 What's going on and welcome to the solo shot. We have a 13 game Slate Deadlocks at 705. My name is Tom Vecchio. This is one of the many shows on the FanDuel podcast network. You can find that anywhere whether it's iTunes, Soundclad, Stitcher, Google Play. Make sure to give that a like, follow or subscribe. That is greatly appreciated and you can follow me on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom. Before we happen to things, listen up baseball fans. The MOB is putting on a wonderful kind of event with the Field of Dreams game this Thursday between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox at his August 12th. FanDuel is giving fans a chance to get in on the action with a $5 Field of Dingers promotion. All you have to do is opt in and place a minimum bet of $25 on a three leg parlay, same game parlay or more for the 2021 Field of Dreams game. You'll receive a $5 bonus in the site credit for each home run hit in that game by both teams. Relive the magic of the Field of Dreams by heading over to FanDuel today. Must be $21 plus and present in Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, or West Virginia based on student bonus is issued as a non-double site credit that expires in seven days max bonus $35 term to apply game from call 1-800-522-4700 in Colorado, call 1-800-betts-off in Iowa, call 1-800-9 with it in Indiana, call 1-800-270-7171 in Fort Confidential Health in Michigan, call 1-800-gamber in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, or call Tennessee Red Line at 1-800-889-9979 in Tennessee, or visit 1-800-gamber.net in West Virginia. All right, hopping into today's 13 game MLB Slate locks at $705, obviously a significantly larger slate than what we had yesterday. Also, on tonight's slate, as we had yesterday, we are dealing with plenty of rain. So starting off, again, this is always via Kevin Roth on Twitter meteorologists doing great work in the DFS industry. We could be having some rain in St. Louis at Pittsburgh. A little bit of rain, neither should impact play too heavily. The Dodgers visiting Philadelphia, also a bit of rain, not expected to be too much, but we'll get an update at 4 p.m. on the Q&A show, which you can find right here on the Fangle YouTube Twitch and Facebook page. Detroit at Baltimore should be rain, a little bit consistently leading up to game, could be a late start. We'll get an update on that. Oakland at Cleveland, not a ton of rain, but the storms in the area will be very slow. Moving in the storm could present a bit of trouble with winds blowing out towards Washington at the New York Mets. Plenty of rain possible this, depending on the timing of how soon it gets there. Tampa Bay at Boston could see things at the tail end, just with the storm moving up the East Coast. Cincinnati at Atlanta also could see a little bit of rain, but should not be an issue. And then the New York Yankees visiting the Kansas City Royals should be rain before first pitch, but ultimately not too much of an issue. As of now, again, we'll circle back on all of this at 4 p.m. because there's a number of games that could be impacted by things. Now, leading off tonight's slate, we have three, I want to say, clear aces on the mound. Max Scherzer, Sean Manaya and Aaron Dola, followed by Sonny Gray. Now, we can say that some of these pitchers all have their positives and negatives. Leading off, we're going to be going with the best pitcher on tonight's slate. And ultimately, that's Max Scherzer coming in with a phenomenal 34.5% strikeout rate this season. 6.4% walk rate is absolutely unbelievable. See a 2.98 Sierra and a 3.43X fit. All phenomenal numbers from Scherzer. He is allowing 1.45 homeruns per nine, but ultimately we're not going to be too worried about that because we know his strikeout ceiling is absolutely immense. Now, this isn't to say the lineup he's going against in the Phillies isn't without danger. We've seen them very strong over the past couple of weeks, but we know his strikeout upside is arguably unmatched on this slate. All things considered. So at $10,600 going up against the Philadelphia Phillies, Max Scherzer is clearly the best pitcher on tonight's slate. Now, we also could be looking to someone like Sean Manaya, but that game could be impacted by weather. And frankly, he doesn't carry that high of a strikeout rate in comparison to Max Scherzer. Again, Scherzer is at 34.5%. Manaya is at 26.9%. And there are only $600 difference. So there's really no reason you'd be going to Manaya over Scherzer in really any capacity. Now, Aaron Nola is just a bit cheaper compared to Max Scherzer. Nola coming in at $9,900, but the matchup for him is no doubt a tough one going up against the Dodgers. But he also could say the same thing for Sonny Gray, who we know has a good strikeout upside and he's $9,200, but he's on the road going up against an obese dangerous Atlanta Braves team. So this leads us to Logan Gilbert at $8,900 as my second favorite pitching option on tonight's slate. A young pitcher for Seattle only has 67.1 innings pitched this season, which is his first year in the majors, but has a very solid 28.2% strikeout rate coming with a 6.4% walk rate. He's allowing a 43.4% fly ball rate, which we'd like to see a little bit lower, but he does combine that with a strong 55.9% medium contact rate, add in a 3.58 Sierra and a 3.87 XP, and we are looking at solid numbers overall from Logan Gilbert. Despite all those fly balls, he's only allowing 0.94 home runs per nine. Now, more importantly, he's going up against the Texas Rangers, and we see Logan Gilbert at home for Seattle. So obviously a great pitchers park there. Going up against the Texas Rangers, obviously a very depleted offense wasn't that strong. To begin with, they come on a league average or so, 23.9% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitching, which is the 15th in the league. We look to their WRC Plus, and they come into the 78 WRC Plus with their current roster that is 29th in the league. Absolutely not an offense. You need to be worried about combine that with the fact that they have a 140 team ISO versus righties with their current roster that is 27th in the league. So a Texas Rangers offense that wasn't great to begin with is even worse over the past few weeks. And now we see Logan Gilbert at $8,900, presenting a great point per