 We have spent the past decade talking about Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Jacob Dubrov, all these like big arms in MLB DFS. And tonight we get to feature a lot of the new faces. A lot of guys who haven't been like established as being high strikeout, high upside guys or DFS, but who I think we can pretty definitively say are in that tier right now. We're gonna break down which of those guys I like most for tonight, which ones we should buy into, which ones might wanna be a bit more skeptical of, let you know where we should turn for tonight in Daily Fantasy Baseball. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast, Network and Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire. You're gonna break down tonight's eight game main slate with lockstep for 7.05 PM Eastern for tonight. The one weather spot is in Chicago and could be multiple aspects of this that are noteworthy. That's the cubs and the cardinals. There is rain in the forecast before first pitch. Looks like it may be out of there before first pitch. So might not impact the start of the game, but if they play, winds are in from center at 13 miles per hour and temperatures are just 53 degrees. So it is a downgrade to batters as a result of the temperature downgrade to batters because of the wind being in a wriggly field. All that stuff does negatively impact batters. So I would downgrade batters and upgrade pitchers in a big way, should they play. So make sure you check back on the timeline of that weather to ensure they will in fact play for tonight. We'll dig into the implications of that, whether that pushes any of those guys into the top of the pitching pool and much more in just one second. But first a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the solo shot in the Numberfire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. 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He comes in here at $11,300 followed by Anthony DiSclifani at 10-2. Freddie Peralta is $10,000. Marcus Drowman 98, Hunter Brown 96 with Logan Gilbert coming in at $9,500. Nestor Cortes is 93 against the A's. Dylan Cease at 91 with Tony Gonslund and Patrick Sand of all the others at $8,000 or higher. Last week, I was on Zach Gallin and that did not work out because he had his first dud this year. But he's back at home tonight and he's in an elite matchup. And I'm going right back to Zach Gallin with no reservations for this slate. In that start last week, Gallin had a three-year in runs across five winnings and had just six strikeouts. The velocity in that game was five though, which I think allows us to look at a larger sample and the larger sample on Gallin this year is sick. He has a 2.47 skill interactive ERA. His strikeout rate is 35% with a 3% walk rate. The skill interactive ERA and strikeout rate bolt tops in the slate by a wide margin. He's facing the Marlins at home for tonight. The Marlins against Ritey so far this year have an 87 WRC plus with a 24% strikeout rate and no power at all. So it's a great spot. It's also a revenge game for the former Marlin and Zach Gallin. They traded him away, you know, they got the jazz chism, but hey, maybe a little bit of juice is flowing there for Gallin as a result. I haven't projected for 8.5 strikeouts for tonight, which is the top number on the slate by a wide margin. Obviously the year of engineering plays a massive factor into that, but either way, Zach Gallin, I'm more than happy to rank this guy first. Salaries high at 11-3, but with a lot of the stacks I want for today, I can make that work. So Zach Gallin to me, the clear cut number one pitcher on tonight's slate. I've also gotten bit a couple of times by using Logan Gilbert this year. And his ERA does reflect that, it's at 4.01. But he's facing the Rangers tonight, and I like him a lot here at $9,500. The ERA for Gilbert, as mentioned, is not great, but that's kind of the one bad thing in this profile. Everything else is really good. He's throwing a splitter this year and throwing more curve balls as well, which is leading to a lot of strikeouts. Gilbert has a 30% strikeout rate across six darts, with a 5% walk rate leading to a steel interactive ERA of 3.18. That likely means that the results for Gilbert should be better than what they've been so far. It's not the easiest matchup tonight. The Rangers have a 115 WRC plus against Reides. They got plenty of power too. And they're definitely a team that I don't actively target by any means. They do strikeout a bit though, and Gilbert is at home. I haven't projected for 6.9 strikeouts tonight, which ranks behind just Gallin and Freddie Peralta on this slate. But Peralta's facing the Dodgers, that's not great. Marcus Strowman is in play due to the weather. We'll talk about him and things to watch. But the strikeouts here, good for Gilbert, the matchup not as bad. So I will go Logan Gilbert number two, with a hair differentiating him between Marcus Strowman and above Freddie Peralta as well. Now, when I'm looking at the pitchers below $9,000 searching for our value play, I find nothing. There are no pitchers below 9,000 I wanna use tonight. So I'm not gonna talk about them. And instead, I'm talking about Dylan Cease. He's right at 91, so almost a value play. We'll talk about him instead as the quote, unquote, value for tonight. He's facing the Royals, which helps a bunch here. They have a 77 WRC plus