 I've got some good news and some bad news as we head into week number two of MLB DFS. The good news is that weather is a bit less of a factor for today than it has been previously because the gap in temperature between the top end and the bottom end is a lot smaller. So the opportunity cost of stacking a team in a worse temperature zone is lower now than it was before. That's a good thing for sure. It gives us more options when it comes to stacking. The bad thing is we are down at the bottom half of each team's rotation, which means we are scraping the bottom of the barrel not just from like a quality perspective, but also a pitch count perspective. A lot of the guys on today's slate are not fully built up. Looking at my pitch count projections for today, I have nobody projected more than 85 pitches. It's going to be tough for MLB DFS for sure. So we're going to break things down, talk about a couple of pitchers I do think will go deep enough to be solid and let you know where we should turn for our stacks for Monday Slate. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com here to break down Monday's seven game of main slate with lock set for 640 PM Eastern on Monday. Again, lock is at 640 PM Eastern on Monday. So if you want to get those lineups in a little bit earlier for today than usual, 640 is the lock for this main slate gets us two additional games on the main slate versus if lock were closer to seven o'clock. Again, temperatures for today are pretty even. There are no places with a temperature above 70 degrees and there are no places below 49. So the delta between the top and the bottom is 21 degrees and San Francisco, a place where I never want to stack, is the only place below 50 degrees for today. So San Francisco is probably not a spot we're going anyway, which means that the realistic stacking options are in spots where the temperatures not super far apart. We'll still factor in weather for sure, but not as big of a focal point as it was on to Thursday and Friday. As far as wind goes, wind in Anaheim is out at 13 miles per hour. So give a slight bump up to bats, the angels and marlins. But keep in mind it is just 65 degrees there. That's down 20 degrees from last week. That total is nine and a half right now. I would expect that to come down as a day goes on just because that's a pretty lofty number for a temperature of 65 degrees and, you know, to not the best offenses on the planet. Other wind is in Philadelphia. Winds are out to center at 10 miles per hour. So a slight bump up to bats for the Phillies and the Mets and we will be stacking there for sure later on. We'll talk about that in a second. But first, a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Once again, we are an Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcast, you name it. You can find us there. Hit subscribe. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review. We've got MLB every weekday, NBA, NHL, I guess, maybe not an NBA with the playoffs coming up. And anyway, NHL still linger with Tom Vecchio, U.S.C.V. Austin Swain, PGA of myself, Brandon Cadulla and NASCAR via me as well. And our PGA podcast this week, recording a bit later because Brandon and I are going to be in person at the FanDual Offices on Tuesday. So we do in that 3 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday as opposed to our typical 10 a.m. So a bit more patience on the PGA podcast for this week. Hey, sports fans, there is no better time than today to sign up for FanDual Fantasy. Of course, listening into the DFS podcast, maybe you haven't played yet. If you want to, they've gotten offered for users who have yet to make a deposit on FanDual Fantasy, you can deposit today to receive two free entries. All you have to do is deposit a minimum of $10 into your FanDual DFS account, and you will instantly be rewarded with two free vouchers. This is a limited time offer. So be sure to deposit now and play for free. Head over to FanDual.com or download the FanDual Fantasy app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to FanDual.com or download the FanDual app for more details. Pitching preview for this Monday main slate. Alec Manoa is the highest salary pitcher on FanDual checking in at $9,900. Rager Suarez is $9,600. Alex Wood, 92. Huascuri Noah is $8,600. And Jimison Tyone is $8,300. Now, Alex Wood is not in a great matchup. He's facing the Padres and they're a pretty low strikeout team right now, not a team on a target with opposing pitchers. But I do still think that Wood is the top option at $9,200. That's mostly because Wood is a really good pitcher and those can be hard to find at this point in the rotation. We did see Wood have a blip last year where he was not throwing a slider and it was a concern for me because Wood has had a lot of injury issues in the past and not throwing a breaking ball as much can be an indicator that something is off. He did go back to that slider over his final 13 starts. So it seems like he regained confidence in it. And in those final 13 starts, a 3.46 skill interactive ERA, 27 percent strikeout rate. And he kept up his typical Alex