 The factors matter a lot in daily fantasy baseball because if a certain stadium is more conducive to a run scored than others, obviously, we wanna maximize run scored. We wanna maximize home run, stuff like that. So we should account for park factors in our process, always. And I do, I care a lot about park factors. I try to avoid stacking parks that are not conducive to run scored. But for tonight on this specific slate, I think the best situations for offense, the best offensive environments, all things considered, are in a lot of spots we don't usually turn to in terms of, you know, good run scoring conditions. So we're gonna get you set, let you know what those poor factors are, what lets you know why I still want to stack there, let you know what stands out overall for MLB DFS. 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 Wednesday's 10 game main slate with lock set for 705 for tonight. And despite there being 10 games, there is no weather to know for tonight. We should be good to go. I think we can play things pretty much straight up. We'll also be back once again later on today for PM Eastern on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages for our daily Q&A. If you're looking for some PGA DFS content, myself and Brandon Godula recorded a PGA podcast for the Northern Trust yesterday, breaking down the first event of the FedExCup playoffs. That is up on the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts and while you're there, make sure you leave us a rating and review as well. Hey soccer fans, this season FanDuel and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one of a kind soccer contest. Introducing Captain Morgan's soccer pick-up, a weekly fantasy contest that is entirely free to play. The contest is simple. All you do is make quick predictions for Saturday games this soccer season. You'll earn points for each correct pick and compete for a chance to win up to $3,000 in prizes every single week. Head over to FanDuel and enter the Captain Morgan soccer pick-up today. Must be 21 plus two participate for more details as FanDuel.com or download the FanDuel Fantasy app. Eligibility restrictions apply and don't forget to make your game day more delicious and sub in the Captain. Pitching preview for this Wednesday main slate show, Hey Ohtani is available as a pitcher for today. He checks in at $10,500 on FanDuel. We got Jack Flaherty, second start off the IL. He is $10,100. Freddie Peralta is $9,800. Lance Lynn is $9,500. Charlie Morton is $9,200. We have Zach Ranky, Tarek Scubble, Marco Gonzalez, Cole Irvin, and Nick Pavetta as the others at $8,000 or higher. And Morton is not the highest-selling pitcher for today. He checks in at $9,200. We've got four guys above him. And I've been heavy on Morton a lot recently. And a lot of that is because matchups. He's had good matchups. He gets another tonight with the Marlins. And I'm gonna rank him first as a result for tonight at $9,200. The Marlins are a pretty easy target right now. I say that while acknowledging, things have not always worked out, targeting the Marlins recently. Their WRC Plus is down to 83. They don't have a lot of power in that lineup. They also have a 25% strikeout rate against righties, which is tied for the third highest mark on this slate. They check every box from a matchup perspective. And Morton I think has shown he can take advantage of a matchup like this. The velocity for Morton has been up on his curve ball over his past eight starts. Good pitch in general, but it seems like he's been a bit more effective recently. He has a 29% strikeout rate in that eight start sample. He has allowed a 33% hard hit rate with a 30% fly ball rate. Now, again, a lot of that has come against softer matchups. Faced the Nationals twice after the trade deadline. He's faced the Marlins twice as well. It does help that the most recent one there was before the all-star break. So familiarity, not a big concern with regards to Charlie Morton against the Marlins. He's had good matchups in this time. And that does inflate the numbers, but he's taken advantage of those good matchups. He had seven strikeouts in all four of those plus matchups. He also had eight against the Phillies and the Raes. Both those were revenge games. I know it was a very braced in with the Phillies, but hey, revenge games were revenge games. So gotta take the caveats there. The ERA for Morton is 3.04. So no, he's not some unstoppable ace. He is not a Max Scherzer or someone like that, but he is a good all-around pitcher who gets strikeouts and is in a good matchup. That's what we want for DFS. That's what we want for tonight. And I think that I feel good about putting Morton at the top of my list. So we'll move the discount on Morton at $2,200. And I will take that and rank him first overall for tonight. The second spot for me is between Freddie Peralta and Shohei Otani. They're both above Jack Flaherty and Lance Lynn. Lynn is due to the matchup. We'll talk about Flaherty and things to watch. I like both Peralta and Otani and I'm willing to use either of these guys. I will give a slight edge to Peralta because he's getting more