MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/8/16

The Houston Astros bring their high-powered bats to Miller Park, leading to the potential for some big run totals.

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. With the staggered start times today, we'll be focusing on exclusively the main slate starting at 7 p.m. Eastern. Yes, sadly, that does omit Coors Field from consideration. Alas, here are the teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.

Houston Astros

There are two below-average strikeout pitchers hurling today in Milwaukee, meaning you could potentially stack either side of this game. Given the Houston Astros' offensive fortitude, though, you're definitely going to want some exposure there.

Chase Anderson's platoon splits are the most interesting part of this potential stack. His strikeout rate is actually lower against righties, making those bats a bit safer, but his ground-ball rate is higher. That's going to limit the upside a bit. This is why I'm looking to stack the lefties in a tournament, even if I have to dip a bit lower in the order.

When you're stacking the lefties on the Astros, you're going to be able to save yourself a bit of dough. The most expensive lefty on the roster Friday is Colby Rasmus, who is only $3,000 on FanDuel and $3,400 on DraftKings. You lose safety by targeting players lower in the order, but the salary you save can allow you to pluck additional safety out of your pitching or other spots on the roster.

Chicago Cubs

Arizona Diamondbacks starter Robbie Ray could be on the verge of a breakout season after reducing his SIERA to 3.97 in the second half of 2015. But if he's going to do it, he's going to have to make it through a ridiculous test first against the Chicago Cubs' potent offense.

This stack is the exact opposite of what the Cubs had yesterday in that you want to load up on their right-handed bats. Ross' ground-ball rate against lefties last year was 52.6%, but it fell all the way to 39.8% against righties. Couple that with a slightly lower strikeout rate and much higher walk rate, and you've got a guy you can target, even if he is on the upswing.

You're not going to struggle to find bats to use here. Dexter Fowler and Ben Zobrist both had lower soft-hit rates last year against lefties, and Kris Bryant's hard-hit rate jumped to 37.0% against them. Just don't sleep on Jorge Soler. He's riskier because of his likely spot in the batting order and his lofty strikeout rate, but he can jump all over a ball and bounce it out of the building. I wouldn't stack the Cubs in cash because of their strikeout rate and the potential that Ray shuts them down, but this is a high-upside tourney stack with which you should be dabbling.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Everything you look for is in play with this stack. The Pittsburgh Pirates are at a park that is more conducive to runs than their own, they're facing a pitcher with a low strikeout rate and below-average ground-ball rate, and the wind is projected to be blowing out to left field at 17 miles per hour. Load 'em up and lock 'em in.

Alfredo Simon comes back to the Reds after a year with the Detroit Tigers in which he had a 4.88 SIERA, one of the highest marks in the entire league. Great American Ballpark is higher than Comerica Park in both park factor and home run park factor, meaning his ERA could even exceed his 5.05 mark from last year. This is what makes the Pirates so attractive.

Simon's strikeout rate falls all the way to 12.0% against left-handed batters, putting them in a fantastic spot for tonight. Clearly,  John Jaso should be on your list, but so should Gregory Polanco. Polanco's hard-hit rate was only slightly above average against righties last year at 30.5%, but he projects to get on base with just a 16.5% strikeout rate and an 8.9% walk rate. With his speed, getting on base -- in any way -- brings upside, making him an intriguing target.

St. Louis Cardinals

There are a bunch of games today where you'll want to target exclusively batters of a certain handedness, and this is no different. Anytime Matt Wisler is starting for the Atlanta Braves, you want to bathe in opposing lefties. Hello to you, Matt Carpenter.

In Wisler's first season in the bigs, he finished with a 4.98 SIERA, which illustrates some struggles in itself. But when you hone in on just lefties, he has a 6.43 xFIP compared to 4.02 against righties. His strikeout rate facing lefties is only 8.9%, and his walk rate is 12.7%. Yes, those numbers are in the correct order. You want that in your life.

The downside with the Cardinals -- and something that will likely limit them to just a mini stack -- is their selection of lefty bats. Carpenter is dope, but the main other assets are Brandon Moss, Kolten Wong, and Matt Adams. They could fit all three of them in by sliding Moss into the outfield, but even then, you won't be able to use both him and Adams as they are eligible exclusively at first base on FanDuel. I'd marry a mini stack here with a full stack elsewhere to try to maximize the upside.