Stacking can be a controversial topic in many daily fantasy sports, but you can count baseball as a glaring exception. Here, it's universal.
Using multiple players on the same team on a given day presents you with the opportunity to double dip. If one of your players hits an RBI double, there's a good chance he drove in another one of your guys. When you get the points for both the run and the RBI, you'll be climbing the leaderboards fast.
Each day here on numberFire, we'll go through four offenses ripe for the stacking. They could have a great matchup, be in a great park, or just have a lot of quality sticks in the lineup, but these are the offenses primed for big days that you may want a piece of.
Premium members can use our new stacking feature to customize their stacks within their optimal lineups for the day, choosing the team you want to stack and how many players you want to include. You can also check out our hitting heat map, which provides an illustration of which offenses have the best combination of matchup and potency.
Now, let's get to the stacks.
Houston Astros
Welp. Coming out of the gates in 2018, it could be a rough beginning for Cole Hamels and the Texas Rangers.
The Rangers' ace will face off against the Houston Astros, who bludgeoned their way to a 2017 World Series title thanks, in large part, to a prolific offense. Just how good were the 'Stros last season? Let me remind you. They led baseball in runs scored (896). They were second in home runs (238). They led the league in batting average (.283), nine points better than the Colorado Rockies. And, they led the league by a wide margin in wRC+ (121).
Good luck, Cole.
To make matters worse, Hamels is coming off a rough 2017 campaign. He posted the second-worst walk rate of his career (8.6%), and he posted a career-worst 17.1% strikeout rate, leading to an ugly 4.90 SIERA. It's no surprise the Astros sport the highest implied team total (5.53) of the day.
To start the stack, look no further than shortstop Carlos Correa ($4,000), who was an absolute monster with the platoon advantage in 2017. In 105 plate appearances last season in this situation, Correa smashed his way to a 187 wRC+, which led the Astros' regulars against lefties. He also showed a pretty keen batting eye with identical 11.4% strikeout and walk rates, which could treat us to some more moon shots like these.
While there are many studs throughout this lineup, there are two very affordable options that we can use to pair with Correa. The first is Alex Bregman, who sits at only $3,300. Last season, Bregman ranked fourth on the Astros in wRC+ (160) against southpaws, sporting a .974 OPS and .239 ISO. That ISO mark was second-best on the team versus lefties.
Last but not least, known for his proclivity as a lefty hitter, don't overlook Marwin Gonzalez, as he switches to the right side of the dish. At only $2,700 for opening day, Gonzalez is coming off a strong 2017 in which he posted a 115 wRC+ in 134 plate appearances against lefties. And he actually cut his strikeout rate down from the right side of the plate (from 19.7% to 17.9%).