 What's going on and welcome to the solo shot. My name is Tom Vecchio. We have a 12 game MLB Slate tonight lock is set for 705. As always, this is one of the many shows on the Fandall podcast network, you can find that anywhere, whether it's Apple podcast, Spotify, Google, you name it, you can find it there. The video version is on the Fandall YouTube page and Fandall TV Plus. Before we hop into things right now, get ready for NFL season with incredible offers from Fandall America's number one sportsbook. New customers can bet $5 and get 200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Plus all customers who bet $5 will get $100 off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Now is the best time to join Fandall. The app is easy to use and you can bet on everything from spreads to player props and more. Fandall official partner of the NFL must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fandall is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. 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No refunds, terms, and embargoes apply 100 off NFL Sunday Ticket, not YouTube TV. YouTube TV Base Plan required to watch YouTube TV Redemption requires Google account and current form of payment commercial use excluded. Alright, let's jump into tonight's 12 game MLB Slit again. Lock is set for 7.05. There are just a very few minor weather notes for tonight. Baltimore Orioles there at home hosting the Chicago White Sox. Could be a little bit of rain in this one. Very, very minor issues overall. Same thing with Boston at home hosting the Houston Astros. A potential for a little bit of rain later in the game. It's really not going to be too much. New York Mets are at home hosting the Texas Rangers even less so of a worry of rain. There could be some rain but it's not going to be impacting the game overall. Chicago Cubs at home hosting the Milwaukee Brewers. A little bit of rain. Probably prior game and then winds blowing in from left at about 10 miles so that would be a nice bump to the pitchers. Speaking of pitchers, let's start things off there. We have a number of expensive pitchers on tonight's slate let off by Pablo Lopez at 11.3. Clay Kershaw at 11.1. Meryl Kelly at 10.9. George Kirby at 10.8. Justin Steele at 10.6. Corbin Burns at 10.3. Jose Boreos at 10.1. There are a number of options that are above 10K. This is not to mention that there are several options we could be considering above 8000 as well. There's also a very, very inexpensive pitcher that we could be looking to use tonight due to his matchup. And due to the fact that we, of course, field on tonight's slate, yes, we saw the Braves put up a pile of runs last night as you would expect with the league's best offense in the league's best hitting environment. Let's start off with two of the pitchers up at the top. Pablo Lopez at 11.3. I like him tonight. I'm not sure if I love him and I think his salary is just a touch too high. Combined with the fact of, you know, this matchup he has against Cleveland is no doubt a good one because Cleveland's not an overwhelmingly strong offense. It's just the fact that they don't strike out. The Guardians come in with an 18.9% strikeout rate versus righties, which is the lowest in the league. They're rather disciplined at the plate, but they also come in with a 97 WRC plus versus right handed pitching, which is 18th in the league. And they come in with a 134 team ISO, which is 29th in the league. So they do not have a ton of power in their lineup. They really don't have any power in their lineup. And yeah, they don't strike out a ton. So this could limit Pablo Lopez and the potential fantasy upside, which has been really solid this year. This is a 29.3% strikeout rate, 6.1% walk rate is only allowing 1.13 homeruns per nine. Very solid 3.41 Sierra, which is skill interactive ERA. He's a big time medium contact pitcher at 51.9%, along mostly ground ball pitcher at 41.8%. So he really has the skill set to kind of, you know, keep these guardians bats quiet because they don't have a ton of power. He's going to generate that medium contact. He's not going to allow fly balls. And the thing holding him back is probably that strikeout upside, which he has in himself. But the matchup isn't necessarily 100% favorable for that just because, you know, Cleveland, they don't give away free chances at the plate. So I like Pablo Lopez tonight from a consistency standpoint, but up at the top, I mean, George Kirby is jumping off the page right now at 10.8. And due to this matchup