 With names like Bauer and Burns on tonight's slate in MLB DFS, you would think that finding a high quality pitcher would not be that hard because most of the year, Trevor Bauer and Corbin Burns have been tremendous options. They've been high strikeout guys, and we've been able to use them even in tough matchups. But there's been a lot of discussion recently about pitchers who have seen a decrease in their spin rates as a result of the enforcement of the sticky stuff going on. Bauer and Burns are two of the guys who have seen the biggest decreases in the past couple of starts, and it has impacted their performance. And Burns is also a core field. So we had to decide, can we still trust those guys? If not, who do we turn to? Do we downgrade those guys as well? It's a really tough dilemma. We're going to break things down and get you set for tonight's slate in MLB DFS. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the FanDual Podcast Network in Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire.com. Here to break down tonight's 15 game main slate with lock set for 7-0-5 and 4-2-9. Thankfully, despite a 15 game slate, there is no rain on this slate. Outside of Made in Pittsburgh, or for the Pittsburgh game for tonight. Doesn't seem to be too restrictive. Should be good to go there. But there are some wind notes. Specifically, winds in Baltimore are out to center at 10 miles per hour. It is also 83 degrees. So upgrade the Blue Jays in the Orioles a bit. It's a similar story in New York for the Yankees and the A's. Upgrade hitters there with the winds out to center. In Kansas City for the Royals and the Red Sox. Winds are out to center at 13 miles per hour. It is 93 degrees. Upgrade hitters for the Royals and Red Sox as a result of that. No word on the Royals starter as of yet. It was supposed to be Jackson Coar, but he was apparently warming up in the bullpen a couple of nights ago. Probably not going to be him. I think Jacob Junis, if I had a guess, would probably be the starter for the Royals, but no definitive answer on that one as of yet. We're going to go through our top stacks for today and which pitchers I am OK with, despite maybe some recent alterations. But quick reminder, we are not on air this afternoon for the MLB Q&A. Dr. Disrespect is going to be here on the Fandall YouTube page. I believe that's at 1 p.m. Eastern. Going to play some FIFA. So if you want to watch some FIFA, have some fun with Dr. Disrespect, come here at 1 p.m. Eastern. Check that out on the Fandall YouTube page. Make sure you are subscribed there. Q&A will be back with us on Monday. So still subscribe. I'll also take questions on Twitter throughout the afternoon. So if you have any questions about tonight's slate at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S on Twitter, I'll aptly take extra questions there today just because we don't have the Q&A later on. Also here on the Number Fired Daily Fantasy podcast feed, big things are popping later on. Got the NASCAR podcast from Nashville, the first cup series race there. That's coming up at 10.30 on the Fandall YouTube page and on the Number Fired Daily Fantasy podcast feed after that. And of course, Austin Swain will have his UFC breakdown for this week posted later on today. So make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fired Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Hey soccer fans, this season, Fandall 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 have to do is make quick predictions for Saturday's 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 Fandall and enter the Captain Morgan's soccer pick-up today. Must be 21 plus to participate for more details as Fandall.com or download the Fandall 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 Friday main slate, Robbie Ray is the highest salary pitcher on Fandall. He checks in at $11,000 facing the Orioles. Trevor Bauer is 10-5. Carlos Rodan is 10-2 followed by Corbin Burns at Coorsfield. He is $9,500. We have Yusei Kikuchi at $9,200. Jose Barrios is $9,000. And then Luis Garcia, Caleb Smith, James Caprellian, and those are the other guys at $8,000 are higher. So to me, it's a tough slate because again, having a tough time, getting to Bauer, getting to Burns, given the weirdness around their situations. We'll talk about them and things to watch. After I lower them, I think the top guy, despite being the highest salary guy and despite being in a tough matchup, is going to be Robbie Ray. The matchup for Ray kind of stinks. The Orioles are good against lefties. They have a 116 WRC+, with just a 21% strikeout rate. But Ray has been so good this year that he might be able to overcome those hurdles by himself. I like him here at $11,000. Ray was fine at the beginning of the year, but the key turn for him has been over his past six starts. He's been using more sliders and fewer curveballs in that time. He has a 36% strikeout rate with a 2.60, skill interactive ER Ray. His walk rate is 5%. He is still struggling with hard contact, so aspects of the old Robbie Ray are still there where he would walk a bunch of dudes, give up hard contact and nullify all the strikeouts, but the walks are down. That's a nice little move for him to cut down