strikeouts right now. Peralta's velocity has actually been on the rise recently, which is the opposite of where most starters are trending right now. But over the past six starts, Peralta has done a really good job of keeping the hard contact in check. His hard hit rate in that time is 22%. And bad at ball data doesn't stabilize as quickly as strikeouts, but six starts is enough for us to look at it at least. And he's been great in that time. Comes with a 30% strikeout rate as well. Peralta is still walking too many guys. He is still letting up too many fly balls. And as always, we do need to worry about piggybacking with the Brewers because they could try to save these guys for October. We did see Peralta go less than 70 pitches twice in the six start span. So that is a minor concern. One of them was against the Pirates. They had a pretty comfortable lead there. The Cardinals, I think this series matters a bit more than that even if they are like, double digit games out. The Brewers can just kind of end their season here. So they might be more inclined to give Peralta a full release year, but I'm not sure. I think that we do need to keep that in mind with all Brewers pitchers right now. They could decide to save these guys for later on. That almost did push me to Otani second over Peralta. But Peralta, even with some low pitch counts, has eight plus strikeouts twice in the span. Those two have come in his past two starts. This Cardinals offense, not a big strikeout team, but they also are not a great offense. They have a 91 WRC plus against righties. They don't walk a whole lot, which is good for Peralta. So it is a slight edge for Peralta over Otani. But if I had to pick between those two, I will give the nod to Peralta as my number two pitcher for today. Otani is number three. And I think there is a big drop-off from Morton, Peralta, and Otani to the rest of the pack for tonight. And if I'm recommending a value play, it's not a pitcher to whom I will have a lot of exposure. I want to make that abundantly clear. I think that there is a big edge in paying up tonight, keeping it at $9,200 or higher and living there for the most part. If I had to pick a value play though, I would go Marco Gonzalez. He's $8,200. So it's a decent discount from Peralta and Otani, but it's just $1,000 less than Morton. I'd rather find the money to get to Morton personally. So Gonzalez, not a high exposure play tonight, but I am fine having some. He's facing the Rangers for the third start in the past four. And that's a big part of the reason why I don't want to have massive exposure to Gonzalez tonight, but he did mow them down his last time out. He had nine strikeouts across nine innings, allowed two hits, one run, he was filthy. That was his second start against the Rangers. They had just seen him, didn't quite help them there. I do still worry about familiarity. Other start in the span was against the Yankees. And part of the reason that Gonzalez is likely getting this little surge here is a slight uptick in velocity. He's averaging 89.2 miles per hour on his fastball. That's up from 88.6 for the full season. And he is throwing that pitch more often. He's been leaning on it pretty heavily the past three starts. It's not like a shutdown pitch, but if you're gonna throw it harder, I'm not opposed to his throwing it more. The familiararity factor does matter here quite a bit. This is, again, his third start against the Rangers this month alone. That's a ding to his potential, but he looks like he's all throwing his approach and it's working. We've seen the Rangers not be able to catch up to it so far. It's a plus matchup. I think that's fine. So he will rank number four for me, but I've got Morton first, followed by Peralta and Otani. All three of those guys are really good plays and I want to build around them. So I think that they are the focal points for tonight. Gonzalez is more of a sprinkles guy than anything, but I am open to that, despite the fact the Rangers are familiar with him because of the changes he's been making recently and because of the uptick in velocity. Those are the pitchers. Pitchers, we're not going counter to our process very much for stacking we are. Because again, there are a lot of bad park factors I want to stack for tonight, but I think that the advantage we get is that if you look at the overall composition of the slate, there aren't a ton of great park factors to begin with. The one like quote unquote great park for hitting is Chase Field, but they have the roof closed for tonight for the Philly's and Donovac. So there isn't like a massive opportunity cost in stacking a bad park. The relative downgrade is lower than it is on some other slate. So I'm okay with it. Among the bad park factors, the team I am most excited to stack is the Rays. They are facing Spencer Watkins and he's a really good story. You know, he's making his debut or maybe I guess, you know, making his debut this year after having been the miners for a long time, but he's not getting great peripherals or great results recently. The velocity for Watkins has stabilized over his past five starts and strike out