 Only five games on tonight's slate for MLB DFS and as a result stacking is pretty difficult as good as I felt about last night stacks I feel equally uneasy about tonight's because We're gonna stack against some pretty decent pitchers in order to get exposure to good offenses and I think that's the right sacrifice to make the right trade-off, but Unsure for sure So we're gonna dive in let you know what those stacking options are where to go at picture and more to get you ready for a Thursday night Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the fend will podcast network and Number fire calm. My name is Jim Saunders I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire here to break down Thursday nights Five game main slate with locks up for 6 0 5 p.m. Eastern for today Again lock is at 6 0 5 p.m. Eastern and early lock time for today So make sure you are aware of that as you're filling out your line ups You got dummy line ups in there edit them now to get some kind of thing in there Just to make sure you are good to go before 6 0 5 p.m. Eastern luckily for us with just five games No weather notes for tonight. I'm not sure of the status of the air quality in Philadelphia So apparently we got to worry about that now as well But at least from a rain perspective no games at risk of being postponed for today We'll dive on in and break down pitchers stacks and much more in just one second The first day reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed Wherever you get your podcast and also do not forget that the solo shot does go up over on the Fandall YouTube page Each and every weekday if you like what you hear on YouTube leave us a thumbs up Make sure you're subscribed to the Fandall YouTube page You feel like picture on the podcast side leave us a five star rating a podcast or over on Spotify where you can rate podcast as well Have you ever started a player in your fantasy football lineup who scores three points while someone on your bench puts up 20? Well with Fandall's NFL best ball drafts You don't have to worry about that draft your team in each week The highest scoring lineup from your roster will be used as you battle for first place all season long Leagues can be free to play or for money and range from three to twelve players The NFL season will be here before you know it so head over to Fandall today and get in on the action age and residency Restrictions apply pitching preview for this Thursday main slave Spencer Strider comes in with the highest salary on Fandall his salary is eleven thousand four hundred dollars followed by front of all beds eleven one Zach Wheeler is a ten eight with Justin Verlander at 94 We have Jose Barrios Aaron Savalli as the other guys at eight thousand dollars or higher now At the top of the slate I think you can make a case for either Spencer Strider or Zach Wheeler as being the top guy because Strider is Strider and Wheeler is facing the Tigers They're both defensible But for me, I'm gonna go Strider at the top because it's Spencer Strider We'll talk about Wheeler and the reason I prefer Strider in just one second at first Let's discuss Strider here. He is facing the Mets, which is definitely not a fun matchup They have a 103 WRC plus against righties. They don't strike out a bunch But I'm not sure it matters for Strider because we are up to 12 starts for him this year And he has an expected the array of 2.70 with a 41 percent strike outright That is digrom levels of nastiness Strider is letting up too many fly balls and too much hard contact But I reference the expected the array because that does a better job of encapsulating Hard contact and fly balls and he's still been fine there 2.70 more than good enough He's still been feasting. He has not faced the Mets since May 1st So minimal familiarity issues here Striders had double digit strikeouts in four to 12 games. He's had nine and five others. It is an absurd run Because of the matchup his strikeout projection is quote-unquote just nine strikeouts But it's still the most in the slate by a wide margin. So I Want strikeouts? I want to get as many of those as I can in my lineup Striders the guy who best does that so for me He's the top guy Wheeler can go second though and the matchup is what does it there? And it's what puts him even in the discussion with Strider He's facing the Tigers Wheeler is and they have a 70 WRC plus against righties Which is easily the worst number on the slate They have a 102 iso, which means they have no power at all And they also strike out enough with a 24 percent rate there and Wheeler does get strikeouts himself, too He's a 27 percent this year and that ranks third on the slate behind Spencer Strider and Fromber Valdez And Wheeler has done this while doing his typically solid job of also keeping hard contact and check So the question you should be asking I would think is Why would I put Strider above Wheeler given the respective matchups these two guys have and to me? I think that the matchup or the the strikeout gap between these two guys is Tough to bridge even though Wheeler ranks third in strikeout right on the slate his strikeout rate is still 13 percentage points lower than Striders even a Strider in a low strikeout matchup He's still projected for a 2.2 more strikeouts and Wheeler Which means he kind of gets more wiggle room to let up smart runs and still be the highest scoring guy in this slate so I Like Wheeler a lot if Strider were not in this slate I would put Wheeler at the top and feel great about it But with Strider being here with all the strikeout upside he has I have to go Strider one Wheeler two But if you want to push back and go Wheeler there is a very easy case you made for that I totally get it just my personal preference my personal process says I should go Strider So I'll be doing that for tonight. So to me at the top Strider one Wheeler two Framerval does very much the third pitcher for today as far as the value play goes I'm gonna wind up on Jose Barrios. I don't