4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 8/1/18

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.

Los Angeles Angels

It was quite the trade deadline day on Tuesday, and the Tampa Bay Rays certainly played a part in that. Not only did they trade for outfielder Tommy Pham, but they also dealt starter Chris Archer to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for three players, including pitcher Tyler Glasnow, who will reportedly draw the start Wednesday for the Rays.

This season, Glasnow has served solely as a long reliever, sporting a 3.62 SIERA, 29.6% strikeout rate and 26.5% hard-hit rate against. Those numbers are encouraging, but the right-hander is still issuing 5.46 walks per 9 innings, which just so happens to be an improvement from last year's 6.39 mark. And speaking of last year, Glasnow was absolutely dreadful in his 13 starts. En route to a .423 opponent weighted on-base average (wOBA) and 5.37 xFIP, he struck out just 18.8% of batters while allowing a 32.3% hard-hit rate and 36.0% fly-ball rate.

Glasnow's fixed some things mechanically, but it will probably be tough for him to adjust to his new situation, especially in a role he was uncomfortable in just a year ago.

Tonight is also expected to be more of a bullpen effort for the Rays, with Glasnow expected to go two-to-three innings before guys like Jacob Faria and Andrew Kittredge -- both righties -- step in.

No matter the breakdown, the fact that all three pitchers are righties bodes well for the Los Angeles Angels' bats. On the year, the Angels are the Majors' second-best team against right-handed pitching, owning a 114 wRC+ on a 38.6% hard-hit rate and 38.2% fly-ball rate.

As always, Mike Trout ($5,300) headlines the stack. He may be the most expensive batter on the slate, but it's hard to fade a guy with a .447 wOBA and .326 isolated power (ISO), not to mention a higher walk rate (20.8%) than strikeout rate (19.1%), against righty arms this season.

Justin Upton ($3,700) and Shohei Ohtani ($3,200) are next in line. Upton brings righty-on-righty power, in the form of a 46.9% hard-hit rate and .221 ISO, and Ohtani will likely hit from the two-spot, entering with a .405 wOBA and .304 ISO with the platoon advantage.

Andrelton Simmons ($3,100) is a reverse splits guy, producing a respectable .336 wOBA on a 36.6% hard-hit rate, and he hit sixth last time out. However, if David Fletcher ($2,800) is in that spot, his .358 wOBA against righties is something worth targeting.

You could also check out Kole Calhoun ($3,100) (204 ISO against righties) in the leadoff spot. And if Luis Valbuena ($2,300) is able to get back in there (with Ian Kinsler gone), his career 44.2% fly-ball rate and 33.5% hard-ball rate are something we want exposure to in tournaments.

Atlanta Braves

Following a four-game skid, the Atlanta Braves have now put together 3 straight wins, tallying 20 runs over the last 3 days. They exploded for 11 runs against the Miami Marlins' Dan Straily on Tuesday, and things could get just as bad on Wednesday, as rookie Pablo Lopez takes the mound in Atlanta.

At the moment, the Braves own the slate's highest implied total (5.08), and for good reason. Through five big league starts, the young righty has a 5.34 ERA. While his 4.12 SIERA shows us that his numbers might be a bit inflated by luck, that's not something to worry about for today's matchup. He has allowed a .344 wOBA and 34.4% hard-hit rate to 61 left-handed batters to date.

Atlanta possesses quite a few lefties worth considering, starting with Freddie Freeman ($4,200) and his 45.4% hard-hit rate and 35.2% fly-ball rate against right-handed pitching. Right behind him is Nick Markakis ($3,400), who's coming off a 2-for-4 homer night and who has produced to the tune of a .370 wOBA -- including a minuscule 8.9% strikeout rate -- against righties.

Switch-hitter Ozzie Albies ($4,000) should be high on our list of Braves tonight, boasting a .226 ISO and 41.4% fly-ball rate from the left side of the plate. And Ronald Acuna ($3,800) completes a top-of-the-order stack, too. He has a .375 wOBA and .250 ISO against same-sided throwers, and he's tallied two homers over his last two games.