rating that time is 15%. It leads to a 5.23 skill interactive ERA despite a very good walk rate, which means he's letting up a lot of balls in play. 15% strikeout rate, low walk rate, a lot of balls in play and the bad at ball data isn't terrible. He's about average there, but against good teams, he's gotten rocked. And one of those good teams was the Rays. The team he's facing again tonight, he led up a 44% hard hit rate to them back on August 7th. So about 11 days ago, they hit a couple of home runs in that game. It scored four earned runs in five innings. We saw Watkins last week led up six runs to the Red Sox. Now he's facing the Rays for the third time since the All-Star break, which is a really tough spot to put him in because this team is really good against Rides. They have a 208 ISO versus Rides. That's pretty easily the top mark on this slate. And that's even while playing their home games in Tampa Bay. The park is not a big enough deterrent to keep us off. So the Rays to me are the top stack of the night. The team I do want to build around on this slate. We talked about this last week when Watkins was facing the Red Sox, but the very early platoon data says that we can target Rides and lefties against Watkins. So I'm still gonna be high on guys like Brandon Lau, Austin Meadows and G. Monchoy because they're good in their lefties. But if we're looking for a top priority for tonight, that guy is Nelson Cruz. That's not always the case. Where I stack in the Rays against Rides, I'm fine going Meadows and Lau higher, but for tonight it will be Nelson Cruz, kind of a bummer that he had a two homer game last night. They mean it helped me. I did benefit from that because I did stack the Rays, but kind of wish he'd fly a bit more under the radar heading into this matchup. Either way, we're still on Nelson Cruz for sure. So he's number one above Meadows and Lau because of Watkins' small sample issues with Rides so far. Second stack is in Miami. Great, love stacking in Miami. Definitely a place I want to go at all times. It's not, but either way, I do think that we can feel good about the Braves here. And it's tough to stack in the situation, but I think that we should tonight because it's a good matchup for the Braves and they have a lot of thumpers against lefties. They're facing Haces Lazardo, and I like Lazardo, got him in one of my Dynasty League. So really hoping he turns things around. I just haven't seen enough to think that'll happen yet. Lazardo has made three starts with the Marlins. He is throwing more change-ups than he was in Oakland. And I think that it makes sense to look at those three starts because he's altering his approach with a new team that may have unlocked any difference. It hasn't helped yet in those three starts. Lazardo has a 5.91 skill interactive ERA. His strike rate is 18%, but a 15% walk rate and the bad of ball data is not great either. All that is concerning in a vacuum, but the opponents amplify that concern. If you're facing like the Blue Jays, the Astros, teams like that, fine, whatever, totally okay to have bad peripherals, but he's faced the Mets, the Rockies, and the Cubs. None of those teams are on the top half of the league in WRC plus against Lefties. Now the Braves aren't either. They're in the bottom half as well, but they've got a lot of power. They rank third in ISO against Lefties and they've got some dudes who can yoke no matter what the park may be. So I think we should be in on stacking them tonight despite a poor park factor for the Braves. And the new guys are a pretty big part of that high power rank in Jorge Soler, a 286 isolated slugging against Lefties. That is second on the active roster behind Ozzy Albies. Adam Duvall ranks fourth at 204. Dan Spiece wants in as third. So Soler and Duvall are gonna be high on our stacking list here. It's also a revenge game for Duvall again. Revenge games matter no matter how short the stints. Adam Duvall gets several tiers bumped up due to the revenge game here at the Marlins. When we put Albies first, he's just stupid good. He is also crazy undervalued in the home run prop category and fan of sports, but he's plus 420. He should not be. So check that out as well. Albies first and then I would say that Soler and Duvall are in contention for the second slot if we're ranking out the Braves for tonight. The third stack is the Seattle Mariners. They're in Texas and I'm guessing the roof will be shut for tonight. So again, a below average park factor. But again, I do think we should do it anyway. They're facing Mike Fultonevich and Fultonevich has been rough all year long. Things are not getting better. He has been trying to throw more curveballs recently and leaning less on his slider. Noverse Pass State starts doing that. Priffles are still rough. 