Stacking Daily Fantasy Teams: To Stack or Not to Stack
by Derek of RotoPicks.com
This is a question that many daily fantasy players end up asking themselves every day. Stacking is essentially taking all of the hitters on a MLB team and hoping that the team has a big offensive night. The idea of the stack is that if you can find a team that should score a lot of runs on a certain night, you can take every player on that team and get points every time the team scores a run.
You will get points for hits, runs, and RBI's for the whole team. Many daily fantasy players live by the stack and conversely, there's also many daily fantasy players who absolutely refuse to stack. So the question becomes should you be stacking your team?
The answer to that question is a little bit more complicated than a simple yes or no. Before we get into the specifics, let's take a quick look at the pros and cons of stacking your team.
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The pro's of stacking are pretty obvious; If you can manage to stack a team that scores a bunch of runs, then the stack will work great for you. You will get fantasy points for every hit, walk, stolen base, run, and RBI that the team has that night. If you can manage to find that team often, then the stack can be your best friend. As long as a team can score at least 6-7 runs or so, then your team should put up some pretty good fantasy points.
The biggest con to the stack is how risky it can be. Baseball is one of the most unpredictable sports, especially when it comes to fantasy on a nightly basis.
On any given night, a good pitcher can have a bad night and a bad pitcher can have a good night. The same goes for hitters. One night a great hitter can go 4-5 with 2 HR's and then the next night he can go 0-4 with 3 strikeouts. That's just the way baseball plays out. I can't tell you how many stacks I have seen fail because the team they stacked just didn't show up that night. Just because a team is facing a bad pitcher doesn't always mean that they're going to score a lot of runs. If you end up stacking a team and that team only scores between 1-4 runs, your team is in trouble, regardless of how good your pitchers perform.
When it comes to stacking, you can either have the high of the highs when your team scores a lot of runs or the lows of the lows when they don't. So to me, the question of whether or not to stack comes down to what kind of fantasy player YOU are. Because stacking a team is so risky, it comes down to how much risk you need to have in order to win the leagues that you are playing in.
If you're a player that loves to play in GPP's (Guaranteed Prize Pool Tournaments) due to the large payouts, then stacking is a great option for you. Despite what opinions people have about it, stacked teams are often at the top of the GPP leaderboards.
When a team scores double digit runs and someone has stacked that team, they're almost certain to be near the top of that leaderboard. To win a GPP, you have to take some big risks and that makes stacking a great option.
On the other hand, if you're a daily fantasy player that prefers head to head, 3 man, and double-up leagues, then I would recommend staying away from stacking. The goal of these smaller leagues is to basically finish a little bit above average. You don't have to finish with a crazy high score in order to win your double up leagues and head to head leagues. In these types of leagues, if you want to slowly grind out a profit in the long run, you have to win consistently.
Instead of using full stacks, I recommend using smaller stacks of 3-4 players from teams with great matchups. This allows you to get a good number of players on that team, but still allows you to diversify your team with other players that have good matchups.
In the end, the answer of whether or not to stack comes down to your style of play. It's hard to win consistently with stacks because of how unreliable they are so if you're in head to head and double up leagues, then the mini stack may be better suited for you. However, if you play in GPP's and only need to win one every once in a while, then stacking may be a great tool for you.
Here's another great article on stacking daily fantasy baseball teams: Pro's and Con's of Stacking.
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