feel great about that I'm still pretty wary of a lot of what's happening in his profile And I don't want to target pitchers facing the Astros, but for $8,800 He's the lowest I can go so Barrios will be the value play of the night We've seen Barrios pitch a lot better recently at least from a results perspective And it has correlated with a changes approach where across his past five starts he's thrown fewer forcing fastballs and in that time his ERA is 2.03 and Three of those games were on the road and he's had some in his career Decent home road splits so seeing him do decent on the road to me is pretty encouraging And it's fun to have Jose Barrios back to being a viable option for fantasy But the strikeouts haven't been there. He has a 21% strikeout rate in the sample He's getting by entirely by suppressing hard contact in that time in that five-star sample Barrios has let up just a 25% hard hit rate, which is a very good number But the question is whether or not it's sustainable or Will Barrios need to get more strikeouts to keep this really nice run. He's had up and honestly the answer is I don't know Houston's lineup should be pretty righty heavy, which does help for sure But the downside is what the who those two lefties are there you're down. You're down Alvarez and Cal Tucker if you face both those guys twice that could be four home runs based in the way They hit the ball based on Barrios's issue of the woods lefties, so it's concerning still. I Do think Barrios is in play I think if you want to use them to get to you Mike trout and guys like that I get it, but I think my approach now be to spend of a pitcher in most line-ups I think I'd rather try to find value within my stacks and go that route instead because Just kind of kind of tough for me to envision Barrios outscoring Strider outscoring Wheeler given his matchup and all that stuff, so Definitely going to wind up paying up more than I pay down a pitcher for today Now one reason we can get to Strider for tonight is that I think that the Cubs are very much in play and they've got a lot of Potential value options on their roster, so let's talk about the Cubs here as the top stack They're facing redemur, so this is a very risky stack Because debt mers can get strikeouts and the Cubs are more than happy to oblige people in getting strikeouts But I still think Will want to be here. I Think that you could make a case for debt mers as being a value option a pitcher if you wanted to because he actually does rank Pretty high in my strikeout projections for this late So there is plenty of downside here, but the upside is nice That's why we're here for the top stack Cubs have a 118 WRC plus against lefties They have a 40% fly ball rate and debt mers has had some bad at ball issues Which is why his expected era this year is 4.4 rate that you get there when your hard hit rate allowed is 43% That's the main issue for debt mers is the hard contact He is also walking too many guys not getting enough ground balls So I think debt mers is a better pitcher than his era would say a 5.15 But it's also not entirely fluky. I think we should stack the Cubs here even without even with the obvious risk that Debt mers could mow them down rack up a lot of strikeouts again He's semi and play as a pitcher too. So It's a risk for sure, but it's one I think we might need to take him in the composition of this slate Within the Cubs again I think their key appeal outside of the bad of balls is the salaries because I've got a lot of guys With lower salaries were in play we talked about young gomes earlier on this week He's $2,600 say a Suzuki is still at $2,900 so You've got some guys here for sure who are very much viable with low salaries I'd want to include Miguel Amaya in that discussion as well. His salary is minimum $2,000 He hits sixth on Tuesday night against the lefty Started this year down in double a hit the cover off the ball there when it's triple a performed well there too And now he's at least making hard contact in the majors as well So I'm not gonna be as enthused about Amaya if he hits eighth which he very well could do for tonight But if he's a bit higher than that even like seventh or so, I think he's worth the spin at the minimum So between Amaya gomes Suzuki guys like that I think the Cubs are a good value stack for tonight in addition to the fact that they should Get a decent amount of hard contact So the Cubs to me are going to wind up being the top stack of the night The number two stack is on the other side of this game That's the Los Angeles Angels and they're facing Drew smiley smiley Caught off to a great start this year. He had that almost perfect game His expected era for the full season is still a 3.29. So he's been awesome legitimately awesome But he is starting to come back to earth a bit We had six darts and smiley since his velocity started to stabilize and in those six darts his skill interactive 4.57 he is letting up a 43 percent fly ball rate and The reason that he's been okay as far as the results go is that he is still keeping he's still suppressing our contact But walking a very thin line where that number does go up a bit. He could get into some very serious trouble It's especially true against this lineup now. No Hunter Renfrow. He's on the attorney list. So congrats to him But the Angels active roster of 119 a WRC plus against lefties That they're pretty good and again, I think that's the key appeal of the Cubs and the Angels in this slate is They're actually good offenses facing pitchers who can let up some fly balls and hard contact That's kind of really all it boils down to so on a bigger slate. I would not sack against smiley I think that he's well again legitimately decent, but in this situation I think it does make sense again Just trying to take advantage of all the fly balls and a good offense with the Angels for tonight It does kind of seem like Taylor Ward may finally be coming around because Since Memorial Day his ice of his 256 He has a 