5.11 skill interactive ERA, with a 17% strikeout rate. Those numbers are bad by themselves, but the bad at ball data here is the biggest issue. He is letting up a 46% hard hit rate that is about 7% points above league average, a 48% fly ball rate that is about 12 points above league average, that's really, really rough. And he's let up 15 home runs in this eight start stretch. And two of them came last week against Seattle, this very same offense. He has faced them three times in this eight start stretch. Nelson Nake had four total appearances in eight starts. He let up two home runs to them on July 4th as well. The Blue Jays hit four off of him. The A's and the Tigers both hit three. Now the Mariners are super familiar with him. They should be expected to perform pretty well. So it's not a great offense. It's not a super powerful one, like the Rays or the Braves. But I think in this matchup, given the familiarity, given Fultoniewicz's bad at ball issues, I think that they can get the job done. Because the Mariners are finally facing a righty, feels like they've faced 16 lefties in a row. We can finally talk about Jared Kelmick. I think he's starting to figure things out in the major leagues. His strikeout rate in August is down to 16%. That is a big deviation from before. His ISO is 271. His hard hit rate is up to 43% compared to 37% for the full season. And we get all this for $2,400. So I think we should start to buy in on Jared Kelmick. He's a massively talented guy, struggled his first time up, went down to the Mariners, worked on some things. And it seems like now in his second go round, Kelmick is putting things together. $2,400 too low for a guy playing this well. So to me, Jared Kelmick a priority, not just for Mariners stacks, but also as a low-sourced one-off for today. Let's move now to things to watch and talk about Jack Flaherty. Didn't make my top three for pitcher, which could be a mistake, but I'm a little wary after his first start off the I-L. His velocity was down. He threw more fastballs than he did earlier on this year. He also wedges 81 pitches. He went 75 in his final rehab start. So I thought that he'd be more stretched out than that. I was projecting Flaherty around 85 to 90, he went 81. He's apparently not there yet. So it's more so due to the velocity than the pitch count that I'm out on Flaherty for right now, but I am still in wait and see mode on Flaherty to see where things shake out. So for right now, no Jack Flaherty yet, but I'll have a close line tonight to see if we can get the all clear on him for his next time out. I'd be very okay stacking the Phillies tonight to mention the roof is closed at Chasefield. That's still fine, I think that they can grade out well. They are in Arizona facing Umberto Castellanos. Castellanos has been either in the minors or in the bullpen most of the year. Now he's in the big league rotation and he was not a shutdown guys that were Lever. His skill interactive ERA was 4.82. He had 18% strikeout rates. The only reason I'm not higher on the Phillies is that they're not a super fun team to stack against a righty, especially with, you know, some of the injuries they've got to guys we typically want to use. Like until Reese Hoskins comes back, there aren't a ton of guys. We really want to stack on this team. So they're fine, just harder to stack them because there aren't a lot of guys I want to use, but Bryce Harper, a tremendous one off. You can get some other guys too, potentially for some mini stacks as well. Obviously the Red Sox are an option against Andrew Heaney. He lets up tanks and it's not a fluke. His bad at ball data is terrible, but the reason they're lower on this list is that Heaney allows fewer balls and play than other guys. He has a 27% strikeout rate in his most relevant sample, which means you need the bad at ball data to be pristine for this to pay off. It often is pristine. So I am firmly still here and that's why they rank fifth, but the strikeout rate is the reason they rank fifth instead of first. So I think the Red Sox, me ranking fifth in terms of stacking, great for one offs and definitely a team I will stack for tonight, given the dinger upside that they have. Let's stick with the Red Sox. Here's a move to the homerun calls for today, a boring one and a fun one. The boring one will be Hunter Renfrow for the Red Sox. It would be more boring to go Janie Martinez, but you know, it's Hunter Renfrow against the lefty. So we're gonna Hunter Renfrow as the dinger pick for today. The fun one is the guy we talked about before in stacking, Jared Kelmick, is showing a lot of improvements recently, facing Mike Fultonevich, who's had really rough bad at ball data and has seen this team a lot recently. So Kelmick getting comfortable, facing a pitcher he has seen recently. So the homerun calls for today, Hunter Renfrow and Jared Kelmick and we'll see how those shake out. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shop. But as always, we are back once again, later on today for PM Eastern, handle YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. I'll be live taking your questions on air and getting you set for tonight's slate of MLB DFS. Make sure you are subscribed there, but also subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast, check out the PGA podcast to get set for that. Also USC NASCAR coming up later this week and NFL just around the corner. If you have questions for me before 4PM, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.