 Only six games on tonight's sleep for daily fantasy baseball and only one picture I feel truly truly good about everybody else has pretty big red flags and red flags don't mean we can't use them for DFS It just means there are obvious paths to failure and our job is to decide are those paths to failure? probabilistically high enough not sure if that's the right way to phrase that high enough to scare us off or Can we still go there at the upside justifies that risk? We're gonna break that down for today. Let you know which guys have red flags Which guys we can use despite that the one guy I like all around and get you ready for tonight's slate in MLB DFS Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and Number fire calm. My name is Jim Sonis I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire here to break down Monday's six game a main slate with Lachsefer 705 p.m. Eastern for today across this slate no rain to note which is nice given the weekend the way things went there, but There's also just one game with a temperature above 58 degrees that game is in Houston for the Astros and Giants It's 81 degrees to the roof is open 70 if not so either way even if they decide to close the roof and be a downgrade But still good for offense overall with temperatures down across the board for today So outside of that one game I would downgrade bats Which means the relative downgrade not that much compared to the rest of the slate We'll dig into the implications of that talk about some pitching options and stacks in just one second But first a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed Wherever you get your podcast and they'll be DFS solo shot every weekday We of course have PGA each week as well and USC for select events all right here in the same feed So go search for the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast hit subscribe And if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well The biggest horse race of the year is here and there is no better time to get in on the action than a fan will racing Because right now all customers can get a no sweat derby bet up to $20 That means you'll get up to $20 back if you don't win if your first win bet doesn't win The fendal racing app is super easy to use safe and secure and when you win you get paid fast So don't miss out the derby is coming up this Saturday Just visit racing that fendal comma for your chance to get a no sweat derby bet up to $20 on fendal racing That's racing that fendal calm age and residency restrictions apply offer valid on a first derby win wager Refund issued in non-withdrawable racing site credit that expires on June 12 2023 Restrictions apply see terms at racing dot fendal calm gambling problem call 1-800 gambler Let's dig in now to the pitching preview here for this Monday main slave Mackenzie Gore checks in with the highest Sauron fendal he sell his salary is ten thousand five hundred dollars. We scar see as 96 Drew smiley facing Gore is at 93. I've got Tony consulate 9,000 with Jose Barrios Domingo Ramon and Blake Snell as the others at $8,000 or higher now There are some guys there who are good Mackenzie Gore has upside I think the Jose Barrios flashed his last time out Domingo Ramon against strikeouts But the one pitcher I feel truly decent about in terms of upside for tonight is Louise Garcia He has his flaws too, but Garcia is my top guy here Garcia is facing the Giants at home They got a pretty good offense a 112 WRC plus against righties and they've gotten a lot healthier recently So it's not a perfect matchup, but I think Garcia is the most skilled guy on the slate for tonight He's not quite on the same level that he was last year He's throwing more cutters this year and it's helped his strikeout rate He has a 27 percent strikeout rate But he lets up a lot of fly balls and a 45 percent fly ball rate All that leads to a 4.03 skill interactive era despite the number of strikeouts he gets The good thing with Garcia is that the fly balls. He does allow Don't tend to be super hard hit hard hit rate allowed here is 32 percent And that allows him to get by despite the high fly ball rate his era is 4.00 his era last year 3.72 Garcia has had seven plus strikeouts in three consecutive games I haven't projected for six point six strikeouts tonight. What's a pretty good number? It's not like top of the slate typically, but it's high enough where I'm okay being high in him for tonight Please Garcia the one guy to me who has the fewest red flags is the best overall pitcher and the guy I feel best about for tonight overall now with Mackenzie Gore, I'm really worried about the number of walks. He's letting up and Walks are concerning for a couple reasons for pitchers because not only does a lot of base runners But also it drafts a pitch counts, but I still think on this slate We can use Gore as a pitcher in large work because there aren't a lot of great options elsewhere Gore is throwing harder this year His fastball velocity is up But the slider and the curve ball are up a healthy amount in terms of below and it does seem to be helping Helping he has a 32 percent strikeout rate his swing strike rate is 13.7 percent And it's why Gore leads this slate in my strikeout projections at 7.2 But there are a lot of downsides due to the walks The projections know that though. They know he's inefficient with his pitches they know that he can let up some walks and stuff like that and they're still high in him despite that and Gore has worked successfully around the walks so far this year as well He's let up no more than 300 runs in any game so far his ERA is 3.00 It's expected ERA is 3.32 these keeping things on the ground, which means that even if he lets up a A walk or two. He's probably not compounding that issue with a multi-run homerun He's facing the Cubs. They had a great offense so far this year And they do have guys who can hit lefties pretty well, which is why this stack is not or this pitching