoshida might not be at this salary for long if his excellent plate-discipline skills from Japan transition to the bigs.

Adam Duvall ($2,400) is the righty I most want to include in my Red Sox stacks. He figures to be in the middle of the lineup and is a solid source of power at a low salary.

Minnesota Twins

The Minnesota Twins are on the stacking radar for Thursday, and much like the Red Sox, the Twins mostly come at very friendly salaries.

Minnesota -- owners of the slate's second-highest implied total (4.57) -- is on the road at the Kansas City Royals and will face Zack Greinke. The veteran right-hander was running on fumes in 2022, putting up a 4.84 SIERA and 12.5% strikeout rate. Yes, 12.5%. He didn't have large splits either way, although lefties struck out just 8.7% of the time against him.

Byron Buxton ($3,500) is the belle of the ball when you're stacking the Twins. He has slate-breaking upside and posted a lovely batted-ball profile in 2022, including a 41.8% hard-hit rate and 51.1% fly-ball rate. Buxton is the slate's top-ranked bat, per our model.

Carlos Correa ($3,000) is the other standout in this Minnesota lineup. He had another good season a year ago, recording a .362 wOBA with 22 jacks. He and Buxton are a fun mini-pairing if you don't want to full-on stack the Twins.

Max Kepler ($2,500), Joey Gallo ($2,400), Nick Gordon ($2,400) and Trevor Larnach ($2,200) are viable lefties who offer cap relief. Gallo is super intriguing. With strikeouts not as much of a concern against Greinke, Gallo is much more appealing than usual, although he may get benched if he sees a lefty out of the 'pen. We project Gallo as the slate's fourth-best hitter, making him the top point-per-dollar stick.