With a number of exploitable hurlers taking the mound, Thursday's main slate brings no shortage of intriguing stacks, and it wouldn't be surprising to see some offenses put up some big numbers tonight. As of this writing, eight different squads are showing implied totals of 4.80 or better.
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 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.
Minnesota Twins
With a 5.44 implied total, the Minnesota Twins aren't exactly sneaking by anyone, but they're in a superb spot against Glenn Sparkman and the Royals.
Sparkman has a poor 5.24 SIERA, which ought to be expected when you're carrying a lowly 13.0% strikeout rate while allowing a 41.5% hard-hit rate and mere 38.4% ground-ball rate.
He hasn't been very good against either side of the plate but has a particularly sorry history against left-handed batters. We're only talking about 35.1 career innings in the split, but over that span, he's produced a 5.97 xFIP, 14.1% strikeout rate, and 11.2% walk rate.
The Twins are well equipped to take advantage, with heavy-hitters Max Kepler ($4,100), Jorge Polanco ($4,000), and Eddie Rosario ($3,900) all able to attack Sparkman left-handed. Jake Cave ($2,200) and Jason Castro ($3,000) offer up a pair of cheap lefty sticks, too. Cave produced a 39.5% hard-hit rate and .222 ISO against right-handed pitching in 2018.
Of course, it's not like we should ignore the righty sticks, and Nelson Cruz ($3,900) remains as big a home run threat as ever. He's producing a 47.8% hard-hit rate and 38.9% fly-ball rate in same-sided matchups, good for a robust .241 ISO. C.J. Cron ($3,400) and Miguel Sano ($3,600) also pack plenty of punch in the mid-range.