4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 8/3/18

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.

Tampa Bay Rays

Unlike most days, where we start with the more expensive stacking options and build around them, we'll look to a cheap Tampa Bay Rays team before sprinkling in the others. The reason? The Chicago White Sox' Lucas Giolito.

Giolito has failed to live up to the hype so far in his three-year career, and 2018 has been no less disappointing. Following a 4.49 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) in 2017, the right-hander has been hit up for a 6.14 SIERA through 21 starts this season. He's posted a measly 13.8% strikeout rate with a 12.7% walk rate and a 42.0% fly-ball rate and 31.3% hard-hit rate. Against lefties, Giolito's been knocked around to a 7.01 xFIP, including an even lower strikeout rate (9.7%) and higher walk (14.0%), fly-ball (44.7%) and hard-hit (32.8%) rates.

Naturally, we'll lean toward left-handed hitters, and that starts with Kevin Kiermaier ($3,100) and Jake Bauers ($3,600), projected to hit first and third, respectively, for Tampa. Kiermaier has just a .261 wOBA in the platoon this season, but he's put together an improved .327 wOBA along with the power of a .242 ISO over the last 14 days. Bauers, on the other hand, owns a 45.5% hard-hit rate and 36.4% fly-ball rate on the year, while producing a .358 wOBA and .263 ISO against right-handed pitching. Those numbers jump to .373 and .329 over the past 30 days, so Bauers is a must-have if you're rolling with the Rays.

There aren't any other high-upside lefties, but Joey Wendle ($2,900) and Mallex Smith ($2,900) bring a nice floor into the matchup. Both players have a wOBA above .325, and they've combined for 19 steals (Smith with 12) with righties on the mound. After confirming that he's in the lineup, Wendle should be the preferred option of the two, boasting a .450 wOBA and .231 ISO on a 42.4% hard-hit rate and 35.6% fly-ball rate over the last 30 days in the split.

From the right side of the plate, C.J. Cron ($3,400) leads the way with a .240 ISO, 38.6% hard-hit rate and 35.5% fly-ball rate without the advantage. Matt Duffy ($2,900) has just a 14.6% strikeout rate in the split, and his base stealing (seven steals no the year) presents extra value at his price. Daniel Robertson ($2,800) and his .349 wOBA would be an option if he, for some reason, gets the nod over Wendle tonight.