48% fly ball rate with an 11% barrel rate now. He's facing a lefty. I know Ward doesn't had Amazing numbers against lefties always in his career despite being a righty But I think we can feel much better about Ward now than we did earlier on this year his salary $2,900 so Again, you combine that with the Cubs and getting to my Trout at 36 who had a home run last night Getting to potentially show a Tani despite it being a lefty at 39. I think that's realistic So I can get there with Strider for today And I'd like to do so and that does make me feel better about spending up a pitcher for tonight For the third stack, I'm gonna go with the Red Sox. I'm not a fan of this personally I like Aaron Savalli and he looked awesome in his first start off the IL but I Like this more than the alternatives, which should tell you a lot about the stacking options for tonight So kind of just here by default Savalli in that first start back allowed just three hard hit balls And he was getting a ton of strikeouts during his rehab since at triple A2 But Savalli let up too much hard contact last year with a 40% hard hit rate allowed That's why his ERA was 4.92 despite some decent underlying numbers Savalli has not done that this year as far as the hard contact goes, but it's still a very small sample His swinging strike rate is 7.9% and the Red Sox are a good offense. Their ISO of 169 ranks third on the slate so No, I don't really want to stack against the Valley, but on this slate I do think it makes sense So the Red Sox will be the number three stack here behind the Cubs and the Angels I think it makes enough sense to go here despite the fact it makes me kind of sad to stack against Aaron Savalli Within the Red Sox again I think we can find some value to make it easier to get up to strider trout Etc. Tristan Koss is kind of the key guy here. His salary is $2,600. He's batting fifth I think the bad results for him are pretty fluky because his Woba is 306 But his expected Woba is 340 a lot of barrels a lot of fly balls I keep trying to buy into Koss us hoping to get in for the breakout and it has not happened yet But I think there are at least signs that it could come. So I like Koss us a lot $2,600 a very fair salary for a guy who has Legitimate power Jaren Durand has slowed down a lot recently, but the salaries also come down. It's now $2,800. So I don't got guys on the left side here on this team and Not super super high salaries, which does make the Red Sox Helps make up for the fact that I don't really want to stack against the Valley for tonight Things to watch on this slate. I did give at least some consideration to Justin for Justin Verlander at $9,400 He's still not himself like old-school Verlander, but he did go a hundred and seventeen pitches in his most recent star Which is bananas which gives you a lot of wiggle room for him to not be Spotless, but still be good for DFS. He's facing the brazen the road It might not be the right spot to buy back in yet So I'm not there now But it's at least we're thinking about for his next spot in rotation We want to watch him tonight and see how he does and get a read on next week I think that makes a lot of sense. The other two stacks I considered above the Red Sox where the Guardians and the Phillies Let's start here the Phillies who will be facing. I think Reese Olson, though It'll be behind an opener. They have not confirmed Olsen will be the bulk reliever for the Tigers But I think he will be Olsen both in his major league debut and in triple a has done a very good job of limiting Hard contact he gets ground balls gets the swinging strikes The Phillies offense is solid and that's why there are consideration here But Olsen might just be good and it did lower me on stacking against him for tonight The Guardians got dinged because their offense stinks and I don't want to stack them They're facing Matt Dermody who is making his 2023 debut Decent plate discipline numbers down in triple a he was not as good at suppressing our contact as Olsen But the Guardians are not fun 86 WRC plus against lefties minimal power 125 I so so they're fine for one off that there are guys you like on this team But I don't feel confident in finding four guys. I liken this offense So that's why they got shoved down the Red Sox got shoved up It's a weird slate for stacking for sure So if you have a strong inclination towards someone else in the slate, I'd say follow it There are no surefire stacks in the slate. No perfect stacks by any means so Follow your gut. This is what my gut said was the Angels Cubs and Red Sox follow by the Phillies and then the Guardians for some one I'll let's finish up here with some dinger calls for today. Now last night We got both a dinger calls and the first inning of the same game We're gonna try to run that back first inning might be a stretch and also one of these guys might not play But I'm gonna go make trout for the boring one back-to-back nights will say for my trouts going deep there The fun one Miguel Amaya if he does not play pivot to Jan Gomes as being the fun home run call Gomes We talked about this again earlier on this week. So it's lefties very well. Amaya is just kind of fun minimum Sauron Fanduil So tentatively the homework calls are Mike Trout and Miguel Amaya if Amaya does not go back up then is Jan Gomes instead That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot I want to give you all a big thank you for tuning on tuning in once again as always We are back once again tomorrow with a robust Friday slate So make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast He'd or the Fanduil YouTube page to get these as they go live if you've got any questions for me I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis J.I.M. S a NNES. I want to thank you all for tuning in Good luck to you with your MLB DFS line of search tonight We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down Friday slate This has been the solo shot right here on the Fanduil podcast network