versus Oakland, surprise, surprise, we're going to be attacking Oakland when we have such a favorable matchup. I do think Pablo Lopez is great, but you know, for a pitcher that's in a, let's just call it a below average or kind of a bad strikeout matchup 11.3 is pretty expensive of a salary to be paying. So I like Kirby Moore. I like Justin Steele. And then we're going to get to a pitcher that's less expensive than all of them that we should be considering tonight. So yes, I do like George Kirby tonight. He doesn't have the same strikeout upside individually that Pablo Lopez has. George Kirby has a 23% strikeout rate, which is obviously not the same, you know, compared to Pablo Lopez up at 29. George Kirby has an insanely low 2.3% walk rate, which is great to see. Not allowing hitters on base for free is one of my favorite things to see when it comes to rostering a pitcher. He's only lying 0.98 home runs per nine. He has a 3.67 Sierra. He's a big medium contact ground ball pitcher. Again, 52.2% medium contact rate and a 44.2% ground ball rate. So George Kirby is piling up the innings, not allowing runners on base for free, limiting the home runs, limiting the damage. And this matchup against Oakland is one that really should help accentuate that and probably reach towards a strikeout ceiling just because the athletic strikeout 25.1% of the time versus righties. Which is the third worst in the league. So, you know, if Pablo Lopez was going up against Oakland, we'd be all in on Pablo Lopez because the strikeout upside would be massively there for him. So Kirby doesn't strike out as many hitters as Lopez, but Kirby's less expensive and Kirby, you know, is facing a matchup that could present him with a bit of upside. So it's kind of some positives and negatives for both of these pitchers. I think I would lean towards George Kirby simply due to the salary difference, which isn't massive. George Kirby's 10.8 and Pablo Lopez is 11.3, but you know, on a slate that we have course field, and we saw the upside that the hitters from course field have with the Braves last night with Acuna having what is a five RBIs last night, a pile of head stolen bases, Austin Riley having a home or like all of the potential upside, we're going to want to get some exposure to those hitters. So I'm going to take every bit of sigh relief that I can. So George Kirby slightly above Pablo Lopez and it's simply due to the matchup versus Oakland. Now I also think we want to be considering Justin Steele tonight who is 10.6. So again, we're kind of splitting hairs here, 11.3, 10.8, 10.6. All these pitchers are around the same salary tier. As I mentioned up at the top that there's a bit of wind blowing in at Wrigley Field. We know that Wrigley Field is a venue that is largely impacted by wind both positively and negatively. So when there's extra wind blowing in, it's an even bigger boost to pitchers. And you know, Justin Steele has been solid this year. 0.72 homeruns per 9 allowed is awesome to see. He's not a big strikeout pitcher. It's at 23.2%. 5.2% walk rate is obviously awesome. Good stuff from him. Overall 3.82 skill interactive ERA. And more importantly, he has a really nice matchup going up against Milwaukee. This season, the Brewers versus lefties have a 24.5% strikeout rate, which is the 7th worst in the league. They also come in with a below league average 95 WRC plus in this matchup, which is 19th in the league. And they also don't have a ton of power in their lineup with a 156 team ISO versus lefties, which is 20th in the league. So kind of a plus strikeout matchup for Justin Steele. Good pitching environment. I know the Brewers have been super hot. They won seven, eight games in a row, whatever it is at this point. But Justin Steele has been solid. And with the wind blowing in, it really should help him with what he does best. And that is no fly balls, no hard contact. He has a 27.3% hard contact rate, which is so low. That's awesome to see. He's a 54.6% medium contact pitcher, and he only allows a 30.9% fly ball rate. So if the ball does get in the air when Justin Steele pitches it tonight, which is less often because he has a 48.7% ground ball rate. So if the ball does get in the air, it's probably not going to be going for a home run because he's good at limiting those to begin with, plus the wind blowing in. So really do like stuff from this matchup and the whole mix of things for Justin Steele tonight. So Kirby versus Steele, I think I would take Kirby just because the matchup versus Oakland is a