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4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 4/20/18

The Cardinals square off with a struggling Brandon Finnegan tonight. Are they the top stacking option of the day?

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.

As always, the game in Coors Field will be ignored for stacking purposes. You don't need my expert advice to tell you that's a smart play.

Now, let's get to the stacks.

St. Louis Cardinals

As part of the trade that sent Johnny Cueto to the Royals three seasons ago, Brandon Finnegan has been subject to the hype that often comes with a first-round draft pick. The problem is that the young southpaw hasn't lived up to the hype yet, and he makes the St. Louis Cardinals -- who boast an implied total of 4.89 runs -- a very appealing stacking option.

Finnegan was on the disabled list twice in 2017, which could have played a large role in his poor numbers. Limited to only 13 innings, he recorded an impressive 27.1% strikeout rate and limited hard contact to 23.3% of hitters. The downside was Finnegan's command issues kept cropping up -- he recorded a 22.0% walk rate, and in his last 10 outings, he's recorded a double-digit walk rate in nine of them. That includes 2018, in which the lefty has recorded an equally ugly 18.2% strikeout rate at the exact same walk rate. Throw in a 42.9% hard-hit rate, and you have the recipe for disaster.

Right-handed batters will get the lean here, as Finnegan's allowed them to mash to the tune of a 35.7% hard-hit rate and 37.0% fly-ball rate. Tommy Pham ($4,400) owned southpaws in 2017, smashing them for a .260 ISO and 37.8% hard-hit rate. One word of caution -- Pham has been dealing with a minor groin injury, so check to see if he makes Friday's lineup.

Jose Martinez ($3,700) is another pricey option, but he's been rocking the yard so far in 2018. The first baseman has recorded an impressive .426 wOBA, and last season, he enjoyed the platoon advantage with a .441 ISO, 40.4% hard-hit rate, and 42.6% fly-ball rate against lefties.

Paul DeJong ($3,700) only has 2 hits in his last 24 plate appearances, but they've both been long-balls. If you need some pop, DeJong smacked lefties for a .313 ISO, 37.3% hard-hit rate, and 41.2% fly-ball rate in 2017.

For a cheaper option, Jedd Gyorko ($2,400) has returned from the disabled list, and he makes for a solid play thanks to a .267 ISO and 39.8% hard-hit rate with the platoon advantage last year.

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