MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 10/2/15

With the playoffs just around the corner, several teams still fighting for spots have tasty matchups Friday.

Each day here on numberFire, we'll be providing you with four potential offenses to stack in your daily fantasy lineups. These are the offenses that provide huge run potential on that given day based on matchups and other factors.

After reading through these suggestions, make sure to check out our daily projections. These can either let you know which players to include in each stack, or which guy best complements said stack.

Another great tool is our custom optimal lineups, which are available for premium subscribers. Within the tool, we've added the option to stack teams -- you choose the team you want to stack, show how many players you want to use within the stack, and the tool will create a lineup based on this that you can then customize.

Now, let's get to the stacks. Here are the teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.

Pittsburgh Pirates

This is the last time that I'll get to type Keyvius Sampson into a keyboard for a long time. This makes me quite sad. The Pirates, though, are a team that could wipe away that sadness with their Gucciness.

Sampson has the unholy pitching trinity working against him: low strikeouts, high walks, and a low ground-ball rate. That's a great formula for getting yourself in a whole mess of trouble, and his 5.12 xFIP reflects that. The Pirates have already knocked him around twice this year, and a third time doesn't seem like a stretch at all.

With his fly-ball rate where it is, I want to look at some guys who can elevate the ball. One person who has been doing that since the start of September is Aramis Ramirez. He's sitting with a 42.2 hard-hit rate and 43.8 fly-ball rate over 82 plate appearances with 6 doubles and 4 home runs. Ramirez may be approaching retirement, but old man can still get it poppin'.

Texas Rangers

The Rangers are on the verge of clinching themselves the American League West title as they go up against the Los Angeles Angels. Jered Weaver has a 4.82 xFIP, so let's rock and roll, y'all.

Weaver has made two starts since coming off of the disabled list, and his xFIP has been above 4.50 each time. He's averaging 5.18 strikeouts per nine innings with a 34.5 ground-ball rate, meaning he will allow base runners and be susceptible to the long ball. All of that adds up to sweetness against a Rangers' team that ranks ninth in wOBA against right-handed batters.

I've probably preached enough on how good Shin-Soo Choo is on here for you to know you should roster him, so let's instead focus on Mitch Moreland. I had been worried about a small sample size with him earlier, but his hard-hit rate still sits at 36.5 with a 12.5 soft-hit rate against righties. He does strike out more often than Prince Fielder, but that's about the only advantage Fielder holds. Start with Choo and Moreland and build from there, and you should have yourself a mighty fine roster.

Houston Astros

The team hoping that game doesn't go as it could is the Astros. They are currently three games out in the West, but they also hold a one-game lead in the wild card over the Angels and the Minnesota Twins (who we'll get to in a second). They're facing Rubby De La Rosa, whose numbers have slipped of late, in a place with positive park factor. Let's ride.

Over his past 15 starts, de la Rosa has a 4.89 xFIP with 5.57 strikeouts and 3.54 walks per nine innings. In the last six, that jumps up to 5.06. He'll be excited when the season ends just so he can flip the page and start anew, but he has to face these bad mamma jammas first.

de la Rosa's main issues are against left-handed batters. Against them, he has a 5.04 xFIP, meaning Colby Rasmus is a lock on my rosters. Luis Valbuena bats lower in the order, but I'd still be willing to roll him out in tourneys with the ability to bust it open with a dong or two. Basically, just look at their lineup, find lefties, and stack them without a second thought.

Minnesota Twins

It is October 2nd, 2015, and the Twins are one game out of a playoff spot. Just like we all expected. Now, they head home for a matchup against Chris Ryan Young and his 5.24 SIERA. Is this happening?

Well, it certainly could, though Young has been besting his SIERA his entire career now. Over the past three years, he has had SIERA's of 5.17, 5.24, and 5.24. His ERA's those same seasons have been 4.15, 3.65, and 3.15. So why should we believe that he's not going to do that again? We can't say definitively that he won't have a good outing, but something we do know for sure is that his 26.0 ground-ball rate lends itself to big innings, and big innings are a stacker's delight.

If we're looking for an individual player who could bust open the scoring for us tonight, we want a guy whose batted-ball data aligns with Young's. The obvious choice -- and he's a good one -- is Miguel Sano, with a 40.4 hard-hit rate and 44.0 fly-ball rate against lefties. In tournaments, I'd give Trevor Plouffe a try at his minuscule ownership. He owns a 34.2 hard-hit rate against righties with a 41.8 fly-ball rate. It's not as optimal as Sano, but at Plouffe's salary and ownership, he very well could be a difference-maker if he finds success.