Wood fashion with a 27 percent fly ball rate allowed as well. That gives him a good floor. The Padres help with that floor, too. They have just a 154 ISO against lefties. That is the lowest mark on the slate. This is the best part for pitching on the slate with the lowest temperature. So the one issue here is a strikeout rate. It's a 19 percent strikeout rate for the Padres versus lefties based on their current active roster since the start of last year. I have Wood projected to 85 pitches based on what he did in the spring. And that's enough to project him for 5.78 strikeouts. Nobody else in the slate is above 5.1. And that doesn't count for the opponent. So even factoring in the fact that the Padres do not strike out a lot against lefties, Wood is still the top guy on this slate. Just it's a rough day from a strikeout perspective. So I think Wood is pretty clearly the top option. Even the Padres are not a prime target for opposing pitchers on typical slates for DFS. This is not a typical slate by any means. For number two, I will go with who Oscar Inoa. He is a good pitcher and it's a good matchup. It's just not a strikeout one. Very similar to what we saw with Alex Wood. And I think, again, that's enough on this specific slate. Inoa is facing the Nationals. They have a 20 percent strikeout rate versus righties since the start of the last year. That's low. That's a downgrade. But again, minimal power here. A 163 ISO versus righties, a 32 percent fly ball rate. And both those two things, again, should help the floor. Inoa is the kind of guy who can generate a ceiling based on just being good at baseball. He made nine starts last year after returning from his injury. And he still pitched really well at 3.78 skill interactive. He had a 26 percent strikeout rate, his fly ball rate was 33 percent. Inoa, on April 3rd, face 21 batters. I don't have a pitch count data from that game, but looking at that, facing 21 batters, I feel pretty good projecting him for 80 to 85 pitches. And that's enough to get him to 4.87 strikeouts. And when you combine that with overall quality of being a good pitcher, I like what I see here. So I think Inoa is number two, based on what we have all working together here for Inoa. Again, it's not perfect because we do prefer to target teams that strike out a lot in the Padres and the Nationals don't do that. But not high power teams, not getting a lot of strikeouts elsewhere. So I do think that would in Inoa are the top two pitchers for today. Our third pitching option is a super risky one. And I don't know what to expect from this guy. And it's a rough matchup. But I think it's worthwhile to take a swipe at Nick Martinez at fifty seven hundred dollars. Martinez is coming back to Major League Baseball for the first time since 2017 and most recently is in pitching in Japan. And you look at his numbers in Japan last year, he was pretty dominant. He had a 1.62 ERA 25 percent strikeout rate. That was up from a 20 percent strikeout rate the previous year. So I'm guessing he probably made some pretty legit changes from 2020 to 2021. I don't know how that translates to the matrix. That is not my skill set. Translating numbers in Japan to numbers in Major League Baseball. But Dan Zimborski does a great job of this. He runs the Zipps projections over at Fan Grass. Those are better equipped to handle this than I am. And they project Martinez for a 24 percent strikeout rate this year as a full time starter. That's not very bad for this slate. And Martinez did show off that higher strikeout ability this spring. He had a 29 percent strikeout rate across his public innings during spring training. In his final start, he had seven strikeouts across five innings, which also probably means his pitch count is pretty high. I mentioned before that Wood was the only guy projected for more than 5.1 strikeouts for me. I've got Martinez a 5.07, which is very risky because we have not seen this guy in the Major since 2017. And this Giants offense can mash. They do have a 24 percent strikeout rate against righties, though. So I went to give him a chance for $5,700 and just go bananas at hitter at times. It's not a thing you want to do very often. Like if we're talking exposures, don't go too heavy. But you want to have some fun, you want to try to buy into a guy before the public catches on to the changes he made. I think Nick Martinez at $5,700 allows you to do that without making too big of a leap. So again, the top pitchers for today, Alex Wood, Huascari Noah and Nick Martinez. If you want to value play, we'll see how that one goes. Just proceed with caution for sure. As far as stacking goes, things obviously a lot easier here. We're going to have three stacks in things to watch as well. The top one for me, though, is the Mariners. Dylan Bundy did some nice things this spring. He had 10 strikeouts compared to one walk, but he's still out of three home runs. So I'm willing to stack against him with the Mariners here. The temperature in Minneapolis is not horrible for today. It's 55 degrees, which is high enough. And Bundy really rough 2021, where he lost his spot