little bit easier compared to Milwaukee. Again, they're still below league average offense, but they have been hot as of late. You know, that's a bit of a coin flip. I would probably take Pablo Lopez ahead of Justin Steele just because I want a higher level of consistency. And then, you know, moving down further, you know, where do we go? We want to get these hitters from, we want to get these hitters from Coors Field on tonight's slate. There are a number of other good stacks we could be looking to. You know, where is the real salary relief option on tonight's slate? We have 12 games, there's, you know, 24 pictures in action. Who do we go to? We're going to drop all the way down to 6.6K for Cole Raggins from the Kansas City Royals. He has been piling up the strikeouts in a big, big way. Now, this is a pitcher who, earlier in the season, was a reliever, made the jump to the starting rotation back in the middle of July. He has 6 starts under his belt since joining the rotation. Of those 6 starts in all of the 6 starts, I should say, he's allowed 3 early runs or fewer in all of them. And he's allowed 1 earned run or fewer in 4 of the 6 starts. He is not allowing any action. Also, over these 6 starts, he has 11, 9, 5, 11, 8, and 3 strikeouts. So we're seeing 8, 11, 9, and 11 strikeouts in 4 of his 6 starts. So it's 6.6K. Cole Raggins is a pitcher that we should be considering tonight. Overall, in the season, he has a 28.7% strikeout rate. He does have a 9.7% walk rate, which is an ideal. It's, you know, kind of right on that edge of, you know, presenting a little bit danger. We don't like pitchers allowing hitters on for free. That's not something we like to see, but he's only allowing 0.76 home runs per 9. So that's okay. And he's not a fly ball pitcher. So ultimately, if you allowed runners on for free and was a fly ball pitcher, that's a really dangerous mix because that's what presents upside for opposing teams. But he has that strikeout potential to get himself out of a jam. If he does allow a runner to on for free, he can strike them out as he's been showing with, you know, these double digit strikeout games over his pass bunch. He also is a 51% medium contact pitcher. So he's not getting hit hard if runners are on, which is what we love to see. And then the matchup tonight going up against the Pittsburgh Pirates is something that we're really, really interested in. This is what it comes down to not only salary, not only strikeout potential, but it's the matchup which will accentuate his strikeout upside going up against Pittsburgh, which will also allow us to stack the hitters that course field because he's only 6.6 K. So Pittsburgh and offense right now, that's, you know, right around the league average, they come with a 23.4% strikeout rate versus lefties. It's 14th in the league. So they're right at the league average, but an 89 WRC plus is not something that we're worried about in any capacity for Pittsburgh and their offense. That's 26th in the league. And then they simply just don't have any power in their lineup with a 135 team Iso versus lefties, which is 28th in the league. So it's a great mix for Cole Ragan tonight, who has really been solid with these strikeouts. So I will take 6.6 K for a pitcher, probably one of the best values we've had in a while on a point per dollar basis. If you want to load up on those hitters at course field. So pitching tonight is really strong of the top several pitchers over 10 K that are worthy of a roster spot tonight. And I didn't even mention about Klein Kershaw. I didn't mention Corbin Burns, two pitchers that have been, you know, solid for years. But there's just a, you know, a variety of different factors. If I had to choose one of those two, I'd probably go to Corbin Burns. I like that pitching environment, you know, going in really few with the wind blowing in that should be a nice boost to him. He's also, again, less expensive compared to Kershaw, who's 11.1 Corbin Burns is 10.3. I'll just take this out of relief just due to the hitting environment that we have on tonight's slate. So speaking of hitting, let's flip over to stacks. Again, we have course field. I mentioned it yesterday. I specifically talked about the Braves and like, again, I don't love talking about course field when it's on a slate just because it's a given. But man, when the league's best offenses at course field, we have to be considering them. So, you know, same take for that tonight. I don't want to belabor the point about the Braves and what their potential