on the walks because it means it's just the hard contact. And it helps when we've seen Ray against offense is that handle lefties pretty well. His past two starts since that sticky stuff meeting were against the White Sox and the Red Sox. Boston is a low strikeout team against lefties, the White Sox just generally clobber them. And in those games, Ray had 13 and 10 strikeouts respectively. He did let out four total earned runs, but that's not too bad, honestly. I'm buying into what he's been doing. It allows me to use it even in what I view as being a tough match for today. The performance downturn in, there's been no performance downturn for Robbie Ray in the two starts since this meeting about the sticky stuff. So I will take everything that Ray offers, put in a blender, feel good about him for two nights. So Robbie Ray, to me, deserves to be the number one pitcher on tonight's slate. Our value play for today is technically going to be our second rank pitcher and that's Lee's Garcia. He's facing the White Sox. We talked about this a couple of times in the podcast where the White Sox are good against righties, not just lefties as well. It's a 105 WRC plus for them versus righties. But their weakness against righties aligns well with Garcia's weak spots. And I think that makes him a good play for tonight. Specifically, the White Sox don't hit for power against righties. They have a 141 ISO with a 30% fly ball rate. And Garcia has some issues with hard contact. In the nine starts for him since he returned to the rotation full-time, he has a 40% hard hit rate allowed with a 45% fly ball rate. And those numbers can get him in trouble. But the White Sox might not be able to take advantage, especially when they're pitching or hitting in a pitcher's part tonight. The rest of it for Garcia looks really good. In those nine starts he has a 3.35 skill interactive ERA. His strikeout rate is 30% but a 7% walk rate. And it's more impressive when you look at the teams he has faced. In that nine start sample, he has faced, I guess over his past five, specifically he's faced the Twins, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Dodgers, Aids. So, although the White Sox are good against righties, Garcia's been facing good teams this whole month. And he's shown that he can measure up against those teams. He can go deep in games as well. He threw 106 pitches, three starts ago. We haven't seen him hit a pop game with strikeouts yet. His maximum strikeout number for a single game is eight. But I think he has the tools necessary for a pop game. Like he has the building blocks you need to get there. High strikeout rate, high pitch count, at home, good pitcher overall, I think that grades out pretty well. He, that big pop game for Garcia could come here now that he's not facing some juggernaut offense. So I think that Garcia makes a lot of sense, $8,900. And I'm very comfortable with him as number two. I think if you were scared of Ray's matchup or didn't want to use Robbie Ray for whatever reason, I have no issues putting Garcia above him, $8,900. A very fair salary. I think that despite the pop game so far, I believe they'll be here eventually. Now because Garcia is technically a value of $8,900, I'm okay going back above the $9,000 line for our third pitcher. And that guy's gonna be Yusef Kikuchi at $9,200. I think he has a high upside spot tonight. He's facing the Ray's and they are a good offense overall, but they get a major downgrade when there is a lefty on the hill. Their WRC plus goes down to 89. They have a 133 ISO. And the big thing for us from a DFS perspective is that they strike out 28% of the time. That's come down from where it was. They were above 30% for a pretty long time, but it is still the highest mark on this slate. Kikuchi can generate upside when he's facing a team like this. He's got a 3.71 skill interactive of Ray this year with a 26% strikeout rate. And they will let him go deep in games. He's topped 100 pitches twice in his past six starts. He's had a lot of tougher matchups throughout the year against low strikeout teams with two against Houston, one against Boston and another against LA. And the Ray's are not in that realm versus lefties. Kikuchi, despite those tough matchups, has put up good numbers, good strikeout numbers specifically. He had seven shutout innings against Cleveland last week, couple of double digit strikeout days. So I think there is enough here to put us on board and make Kikuchi our number three pitcher for today. So the rankings for pitcher for me are Robbie Ray one, Luis Garcia two, Yusei Kikuchi number three at $9,200. Again, we'll talk about Bauer and Burns in things to watch for today. But talking about Burns, part of the reason I can't get there is he's at Coors Field, which means his teammates are also at Coors Field. I want to stack the Brewers for today. I couldn't get behind Coors Field last night because of Hermon Marquez. I am much more willing to go here tonight against Antonio San Zetela. I think that the Brewers grade out really well tonight. They are my top stack. San Zetela to his credit has been making big strides. He's been using his four-seam fastball more over his past seven starts, which has brought his skill