in the rotation. It was a six man rotation with the Angels, and still he couldn't be in those top six. He went back to the bullpen. And it seemed like while he was in the bullpen, he was working on a sinker to try to combat the really bad, bad at ball issues. Who we did see Bundy back in the rotation after adding, you know, more uses on that sinker. And he made five starts there after returning. The sinker didn't help. He still had a 41% hard hit rate allowed with a 42% flight ball rate. So seeing the home runs this spring makes me inclined to believe we can continue stacking against him until we get reason to believe he's fully turned a corner from what he was last year with the Angels. And I will be willing to do that with the Mariners for tonight. I do think you want to make the vets in this lineup, the primary building blocks. Jesse Winker absurd against Reidy's last year, Mitch Hanniger already hitting it hard this year. We've seen a lot of strikeouts with Jared Kalmick and Julio Rodriguez, and I will use them because they are high upside parts of a team I want to stack. And it's also just kind of objectively fun to use them. But like the key focal points, the guys you're putting in 90% of your stacks, I want that to be Winker. I want that to be Hanniger because there's less of an adjustment period for them and just as much upside than as you have with Kalmick and Rodriguez. So the focal points of this Mariners stack for me will be the veterans versus the young guys, but I'm a human and I want to have fun too. So I will still go with the young guys for sure as well. Just not the focal points here. The second stack probably is better than the first. I should probably flip these. But anyway, and it's the Phillies. They're facing Taiwan Walker. He's not a bad pitcher and he's not the worst pitcher on this slate. There's a couple of things add up here where you want to stack against him. And a lot of it is the team he's facing. He's facing the Phillies. That's a lineup that I love. And Walker lets it the kind of contact that is great for DFS. Specifically, we'll get a lot of fly balls here. Walker is the guy who has a splitter. And those can sometimes obviously be high strikeout pitches, but also they give up a lot of loud contact. We saw Walker lean harder on that splitter at the end of last year, across his final 10 starts. That meant fewer sinkers. And in that time, he led up a 47% fly ball rate. His ZRA was 5.73. He ended up 15 home runs in 10 starts. So he could go that row, continue using more splitters, fewer sinkers, or he could throw more sinkers and hurt his strikeout rate. We saw him struggle across the spring because in the seven measured innings at Walker through, he had just two strikeouts compared to two home runs. And now he's dealing with some niece orders. So that could all be driving this either way. I think that the Phillies are in a good spot for tonight. The more I think about it, the more I realize the Phillies should probably be number one. So Phillies won Mariners two in terms of stacks for tonight. Now, Walker did let up a lot more fly balls to lefties than righties. So I'll prioritize Cowish Warver, Bryce Harper among the studs. And it also does make DD Gregorius interesting. Obviously, that's more of a salary saver at $2,200. But I think that overall from a a construction perspective, using Nick Martinez, I would just say, get your Schwerber, get your Harper, get your Hoskins, get your all these guys on the Phillies who make this loud contact and have that big upside, bathe in that upside, feel pretty good about it and stack them. If we've got the ability to do so for tonight, let's take it. Go that way. If you need to say salary with Enela or with wood, then Gregorius works, but it's a good stack to go with if you are going with Martinez as your pitcher. The other spot you could turn to if you're going Martinez is the Blue Jays. They're facing Jameson Tyone. And Tyone was, I would say, a very interesting pitcher in 2021 because he was very different than what he's been in previous iterations of his big league career. He did increase his strikeout rate. It was a career high, 23 percent, but it came with massive, massive regression in his batted ball numbers. I am fully OK, stacking the Blue Jays today to see if that batted ball regression sticks. For the full season, Tyone's fly ball rate was 48 percent. He led up a 40 percent hard hit rates, and those are numbers we'll stack against for sure. Now, to Tyone's credit, he was tinkering during the season, trying to make changes to combat this. He threw his curveball less over his final eight starts, and that did help the hard hit rates. It went down to 38 percent, but his fly ball rate actually increased to 51 percent and his strikeout rate declined back down to 21 percent. His ERA in those gains is 5.06. So if he goes back to the full season numbers last year, the batted ball marks are pristine for stacking. The strikeout rate a little bit higher than you like, but that's fine. If he keeps the changes that he made, his strikeout rate will be lower and it will still stack the Jays