is to score 10 plus runs seemingly on any single slate. So, yeah, roster the Braves tonight, no matter, you know, any of them that you could afford, Acuna, Olsen, Riley, Murphy, Albee's, Harris, Azuna, you name it. They're super, super expensive and they are well worth it as we saw last night. But outside of course field, we're going to be going tonight. Let's turn to the Toronto Blue Jays. They are at home. They're taking on the Washington Nationals. The Nationals will have Mackenzie Gore on the mound tonight. A former top prospect for the Padres was traded in the Wadsono deal a couple of years last year. And, you know, he just really hasn't put it all together. That's what it comes down to. He does flash a nice strikeout upside at times. However, you know, he has a 26.8% strikeout rate, which is solid. But he has a 9.8% walk rate and he's allowing 1.63 homeruns per nine. He has a 4.11 Sierra. And like a very kind of dangerous mix when it comes to fly balls and hard contact, you know, is what causes him to struggle. So, again, allowing runners on base for free is never a good thing. And then the home runs specifically when it comes to righties is where he's struggling. He's allowing 1.76 homeruns per nine to right-handed hitters this year, this season, and it's 1.07 versus lefties. So ideally, we'd be attacking him with righties from the Blue Jays. And then when we look to the splits versus lefties and righties, it's a 41% fly ball rate versus righties, which is not good. And it's down to 27% versus lefties. He is a left-handed pitcher, so it does make sense. So really, and the same thing with the hard contact rate, a 36% hard contact rate versus righties and only 32.9% versus lefties. So it makes sense that we attack him with righties when it comes to the Blue Jays, something that they have plenty of in their lineup. They just put Matt Chapman on the IL yesterday. Boba Shed is listed as day-to-day. He did not play for them yesterday, so we do need like a fully updated lineup from them. But really outside of, even if Boba Shed does not play today, Vladdy, George Springer, Whit Merrifield, Danny Jansen, all players we want to be focusing in on tonight when it comes to getting some power in our lineup. You could also be looking to David Schneider. For them, he is 2,800 tonight. Really nice value playing. Kevon Bizio and Dalton Varshow should probably be in the lineup for them. They're just not players I'm like jumping to get into my lineups. Alejandro Kirk is 2,200. Also has some nice power versus lefties. You could look to him if you need that sour relief. I think we're in a pretty good spot. Even if Boba Shed is not in the lineup, we know that Matt Chapman is on the IL. So we're still going to be in a pretty good spot for righties from the Blue Jays for some stacking potential tonight. So that's team, I guess it's called team two. Look to the Braves at Coorsfield. Surprise, surprise. Look to the Blue Jays tonight. I also want to take a look at the Seattle Mariners who apparently are never going to lose a game again. They're just absolutely on fire. Tonight they're at home. They're going up against Ken Waldichuk from the Oakland Athletics. A picture again we don't need to be worried about. A picture that, you know, I've talked about before in various articles. Coming in with a 21.8% strikeout rate, which is right around the league average. Not good. 11.6% walk rate is not good. And that allows runners on for free. And that presents so much fantasy upside combined with the fact that he's allowing 1.72 homeruns per nine on a 39.7% fly ball rate. This is like the ideal mix when, you know, he's going to allow a single. He's going to allow a walk and all of a sudden there's two runners on and we have like a power header coming up versus lefties and righties this season. He's allowing a 581 slugging to lefties and a 500 slugging to righties. Specifically 2.14 homeruns per nine to lefties and 1.62 homeruns per nine to righties. It's an awesome spot for basically anyone on the Mariners who and apparently everyone on the Mariners is just capable of putting up homeruns left and right. Now, of course, we would love to have things let off by Julio Rodriguez who is seemingly going to be hitting a homerun every game or every other game. And he's 4500 tonight, but after Rodriguez, he's the only player that's above 4000. The next, the next closest player in terms of salary is Teosca Hernandez at 3100. So Jayrod at 44 and then Hernandez at 31. So we can get a lot of sour relief when it comes