MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for 9/4/15

With the Phillies rolling into town, the Red Sox could be primed for a big weekend, and that appears like it could get going tonight.

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. As always, these stacks do not include today's game at Coors between the San Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies. However, getting the Giants out of San Francisco with their 104 wRC+ against left-handed pitching should be a grand ol' time. I just don't need to tell you that. Here are the other teams you should be targeting in daily fantasy baseball today.

Boston Red Sox

Adam Morgan really did a nice job his last start out, allowing no earned runs over six innings against the San Diego Padres -- and the game was in Philly, no less! The problem with that game (and most of Morgan's starts) was a low number of strikeouts and a high number of fly balls, elevating his xFIP to 5.42. That means we should still be rolling with the Red Sox today.

A look at the slash lines on Morgan's platoon stats would tell you that it would be ill-advised to start a lefty. After all, they're only batting .196/.255/.280 against him compared to a .274/.321/.519 slash for righties. This is a good example of why it's dangerous to use platoon split stats for a pitcher over such a small sample size. In actuality, he strikes out fewer lefties and walks more, though his ground-ball rate does spike to a still stackable 38.6 percent.

With this in mind, I'm going to be going after David Ortiz tonight. I think he has a chance to have lower ownership than some of the other Red Sox bats, simply because of his handedness. Really, that shouldn't be the case. Ortiz's strikeout rate does hop up to 21.4 percent against lefties, but Morgan doesn't get a bunch of strikeouts, and Ortiz still holds a sporty 37.4 percent hard-hit rate off of southpaws. I don't like him overall as much as some other Red Sox bats, but I think you can potentially gain an advantage by gambling a bit with Big Papi.

Toronto Blue Jays

Vegas be all up in this game's business. The over/under is 9.5, and the Blue Jays are -175. With numbers like that, you could still conceivably stack the Baltimore Orioles instead if you preferred. I don't hate an Orioles stack, but I'd rather go with the Jays in this one.

Ubaldo Jimenez got off to such a great start this year, but things haven't held up. In his nine starts since the All-Star break, Jimenez has a 4.41 xFIP, thanks in large part to a deflated strikeout rate (6.75 per nine innings) and an inflated walk rate (3.38 per nine). If that version of Jimenez shows up at the Rogers Centre tonight, he'll be in some serious trouble.

Normally, I want my non-elite hitters to be batting in front of a big slugger. That's why I've been targeting Ben Revere so much recently, with varying degrees of success. However, I'm starting to spin the opposite way with Troy Tulowitzki. The argument in favor of a guy in front of boppers is that he has a higher number of runs scored per game. Tulowitzki is currently hitting behind guys who have on-base percentages of .372, .363 and .361. Does that mean his potential for RBI will be higher than his potential for runs if he were still leadoff? I haven't fully decided yet, but his salary ($3,700 on FanDuel and $4,000 on DraftKings) makes me feel better about experimenting now for the time being.

Houston Astros

I can no longer count the number of times I have been burned by stacking against Mike Pelfrey this year. His bad games always seem to be the days where I stay away, and he decides to kill it when I roll out the bats against him. Maybe that means you should start him as a pitcher today? Either way, I'm snagging ownership in Houston bats.

The only reason Pelfrey has been able to hang on this long is 52.0 percent ground-ball rate. That has kept the home runs down, allowing him to wiggle his way out of the walks he issues and strikeouts he doesn't get. It just so happens that this is a perfect fit for the Astros' offense. They see their highest numbers both against pitchers who don't get a lot of strikeouts (.264/.322/.455 slash) and ground-ball pitchers (.255/.326/.451 slash). That makes me feel a bit better about stacking against a guy who is so hard to figure out.

Additionally, today could see the return of George Springer to the Houston lineup. His reemergence is going to lead to fewer low-cost bats in the order, but it's also going to increase the fantasy value of those around him with a bump in runs scored and RBI. I may not use Springer himself right out the gate, but having him in the lineup makes this team's offense much more valuable in itself.

Milwaukee Brewers

I do think there are safer stacks on the board tonight than this one, specifically the Kansas City Royals against John Danks. That said, Danks works some kind of voodoo magic against the Royals, and their isolated slugging percentage reduces the upside in stacks against lefties. If it's a tourney, I want ownership, instead, in the Brewers.

Tonight, it's start number seven on the season for Keyvius Sampson. Through his first six, he holds a 4.41 xFIP, and he hasn't pitched more than four innings in any of his previous three starts. One of those was against these same Brewers, who touched him up for six runs (five earned) in 3 2/3 innings.

The reason this still isn't a "safe" stack, though, is that the Brewers do rank 18th in wOBA against right-handed pitching. That's generally below where we'd want to target. But with Sampson on the mound in Great American Ballpark, I could see guys like Adam Lind, Khristopher Davis, or Domingo Santana busting out big point totals.