option is not perfect But I'm still willing to go here. I just have to acknowledge that there are pretty red flags It's a pretty wide range of outcomes and things could go poorly here That's kind of the downside with this slate But I think despite that Mackenzie Gore the number two pitcher behind Luis Garcia for tonight as far as the top value play here Domingo Armand is in a very difficult matchup and difficult in one very specific sense Now he's facing the Guardians who never strike out But Armand's salary is $8,400 and I think that's low enough to offset the downsides in this situation Armand, I don't want to undersell how bad this matchup is for DFS The Guardians against righties on their current active roster since the start of last year have just a 16% strikeout rate That is absurdly low and it ruins upside for opposing pitchers But Armand is very good. He has a 5.54 ERA this year He's had blow-up games in the bad sense, but he's also had good blow-up games in terms of generating a ceiling He said 8 plus strikeouts and 3 of 5 starts when he first came back last year Armand did not use his curve ball a ton Slowly ramped at the uses year went along if you look at the past 11 starts for him where he's been throwing more curve balls He has a 3.51 skill interactive ERA, which is easily the best number on the slate. His strikeout rate is 29% He does struggle with hard contact, but that's kind of the one area where the Guardians are not as great offensively They don't put the ball in the air a ton. They don't hit for a ton of power so The matchup can work both ways where it's a low strikeout matchup which hurts his upside But this Guardian's offense may not be able to take advantage of the biggest weaknesses that Armand has I have Armand projected for 5.8 strikeouts. It's not a huge number, but it's also not bad on this slate So I'm going to give him a whirl and see what happens. It's not perfect by any means But I think it's okay and good enough to to consider So to me top-pitching options for tonight are going to be Luis Garcia 1 Mackenzie Gore 2 and then Domingo Armand 3 after considering a salary matchup red flags, etc Etc. Stacking is I think a bit easier for today. There are three stacks I feel pretty good about honestly that begins with the Toronto Blue Jays facing off with Corey Kluber This game is in Boston. So Kluber is that going for him? It's a home game But that's about it Everything else points to stacking the Jays in this spot Kluber pitched okay for the Rays last year his ERA there was 4.34 and His velocity this year is pretty in line with what it was in 2022 But for whatever reason it's not working the strike area for Kluber down to 19% his hard hit rate is up to 41% He's getting ground balls just 32% of the time all that leads to a 6.75 ERA with a skill interactive ERA of 5.00 and an expected ERA of 5.13 the results the peripherals all saying things not going well so far for Kluber So even if his results do get better, which they should He's still not expected to bounce back Into the form he had last year in Kluber's defense He's had some tough matchups for sure But the Blue Jays are that as well they have a 117 WRC plus against righties and the current active roster And I think it makes sense to be high on them in this spot So the Blue Jays to me the top stack on this main slate now Matt Chapman dig up the batting game logs You'll see he has no home runs since April 18th So you could take that to mean the super hot start he got off to this year is no longer in play I Would disagree because since that last home run April 18th So in this time where he has no home runs He has five barrels and somehow none of those five barrel balls that turned into home runs So Chapman is still stroking it. He has a okay strike area to 27% kind of regressing back into what he was previously, but I Think he's gonna get back to hitting homers here pretty soon would not be shocked That's tonight gets the green monster left which can work both ways But hopefully he can loft that ball put in these seats And I think that Chapman should get back to that early season form here in quick order Not a low salary play is 42, but still I think he works a lot for tonight The Padres are coming back from Mexico City for tonight, which means they're traveling and they're coming up from elevation Which can sometimes lead to a dip after the fact. I Still think they're worth a look for tonight But that does play into why they're not ahead of the Blue Jays here for me Padres for Mason Luke Weaver Weaver's first two starts this year have been interesting I would say a lot of strikeouts 31% strikeout rates and not many walks. So that's good a lot of whiffs positive to weaver for sure But his ERA is 7.71 and I don't think that's a huge fluke either because he's letting up a 63% hard hit rates with a 53% fly ball rate whoof all that leads to a 5.63 expected ERA and The hard contact issues are not a big surprise because weaver struggled with hard contact and relief last year, too So this is not new He let up hard contact against the Rangers and the Pirates this year not Super high-flying offenses. He had five home runs allowed across those two games He didn't have eight strikeouts in both which is another reason why there is downside here But the Padres have a good offense. They get a boost with Fernando Tates being back So I think there's enough here for us to feel good about them and to stack the Padres despite the concerns around travel Despite the concerns around elevation and despite the concerns around weaver having pretty good plate discipline data as our Tates He looks good in his return Not striking out a ton making good enough contact. He's not back to his 2021 form yet But he's not overwhelmed. I think after such a long layoff That's kind of what you look for you look at the strikeout numbers look at the walk numbers and decide is this guy seeing the ball Well, I think based on what he did in his rehab