As you go further down the order, Johan Camargo ($3,000) owns a 38.6% hard-hit rate and 13.4% strikeout rate in the split. Even Ender Inciarte ($3,000) could be in play; he has a 12.1% walk rate and 15 steals with the platoon advantage this season.

Chicago Cubs

Nick Kingham's brief Major League career has been, in a word, rocky. In 11 starts, he's 5-5 with a 4.80 ERA and 21.3% strikeout rate. By the looks of his 10.7% swinging strike rate, he's just not a swing and miss kind of guy, and that generally bodes well for most offenses. But what makes Kingham the ideal pitcher to stack the Chicago Cubs against is his struggles against lefties. In that split, he's given up a 5.34 xFIP and .377 wOBA while striking out just 14.4% of batters.

Holding a 4.16 implied total, the Cubs might go a little under the radar, but they shouldn't. They have lefties in droves, and Anthony Rizzo ($4,000) leads the charge. Hitting atop the order, the big lefty has a .360 wOBA and 37.4% fly-ball rate against righties, and he's managed a .464 wOBA and .297 ISO in 77 plate appearances from the leadoff spot.

Kyle Schwarber ($3,100), Jason Heyward ($2,900) and Ian Happ ($2,600) are all relatively inexpensive and bring good lefty-versus-righty numbers into this one. Schwarber's got a 40.8% fly-ball rate and .276 ISO while Heyward has posted a .334 wOBA and 32.3% hard-hit rate alongside a small 10.7% strikeout rate. Happ, who projects to hit sixth, enters with a .370 wOBA and 45.0% hard-hit rate, albeit with a 33.9% strikeout rate.

Combining a high-risk guy like Happ with the safety of a Ben Zobrist ($2,600) could be the way to go. The switch-hitting veteran has a higher walk rate (14.8%) than strikeout rate (12.7%) against righties, resulting in a .390 wOBA -- the highest among qualified Cubs.

If you'd like to throw in a righty bat, Javier Baez ($3,700) is 7-for-16 (.438) with three homers in his last four games. There's no need to worry about the righty-on-righty matchup either, as Baez boasts a .374 wOBA and .276 ISO in this split.

Tampa Bay Rays

On the other side of Wednesday's Angels-Rays tilt, L.A.'s Nick Tropeano allows us to incorporate some cheap Rays bats tonight. While the right-hander's 4.82 ERA is slightly inflated, his 4.60 SIERA isn't all that far off. After all is said and done, he's still a weak right-handed pitcher, and one that the Rays could provide nice value against.

Tropeano's .371 wOBA and 43.2% hard-hit rate allowed to lefties points us to Tampa's probable cleanup and leadoff hitters -- Jake Bauers ($3,400) and Kevin Kiermaier ($2,900) -- first. For their spots in the order, both are nice and cheap relative to their level of production in the split. Bauers, who has homered in back-to-back contests, brings in a .352 wOBA and .248 ISO against righties. As for Kiermaier, he's struggled for most of the season, but just last year he yielded a .358 wOBA and .213 ISO with the platoon advantage. And, now healthy, the outfielder has hit to a .346 wOBA and .234 ISO in his last 15 games (69 plate appearances).

It remains to be seen if yesterday's deadline addition, Tommy Pham ($2,700), will be available. If he is, we could see him start in left field over Mallex Smith ($2,500). If Smith's in, he carries values on the basepaths (18 stolen bases), but as for Pham, he's displaying a .358 wOBA and 40.3% hard-hit rate against righties over the last two years.

With Matt Duffy ($2,600) and Daniel Robertson ($2,800) both below $3,000 and hitting in the top third, their handedness is a non-issue. Duffy lacks awe-inspiring numbers in the split, but he has a low strikeout rate (14.6%) and has shown the ability to steal a base, with seven on the year. Robertson, on the other hand, has a career-high nine homers and sports a .350 wOBA and 34.1% hard-hit rate without the platoon advantage. Just make sure he's in there over Joey Wendle ($2,800), who would become an alternative option if he draws the start.

Brett Oswalt is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Brett Oswalt also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username BRO14THEKID. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.