The Houston Astros lead the way in implied team total tonight (6.60) by a comfortable margin, but there are plenty of other ways to go on Monday's nine-game slate. While implied totals certainly aren't everything, it's telling that 11 different teams exceed the 4.80 mark.
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.
Arizona Diamondbacks
The Astros may have the highest implied total, but you could make the case that it's the Arizona Diamondbacks who draw the slate's best matchup.
Rockies right-hander Chi Chi Gonzalez is getting the nod tonight, and he's been dreadful in both the Majors and Triple-A this season, failing to drop below a 6.00 ERA and 5.00 xFIP at either level. Given those numbers, it isn't surprising he's only seen 24.2 innings of big league work in 2019, owning an ugly 13.8% strikeout rate, 12.1% walk rate, and 42.4% hard-hit rate over that span.
Undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2017, this is Gonzalez's first season with any MLB innings since 2016, but it wasn't like he was putting up encouraging numbers back then, either. In total, he's accumulated a 5.77 SIERA, 11.6% strikeout rate, and 12.0% walk rate over 102.0 career innings.
Whether it's this season or his career as a whole, there's little to suggest Gonzalez can shake it at the highest level, and the D-backs could roll tonight.
Ketel Marte ($4,100) and Eduardo Escobar ($4,000) are the only bats who hit the $4k mark, and with guys like Jarrod Dyson ($2,900), David Peralta ($3,100), and Jake Lamb ($2,900) coming in on the cheap, you don't necessarily need to spend too much to stack this spot. Christian Walker ($3,400) is always a welcome sight in an Arizona stack, bringing in a 50.7% hard-hit rate and 40.8% fly-ball rate in same-sided matchups.
Don't overlook Nick Ahmed ($3,600) and Carson Kelly ($3,000) just because they're batting low in the order, too. While they're more known for their work against left-handers, they've both been performing well against righties lately. Since the All-Star break, Ahmed has posted a 49.3% hard-hit rate and .231 ISO in the split, while Kelly has an even better 61.1% hard-hit rate and .306 ISO.