against Reides. That was even lower before they got to face the A's bullpen for a full series. Like it was like 64 at one point. So the A's bullpen did boost them here. 25% strikeout rate for them, 7% walk rate. They're a great matchup for a Reide. And honestly, Cease could use that boost right now. His velocity was back up a bit in his last time out, which was a good thing. But even with the velocity being closer to what it was last year, he still walked four guys and let up four earned runs in five innings. For the full season now, Cease has a 12% walk rate. He's letting up a ton of hard contact. So he needs to face a less powerful, less patient team. Luckily, he gets that tonight here against the Royals. He still has a 26% strikeout rates. That's kind of the one thing Cease has still been doing pretty well. And that's why I haven't projected for 6.5 strikeouts tonight. That's not bad for $9,100. Even if it does come with some downside with the walks in the hard contact, it's even better if the velocity is up again for Dylan Cease here. I prefer Gilbert and Gallon above him despite the salary. So I'm gonna go with those guys, one, two, Gallon one, Gilbert two. I think that Cease is in the mix with the guys like Peralta and like Strowman. So everyone at 9,000 range pretty similar for you tonight, but I'll go Gilbert two above them. Stacking for tonight is a bit difficult because it's gonna force us to take some leaps of faith and be okay with sub-optimal situations. One of those sub-optimal situations is the Yankees lineup. It's bad right now. It's real bad. So in order to stack them, I need a pretty elite situation. But I think we get that for tonight and I'm willing to stack them here. And that's because they're facing the A's. We talked a lot about how bad their bullpen is. That is a major factor here, honestly. And honestly, it might be the primary factor. The opening matchup isn't bad either though. They're facing JP Sears who's a lefty and that means a lot of the primary guys who are still healthy here do get the platoon advantage. Sears was not terrible. His ERA this year is 5.06, but it comes with a 4.08 skill interactive ERA. That's not bad, but it's letting up a lot of fly balls and that can work in Oakland, but it's less likely to work in New York at that park. So I think the Yankees have enough guys who can hit lefties. It's not fun by any means, but against this bullpen, I think we have to do it on this slate. So I will go the Yankees to the top stack despite the fact makes me a little bit queasy to do that given the state of their offense right now. The Yankees did just get Harrison Baderback. He already has two of them run since the return. He was not jaw-droppingly good in his rehab stint, but in his career, 228 iso against lefties, I don't think they can afford to not have him in there. So I'd expect Bader to play. He's $2,700. You know, he's looked good so far. So I'll go for him. I think that he's probably one of the focal points in this Yankee stack. We'll go with it. It's not a fun offense, but I think they make sense for tonight. Second stack I feel better about, but it's not in a great park. That is in San Francisco, stacking the Giants. They're facing the Nationals and Jake Irvin. Temperature in San Francisco, 57 for tonight, which is pretty low even for this slate. It's the second lowest behind just that Cubs game. So weather is not good here. I still think it might be the number two stack though. Jake Irvin made his debut for the Nats last week, and he got through that okay. Let up one or run across four to third innings. The rest of the data was not as fun though. In that game, Irvin had four walks compared to three strikeouts. His swinging strike rate was 4.9%. And based on previous data, I think that was kind of to be expected. In triple A this year, Irvin had a 20% strikeout rates with an 11% walk rates. Last year in double A he was five, but that's double A. And he also let up a 42% fly ball right there. He's facing the Giants tonight as mentioned, and they've had a great start to this year against righties with a 124 WRC plus. Their ISO is 225. So there's a lot of power in this lineup right now. It's not the best park factor that stakes, but that 225 ISO, a lot of that has come in San Francisco. So I still think we should be hiding them despite that even though, again, like the Yankees doesn't feel great to stack at San Francisco, but like I still think it makes sense for tonight. And we talked about JD Davis. I think it was last week within this Giants stack. And typically he's the guy we use against just lefties. And then thinking healthier, maybe he's not playing every day against righties, but against righties this year, 338 ISO for JD Davis. That's awesome. He should play against righties, frankly. He's not gonna steal bases. We do want that this year, but he's viable against righties and lefties right now. I think the righties part very noteworthy, especially with Davis's salary still at $3,000. So just dongs Davis. Finally, the nickname has become truth. We were just six years too early on calling him that when he was with the Mets. So we'll take it now. JD Davis could play for tonight in DFS. If you want a more contrarian stack, I think the Mariners will wind up qualifying there. They're facing John Gray. Gray's ERA this year is 4.40, which is not terrible, but his peripherals are rough. It may