interactive ERA down to 4.30. He's not walking anybody. He has a 27% fly ball rate. So there are some good numbers in there for San Zetela. The big issue that he still has is that the strikeout rate is still very low at 16%, which means he is letting up a lot of balls in play. And 43% of those balls in play have been hard hit. And that can get you in a lot of trouble in a hurry at Coors Field. San Zetela has led up a lot of runs even outside of Coors recently. He led up five runs to the Reds last time out. He led up four to the Marlins to start before that. And both those came on the road. San Zetela does seem to understand Coors Field. Like he seems like he understands what he's dealing with there and he pitches pretty well there. But this is all the things we want for stacking. So I like the Brewers a lot in this spot. And they're not super hard to get to. I think you can stack them with Ray. If you go with Garcia, they're really easy to get to. And I think that while going here, I want to continue to sing the praises of Luis Arias. He has a 179 ISO versus righties, which is a really good number. He has a 37% fly ball rate with a lot of hard contact. So for $3,300 in the leadoff spot at Coors Field, doesn't get a whole lot better than that. I think he's tremendous. I also think Omar Narváez is someone who we should be building around. $3,200, a lot of power for him. He'll be facing San Zetela as a lefty. He thinks San Zetela has some reverse splits, so don't bump Narváez up as a result of that. But either way, $3,200 for him, 37 for Dan Vogelbach. I think that it's an especially good night to get exposure to Coors Field via Milwaukee as my top stack for today. Last night I stacked the Angels and it was kind of a bummer because when doing so, I didn't get to include Shohei Otani in those stacks. The hope is he'll be able to hit tonight. I'm not sure if that will happen because the dude has to rest at some point and there's no more logical time for him to rest than after throwing last night. So I'd love to use him as a hitter and stack the Angels. They're facing Jose Orenia and Orenia got off to a hot start this year. He has not been able to continue that. It started to slip at one point. It seems like he was trying to increase his changeup usage to counteract that slipping and it makes sense because lefties have always given Orenia fits and changeups can help that with opposite-handed batters. It's not working though because in that time Orenia has a 6.21 skill interactive ERA. He has more walks and strikeouts and his hard hit rate is up to 48%. He does still get some ground balls but his fly ball rate is 35%, which is almost the league average. He has a 7.46 ERA in this time. He let up seven earned runs across one and two-thirds innings against the White Sox in his most recent start. I think the Angels could do something similar here. So I wanna stack them. I would note that the value of the stack goes down if Ohtani does not hit. It means one less relevant hitter to stack but also it means the oomph in the lineup as a whole goes down. That was why I was okay with him yesterday despite not being able to use Ohtani because he was still there. The presence of his bat was still in the lineup and I thought that was a great thing. If he's not there, it negatively impacts everyone here. So I would still consider stacking them if he can play but it would be a downgrade for sure. And if he does play, they would be probably number two for me behind the brewers. As far as the third stack, we've got a lot of contenders. It's a pretty good slate for stacking. So if you get the read that someone's gonna be too popular for you outside of Milwaukee, I think Milwaukee should be popular. But like if you get the read, the Angels will be super chalky. You've got options to pivot. I like all of the Yankees, A's, Braves, Twins and Padres at least to an extent. The top option for me in that group is the Braves. I will run through the others and things to watch. Let's talk about the Braves here. They're facing Carlos Martinez and he's had a really rough year. Across 12 starts, Martinez has a 16% strikeout rates. His skill interactive ERA is 4.86. Doesn't get some ground balls but the hard hit rate here is 45% which almost nullifies the impact of the ground balls. The Braves really tough offense on right-handed pitching. They have a 189 ISO with a 39% fly ball rate. They draw a lot of walks. So they're a tough matchup. The last time Martinez faced an offense this good he lit up 10 earned runs to the Dodgers I believe in one inning. He lit up five the next time out against Cleveland. He's had some good starts near two. So like he can have a good day. The Braves are not some no-brainer, can't miss stack. And if you get the read that they'll be popular I'm okay pivoting off of them as well but I do think they deserve to be third on our list as of right now and I'll use them as such for tonight. With Martinez he does let up more hard contact to lefties than righties which doesn't mean don't use the righties because most of the main attractions on the Braves are righties but it does mean you should bump up Freddie Freeman, Ozzy Albies, Abraham Amante from where we would usually view them. I