4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 5/1/19

With a slew of top-notch pitchers going on tonight's nine-game main slate, implied totals are low across the board, with eight offenses fail to reach 4.00 runs and only three pegged for totals over 4.70 runs. No team hits the five-run mark. Needless to say, this shakes out as a potential low-scoring evening for offense, though every night tends to bring a few surprises, so don't be afraid to go off the board a bit.

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.

Atlanta Braves

San Diego Padres prospect Cal Quantrill is making his big league debut on Wednesday night, and while it's often tricky to predict how these things will go, Quantrill hasn't shown much in the minors to indicate he's ready for prime time just yet.

This season, he's posted a thoroughly mediocre 4.68 ERA and 1.36 WHIP over five Triple-A starts, which fall in line with the 4.80 xFIP he's shown over that span. His 22.0% strikeout rate isn't anything of note, either, and he's demonstrated little in the way of punchouts in both Double-A and Triple-A.

The end result is an Atlanta Braves squad getting top honors in the implied total department (4.89), and they figure to be a popular stack on this slate. But with ideal temperatures in the 80s and big bats like Freddie Freeman ($4,400) and Ronald Acuna ($4,100), it's a group that can certainly put up some crooked numbers.

Nick Markakis ($3,500) may not be as exciting as those two, but he'll have the platoon advantage and holds better Statcast numbers than you might think, including an expected batting average in the top 5% of the league.

Unfortunately, Josh Donaldson is out of the lineup again, but that puts an affordable Dansby Swanson ($3,300) up to second in the order. Johan Camargo ($2,600) and Brian McCann ($2,400) provide some cheap bats from the left side, and they're occupying the fifth and sixth spots, respectively.

Houston Astros

The Houston Astros are a frequent visitor to these parts and are coming off a big Tuesday night after rattling off 11 runs on the Minnesota Twins.

Of course, DFS veterans are all too familiar with lefty Martin Perez, who's also no stranger to stacks.

This year's edition of Perez is a little different than past iterations, but the end results may ultimately be more of the same. Previously a soft-tossing hurler with a high ground-ball rate, Perez has upped the velocity a couple ticks, resulting in a 19.5% strikeout rate and 11.5% swinging-strike rate, both career bests. While that's good news for Perez, that's about where the positives end.

After posting a SIERA over 5.00 in three straight seasons, this year's 4.81 SIERA is technically an improvement, but that's not exactly saying much. His new approach has also led a rise in walk rate (10.2%) and drop in his previously solid ground-ball rate (40.7%). Maybe Perez ultimately finds more success than past years, but early returns suggest we may just be rearranging some numbers around with the same end result -- a guy we want to stack against.

Houston will roll out nearly an entire lineup of righty sticks, making them ideal to stack, and naturally that means mixing in your favorites like George Springer ($4,200), Jose Altuve ($4,200), Alex Bregman ($4,000), and Carlos Correa ($4,100). Yulieski Gurriel ($2,300) and Tyler White ($2,300) are probably eager to put April behind them after slumping badly, but they can help slash some salary lower in the lineup.

Philadelphia Phillies

Left-hander Daniel Norris is no stranger to allowing hard contact, giving up a 40.7% hard-hit rate and 41.4% fly-ball rate through 18 1/3 innings, numbers that look eerily similar to the last couple seasons. Throw in power-friendly Citizens Bank Park, along with a modest 4.60 SIERA and 18.8% strikeout rate, and we could see some longballs from the Philadelphia Phillies tonight.

Rhys Hoskins ($4,500) boasts a 43.7% hard-hit rate and 50.7% fly-ball rate, making him one of the best candidates to take advantage. Although his splits against lefties were surprisingly subpar in 2018, that was over a relatively small sample of 154 plate appearances, and we should trust that a guy with a .280 career ISO can handle lefties.

Andrew McCutchen ($4,000), Jean Segura ($3,900), and J.T. Realmuto ($3,300) will also benefit from the platoon advantage in the top half of the order, and Bryce Harper ($4,700) can handle southpaws just fine, posting a .397 xwOBA in lefty-lefty matchups last year.

Due to the high prices in this lineup, you may need to drop down to someone like Caleb Smith ($9,200) at pitcher to accommodate the stack.

San Diego Padres

The Padres don't necessarily have a plus matchup against Max Fried, who's off to a solid start this season, but considering the power this lineup can pack against lefties, they're worth a look as a contrarian stack on an offensively-challenged slate.

All of Manny Machado ($3,500), Wil Myers ($2,900), and Hunter Renfroe ($3,200) have enjoyed past success against lefties and are capable of knocking it out of the park. Machado produced a stellar .400 xwOBA with the platoon advantage last season. Myers has posted a .354 wOBA and .223 ISO in the split dating back to 2016, and Renfroe has posted a career .259 ISO versus southpaws over that same span.

Meanwhile, Franmil Reyes ($2,400) demonstrated his massive power upside just last night with two bombs and ranks top 10 in barrels per plate appearance this season.

Best of all, these guys are all fairly inexpensive compared to the prior stacks. Ty France ($2,000) still costs the bare minimum and is batting sixth, too.

As for Fried, he's certainly capable of shutting down San Diego, but his 3.90 SIERA and 20.5% strikeout rate show he hasn't been nearly as dominant as his 2.30 ERA would indicate.