then. So either way, whichever route Tyone decides to go, I think we have license to stack the Jays here. And that's especially true when we have so much salary to spend with guys like Martinez. Even Yanowa at $8,600 will let you go pretty crazy with your Phillies and with your Jays and Woods at 92. So regardless, we can spend it for hitter for today. And I'd like to do so via the Jays, via the Phillies and via those very good Mariners against Dylan Bundy. Tyone pretty even splits lefty versus righty. And that's good, given how righty heavy the Jays are. One way to stack the Jays without being fully chalky is getting Danny Jansen in there. Jansen does have two home runs this year. So maybe people will catch on to that. But I don't think that the two homers are a fluke because if you combine last year's numbers with this year's versus righties, a 45% fly ball right for Jansen and a 320 ISO, not 230, 320 ISO against righties for Jansen. He hits lower in the order, which is why I think fewer people will be on him. And he's only $2,300. So he fits in, you know, you get at least if he's chalky, you get the benefit of a lower salary guy. The bespectacled beast, Danny Jansen is back baby. So I am on board Danny Jansen as being a way to potentially differentiate in your Blue Jays stacks for today. Let's go now to things to watch and talk about a couple other spots where you may want to stack. The Nationals have not said who they are starting today versus the Braves. It could be Paulo Espino. He went like 41 or so pitches on Thursday or Friday. So he's pitched recently and I'm not sure he'll go. Could be a triple A guy. But if it is Espino, I'm fine stacking the Braves here. Espino did throw his fourth seamer less when he pitched Friday and it worked out pretty well. But still not a guy you expect to let up a lot of hard contact. So that's why he is still a guy you expect a lot of a lot of hard contact. So even if the strikeout rate does go up, I'd still be OK stacking against him. So the Braves are fine if it's Espino and we can figure it out if it's someone else for today. The Marlins are facing Michael Lorenzen. He is transitioning back both to being a starter but also just a full-time pitcher versus a hitter and pitcher for the Angels this year. And Lorenzen last year was not great in relief. I'm not sure how much of that was due to the split focus. But he didn't let up a lot of hard contact, which is why I'm not leaping to stack here. But he's getting stretched out, which means maybe there's some value in stacking the Marlins and hoping that he struggles as he gets stretched back out and stuff like that. The Angels on the opposing side of the highest implied total of the day. But I think that number is overinflated. I'd rather face the team on the other side. So I would go with the Marlins over the Angels for stacking for today. I have respect for Eliezer Hernandez. He'll probably go with 50 pitches. So it is a lot of Marlins bullpen in there. But I think the implied total on the Angels is higher than it should be for today. And I'm OK with stacking the Marlins. Finally, I'm OK with stacking both the Twins and the Tigers. But both teams have decently major downsides in the bad at ball data for the opposing pitcher. The Tigers are facing Paul Blackburn. He gets a lot of ground balls. The Twins are facing Chris Flexin, who lets up fly balls, but suppresses hard contact. Both of these stacks have paths to being good, but their paths to being great, to me at least, are a bit less clear than we get with the Phillies, the Mariners, and the Blue Jays. So I'm OK with them, but I'm not leaping to get them on my roster. And I would rank them a pretty decent amount below the Jays, the Phillies, and the Mariners as the top three stacks of today. Let's finish up with our Dinger calls for this Monday Slate. The boring one. I got to go Bryce Harper. I consider Kyle Schwarber because it is fun, you know, getting his first couple of swings in there for Philadelphia. But I'll go with Bryce. It's hard to bet against Bryce. So Bryce Harper, the boring home run call for today. The fun one. I will go back to the bespectacle beast, Danny Jansen himself. I buy into it. Maybe he doesn't catch for today, but hey, I think that if he's in there, he's been awesome for a full calendar year now. So let's buy in. Let's put Danny Jansen as our fun home run call for today for this Monday main slate. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot back once again tomorrow, Tuesday, to break down our thoughts on Tuesday's main slate, which should be a pretty good one. So make sure to subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed, but also the Fandall YouTube page because these videos will be going up there after recording them each and every weekday. If you've got more questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandall podcast network at Fandall podcast. Good luck to all of you. Good luck today. Have fun. Go win some cash. We'll talk to you once again on Tuesday to break down yet another slate. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandall podcast network.