would still favor Ronald Lacunia Jr. over Freeman despite this, just usually it's a wide gap for me. It's still Acunia over Freeman but the gap is closer than usual. So to me it's still, you still want the righties but the lefties do get it bumped up as a result of the hard contact which Martinez has had with lefties this year. Let's finish up here with things to watch. Let's talk about Bauer and Corbin here. Corbin Burns I should say. Bauer two starts for him with a decreased spin rate. His strikeout rate is 26%. With an 11% walk rate, he could overpower Arizona so I'm still interested. I believe it's a revenge game as well but it does hurt him a lot. So I'm downgrading Bauer and okay putting him behind guys like Ikuchi Garcia and Ray. Corbin Burns at Coors Field got knocked around by the pirates last time out when his spin rate was down. If it were just Coors Field or he had had just the bad start the last time out I might be able to get there but when you combine decreased spin rate with a bad start with Coors Field it's a pretty tough sell for me. I'm okay taking a wait-and-see approach on Burns to see if he can tick things back up before I go back there or if he's just not at Coors Field. So wait-and-see approach on both Trevor Bauer and Corbin Burns as of right now. And then before I be down to stack the Yankees, A's, Twins and Padres in addition to the Braves. So let's run through each of those quickly right now. The Yankees are facing James Caprellian which means it's a, I think it's a, does it count as a revenge game if it was in the minors? I think it does, we're gonna count it. Revenge game for James Caprellian. But he's led up a lot of hard contact and that's why they're in play. I actually prefer stacking the A's in that game though from a tournament perspective. They're facing James and Tyone and I liked Tyone earlier in the year and used him a couple of times but he seems to have fallen off quite a bit. Over his past five starts he has a 5.45 skill interactive ERA with a 16% strikeout rate in his bad at ball numbers are rough with a 49% hard hit rate and a 45% fly ball rate. The A's get a massive park factor upgrade because they are in much warmer weather. It's a much smaller park. It is warm, wind is blowing out. So I think if you're looking for like a single entry stack that might go a little bit overlooked I think the A's great out really well for tonight. But Twins are facing Mike Fultonevich. I'm guessing the roof will be closed in Texas which stinks. But Folti doesn't get strikeouts. He's lit up a 42% hard hit rate and a 40% fly ball rate over his past eight starts really struggled recently specifically. So the Twins, a lot of upside there specifically bumping up the lefty. So Jorge Polanco, Alex Kirolov, Trevor Larnak those types of guys will be upgraded for me against Fultonevich for tonight. Finally the Potters are facing Tony Centian. He was good in triple A this year before the call up. I'm not sure how sticky that'll be given the weird strikeout numbers in the minor so far this year. Centian had a 9.3% swinging strike rate in his only big league start this year which means we can stack against him here. So I would say if I'm ranking these, let's say for single entry because I know I get a lot of questions about single entry in the Q&A and there's no Q&A today. So let's say if I'm ranking them for single entry we'll put the braids in here too. For single entry I think the A's might actually be the best option just because I don't think people will be on them. I don't think the twins will be super popular either. So I would say A's and twins are really enticing. Then I would go with the braids, then the Yankees and then the Padres in terms of single entry stacks. For today if you're trying to get different trying to change things up but overall I think then the walkie kind of the no brainer top stack in the Angels pretty close, not a close second but there are a definitive second for me in terms of ranking the stacks. That is all that we have for today. As mentioned though, if you have additional questions for me I will be on Twitter this afternoon taking your questions. If you've got them since there's no Q&A show at Jimsonus, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S feel free to send over as many as possible. Do not feel like you are overindulging. It's our little thank you for not having the Q&A for today. So feel free to do that. I am more than happy to answer questions there. Also make sure you are tuned in to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast Feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, the Google Podcast or Google Podcasts, radio.com, tune in wherever you get your podcasts you can find us for not just MLB but also later today NASCAR and USC via myself and Austin Swain. Also make sure to follow the Fandual Podcast Network at Fandual Podcasts. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald our video producer for setting up the video broadcast for today. Thank you Cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in. Good luck to you tonight. Have a fantastic weekend. We'll talk to you once again on Monday. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandual Podcast Network.