not work, but I think it does give us a window to stack and see what happens. I thought Gray pretty well last year his first year outside of course field, finished the full year of 3.96 ERA and a 26% strikeout rate. But this year, the velocity is down a bit. And that's especially true on a slider. I'm not sure if he's doing that intentionally like he couldn't be just throwing it differently, but he's also throwing that pitch less often instead leading more in his changeup. Last year, the slider was easily Gray's best pitch. It is still his best pitch this year, but you know, the velocity is down regardless it's been good. So throwing it less is concerning for multiple reasons. You know, you can throw fewer breaking balls if you're not feeling 100% and stuff like that. He could reverse course and throw more, but the usage on that pitch has decreased in three straight games and it was its lowest of the year by five percentage points last time out. It's possible Gray just doesn't have a feel for that pitch right now for some reason. In that game with the fewest sliders he has thrown this year, he let up two home runs, four earned runs allowed. He may get better, but as of now, I think it's a worthwhile stack. So I think the Mariners make a lot of sense. I think Gray, again, he could turn things around that's always the risk here, but for right now I'm willing to stack against him. I do want to favor the lefties here. It's not a ton of guys in this Mariners lineup, but I think it makes it easy to rank Jared Kelmick and Cal Raleigh at the top of our stacking list. And honestly, neither guy's super high salary. Kelmick is 34, Raleigh 29. Both those salaries are very reasonable and both those guys have shown a lot of upsides so far this year. So start with the lefties and Kelmick and Raleigh, then filter in the righties and go with that. But to me, they're the building blocks here due to the issues Gray has had against lefties both last year and this year. Things to watch for tonight. Do want to touch a bit on Marcus Strowman. The weather does boost his appeal there. He is just not as big of a strikeout guy as Gilbert and Gallinar. I had Strowman projected for 5.6 strikeouts tonight, which is pretty good if we can assume he lets up minimal or runs. I just like their upside more. I don't blame you if you want to do it, but the strikeouts are my rationale. The reduced number of strikeouts for Strowman relative to them is while go with those guys above him despite the good weather at Wrigley Field Force Night. The A's are facing Nester Cortez who's actually been weird this year where he's been letting up a ton of fly balls. He cut back on his cutter used in the second start and in the five start sense, his fly ball rate is 70%. The A is bad team, but they've actually been pretty good against lefties in a very small sample this year. So I don't mind it. I don't think it's the worst idea to consider stacking here. Honestly, for like a single entry term, I might just do it. The A's are plus 170 to win or 172 to win right now. So like, I don't think people will be in them for stacking, but I think it's worth a shot. It's not safe by any means, but I think it's worth a shot to stack the A's and tournaments for tonight. Finally, the White Sox roster is super depleted, which means I can't stack them, but you could consider one-offs here if you like anybody against Zach Renke. Renke, lots of fly balls, lots of hard contact. So again, not a ton of guys here, you really want to use in DFS, but I think that the White Sox really is viable if you find somebody you like within that lineup. Let's finish up here with the Dinger calls for today. Both these will be at Yankee Stadium and the Boring homerun call, which is wild to say, given where he was at the beginning of the year, where he was last year, which is like 16 different teams, but the Boring homerun call is Brett Rooker. Brett Rooker has been awesome so far this year. Brett Rooker, when he was coming out of college, I know that was like one of the first draft classes where they had like stack cast data from some of the stadiums. The stack cast data I remember was like phenomenal in college, which is why the twins took him pretty early. So it's not a huge shock to see him doing this, but 10 homeruns so far this year, his salary is 42, but like, you know, I get it. So Boring homerun call is Brett Rooker for tonight. The fun one is in that same game, Harrison Bader, if he does play, I think again, maybe it's not boring because he's gone deep in two of his four games so far this year, but he's always had lefties pretty well at Yankee Stadium, basing a lefty, let's up some fly balls. So homerun calls for today, both the Yankee Stadium, the Brett Rooker and Harrison Bader. That is all that we have here for today on the Solo Shop, but as a reminder, make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, we put these up every weekday here on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed and over on the Fanduul YouTube page. So also make sure you're subscribed over there. If you have any questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fanduul podcast network at Fanduul Podcast. I want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups for tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down Tuesday's slate. This has been the Solo Shot right here on the Fanduul podcast network.