stand what he's done so far He's not overwhelmed. We can say that pretty definitively. So I'm fine going there I'm not gonna view him as being like tippy top 2021 Tates just yet but definitely a guy deserving of our attention and Back enough we can use it here at thirty seven hundred dollars Finally, our third stack here is the Astros facing Ross dribbling. It's not a super attractive stat Because they're a fine offense. He's a fine pitcher, but easily the best Park on tonight slated in terms of weather for hitting And I think that does give us wiggle room here to stack the Astros dribbling Has been working as basically a long reliever and a spot starter this year So not super long appearances, which is allowed and throw pretty hard. His velocity is pretty good He's still not generating whiffs though Stripling has a ten point five percent swinging strike rates. His strikeout rate is nineteen percent, which is Pretty underwhelming and he's not overly restrictive with his contact profile Stripling letting up a forty four percent hard hit rate in a small sample this year But last year in a larger sample thirty seven percent hard hit rate Which is also not elite by any means and it was forty percent the year before that Stripling did overcome it then But I'm unsure if that ability to navigate around hard contact will stick into this year So even the Astros offense is underwhelming for sure I still think we should feel good going to them here now the one issue the Astros have had this year is upside because Their ISO against righties is abysmal. It's very low and it's very concerning but One guy is upside is really on the rise for me is Jeremy Pena I think we should note what he's doing because the power is Increasing he has a 181 ISO against righties, but he also has six stolen bases this year And that's something not something he did a whole lot last year I think especially recently Pena has been picking up his aggressiveness on the bases now He is striking out more, but I think that's a worthwhile trade-off if the if the trade-off there is upside We've seen that so far from Pena. So Upside is the biggest issue with this team. It's not an issue with Pena I think that that does make him a pretty good focal point here coming in at thirty three hundred dollars Obviously your Don Alvarez and Kyle Tucker will always be the highest upside guys here But with Pena stealing more bases hitting for more power I think that is very noteworthy and makes him a fun play here at thirty three hundred dollars Let's talk about things to watch for tonight's slate. I don't mind Drew smiley against the Nationals He's not the highest upside guy though and not the highest upside matchup Which is why he was not inside my top three the Nationals not a big strikeout team I have smiley projected for five point one strikeouts That's a full strikeout behind gore or two full strikeouts behind gore. It's behind Garcia It's behind there mon despite his low strikeout matchup So smiley has a high floor I think but not as sold on the ceiling So to me he's below airman in terms of ranking out pitchers for tonight I am unsure what to think about Jose Barrios because his last time out was the best pre-hosts looked in like a decade It seems like but it came against a poor White Sox offense was dove that does have a lot of righties He's facing the Red Sox here who are almost all lefties. This game is also on the road So if I were to pick between using Barrios as a pitcher or stacking against him I'm probably gonna stack against him, but that one start didn't at least get my attention I think it's a pretty good spot to stack against him if people are wary based on that one game, but It is nowhere that he was pretty good there So I'll probably stack the Red Sox at times tonight, but it is worth knowing he did look better in that one game Finally, I don't mind stacking the Dodgers tonight racing Taiwan Walker who's doing with a forearm issue and his results beyond that Maybe not being tippy top shape or also the results have also not been great He is getting ground balls, which is why the Dodgers aren't higher on my list But I think they're very in play regardless So the top stacks for you tonight gonna be blue jays pod rates Astros But then the Red Sox worth considering as are the Dodgers Let's finish up with the Dinger calls for today kind of telegraph this one by talking about Matt Chapman a lot earlier on Five barrels since his last home run. I think he gets a home run or two for tonight's the MVP at Chapman is finally coming back here So Matt Chapman the boring home run call for today another Matt in the the fun home run call Matt Carpenter putting the ball in the air a ton Probably gonna bat 6th or 7th here with a teaspoon back, but should be in line up with it being a righty So he's still hitting for power still putting the ball in the air still as issues But I do like what he does in terms of getting us some Dinger So the home run calls for today Matt Chapman Matt Carpenter Double Matt double Dongs on this Monday slate That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot again lot of red flags a pitcher That can be scary for sure, but I still think we can find some guys here who can make it worth it given the upside they possess Do not forget to subscribe to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed Wherever you get your podcast to get these our PGA and UFC podcast as they all go live all Into the same place if you like what you hear for watching on YouTube Give us a thumbs up there or give us a five star rating over on Apple podcasts If you've got any questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis JMS a NNES you can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan will podcast I want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS line and sir tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down Tuesday Slate This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network