to the Mariners, whether it's Hernandez, Cal Raleigh is only 3K. J.B. Crawford is 3K. So realistically, yes, I would love to have every single stack with Mariners with Julio Rodriguez. But if you can't afford him because you're paying up for hitters at Coors Field, you're paying up for pitching, whatever it might be. The Mariners offer a lot of good hitters that are in great spots tonight and they're pretty affordable to get into your lineups. So you want to mix in a Dylan Moore just because you're throwing him in a stack. Like that's not my favorite thing. You know, seeing with Cade Marlowe, like you're throwing these players in just because you need the sour relief and you want a full Mariners stack overall. That's fine. Again, I would prefer to have the hitters at the top of the lineup, you know, in my stacks with France, Suarez, Rodriguez and Hernandez and Raleigh. Like that's where I want to be going ultimately. But again, it comes down to a lot of salary, you know, salary considerations. So those are, you know, very clear teams to be stacked tonight. Seattle, Blue Jays, Braves, all pretty easy teams to be looking to. And then I just want to touch on the Baltimore Orioles quickly. They're at home. They put up a total, you know, what is nine runs last night, a whole bunch of runs. They're probably going to do the same thing tonight going up against Jesse Shultins from the Chicago White Sox. A picture that does not have an insanely large sample size this year. It's his first year in the majors. It's only 65 innings pitched this year. So, you know, take it with a bit of grain of salt. 1.38 home runs per night is super low. 16.8% strike-out rate. It's just not a dominant strike-out picture and an 8.1% walk rate. 4.91 Sierra is not good and a 41.4% fly ball rate. Again, it's only a 65 innings sample size, so it's not massive. But ultimately, once he's out of the game, I don't think we're going to be too worried about the White Sox bullpen. And I'll be taking the power that the Orioles have in their bats, which is up and down their line of whether it's Gunnar Henderson, Anthony Santandere, Cedric Mullins, if you want to be going to him. Ryan Mountcastle, Rachman Hayes, like Ryan O'Hearn, like they have so many options you can be considering. And ultimately, they're not super expensive, whereas Santandere and Henderson are both $3,400. That's the most expensive hitting option that the Orioles have tonight. So I love this matchup versus the White Sox and Shultins on their bullpen. It really doesn't matter. And we're getting the Baltimore Orioles at a pretty fair salary tonight, which I think should make them a very popular stack. And depending on how you work things, they really could be a bit of a secondary stack, depending on who you use and who makes their lineup. It's kind of pair with some of the hitters, potentially, from Cors Field. So several options under 3K really present a whole lot of flexibility when it comes to your lineup construction. All right, let's close things out with some homerun calls tonight. Number one is going to be Teosker Hernandez for the Seattle Mariners. As I mentioned, this is just an awesome matchup going up against Ken Waldechuk. Hernandez is just on fire at the plate right now, like seemingly everyone on the Mariners is on fire at the plate. And then we can be looking to him pretty easily for a homerun. And then a slightly, you know, deeper one going to be going with Eddie Rosario from the Braves. He's got solid power. Again, he's not like the number one suspect from the Braves. When it comes to be looking at homeruns, it'd be Olson and Riley and Akunya, et cetera, et cetera. But I like Eddie Rosario in this split. And I think he's obviously not going to be a prime target in the stack, which I really do think should make him an awesome option tonight. And again, it's relatively speaking. Eddie Rosario is still going to be popular tonight. Just not as popular as Akunya or Olson or Riley, whatever it might be. All right, so that does it for today's podcast. Jim will be back tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. I will be back next week and we will continue with that, at least for the short term. As always, this is one of the many shows on the FanDuel podcast. Network, you can find that anywhere, whether it's iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it. The video version is on the FanDuel YouTube page and FanDuel TV Plus. You can follow me on Twitter at Tom underscore Vecchio1. Until next time, good luck in your contests.