dollar value, along with a solid 28% strikeout rate at home, again in Seattle, which is a great pitchers park. Logan Gilbert really shaping up to be one of my favorite pitchers on tonight's slide. Now ultimately, I'll still side with Scherzer as a better overall option. We do see Scherzer going much deeper into the games. We do see Logan Gilbert limited in terms of his pitch count and not going as deep into the games at times. So we want to be taking him about a half a step or full step behind Scherzer, who we know is the more consistent option. Again, you are paying $10.6 to get to Scherzer. Logan Gilbert is $8.9, obviously making roster construction that much easier tonight. Now, I assume plenty of people will have plenty of questions about a number of other pitchers throughout the slate. And throughout the day, I can handle those at the 4pm show here on the Fandle YouTube, Twitch and Facebook page. Plenty of different options to go to on, of course, a 13 game slate. But Eduardo Rodriguez for the Boston Red Sox is a pitcher I want to focus in on today. Now, I know the middle portion of the season for him was very rough. We saw him start off the season strong. He went through a big downturn in terms of his production and he's since picked it back up. He still comes in with a very strong 28.9% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate. The 1.20 home runs per nine obviously isn't great, but he is mainly a ground ball and medium contact pitcher that 42.9% ground ball rate, a 54.7% medium contact rate, a 3.49 Sierra and a 3.30 exit, which of course are both great. He's going up against the Tampa Bay Rays. And yes, this is a positive park shift for the Rays because they are in Boston tonight. But Tampa Bay still comes in with a 25.3% strikeout rate versus lefties, which is the fifth worst in the league with their current roster now. They do generate a lot of walks. They do have a bit of power in that lineup and they do come in with a slightly above league average 101 WRC plus versus lefties, but ultimately they're still striking out a lot. And the strikeout upside for Eduardo Rodriguez is there considering he's only $8,000. He also makes another solid point per dollar play at pitching. Now we look to some of his start, Eduardo Rodriguez, some of his starts since the All-Star break or since the start of July and outside of this one start against the Yankees where he literally only pitched one inning left with a shoulder or back issue. We don't want to be looking at that. He posted a 47.6% strikeout rate in his most recent start against Detroit. He posted a 38.1% strikeout rate against Toronto, a 38.1% strikeout rate against the Yankees and a 28.6% strikeout rate against Oakland at the beginning of July. So he has been very, very solid since the beginning of July, of course, for moving this one game where he only pitched one inning against the Yankees. Very solid numbers from Eduardo Rodriguez overall and ultimately the match of him against Tampa Bay is shaping up to be one where he could really reach another ceiling game when it comes to his strikeouts. So Max Scherzer absolutely fantastic as always on tonight's late. Logan Gilbert at $8,900 at home, integrate pitchers park against a very, very weak Texas Rangers line. If we want to be looking at Logan Gilbert as one of the most, I would say consistent and safest options for his salary that we have on tonight's late. And then dropping down a little bit further, Eduardo Rodriguez. Now, this isn't to say I'm not considering other pitchers on tonight's late, but those are the three main ones that I'm going to be focusing in on. Now, when it comes to stacks on tonight's late, there are obviously a number of different ways to go about things. As of now, we see six teams with implied run totals sitting over five, the Yankees, the White Sox, the Orioles and the Tigers, they're going head to head. That game could present a spot for a bit of a game stack, the athletics and then the Mets. Those are the 16 as of now that are sitting with implied run totals sitting over five. Now, of course, we'll want to drop down and take some teams in the 4.7 4.8 range just to differentiate our lineups a bit. Starting off, we want to be looking at the Oakland athletics going up against Tristan Mackenzie. Again, we see the athletics with a 5.20 implied run total tonight, which is very solid. Now, we want to be attacking Tristan Mackenzie because he allows too many fly balls and too many home runs. Again, this is one of the games that could be impacted by weather, so we'll certainly have to circle back on this on the 4pm Q&A. But for Tristan Mackenzie, allowing 2.61 home runs per nine to righties, a 13.3% walk rate to righties is absolutely terrible. He's allowing 1.11 home runs per 9 to lefties and a 16.6% walk rate to lefties. He has a 5.29x fit against lefties and a 4.74x fit against righties. None of these are good numbers. He allows a 55.6% fly ball rate to righties and a 46.3% fly ball rate to lefties. All of this is very, very troubling, especially in a spot where we could be, if this game does play, if we do see some extra wind blowing out in Cleveland. So, yes, the Oakland Athletics are a team we want to be targeting tonight. Looking over the top, they have plenty of power, whether it be Seth Brown, the 251 iso in this split. Matt Olson, the 242 iso in this split. Sean Murphy, 200 iso, Jed Lowery, 174, and even Mark Hanna at 170. So, the Athletics present plenty of options when it comes to stacking tonight. And ultimately, they are relatively affordable to get into your lineups. You know, outside of Matt Olson, who's above $4,000, sitting at $4,300, the newly acquired Starling Marte at $39, after those two, it's relatively affordable to roster multiple Athletics or a full Athletic stack, whether it's Hanna at $33, Matt Chapman even at $3,200, Jed Lowery at $3,000. You name it, there are multiple different ways to go about stacking the Athletics tonight. You can even drop down further. And if Sean Murphy makes the lineup over Jan Gohms, we get some real value at $2,400. So, the Athletics are certainly a team I'm targeting tonight for multiple reasons. One, they offer everything we want when it comes to stacking. You can decide to pay up for the top. You can drop down to mid-range and take some value. And ultimately, they have a great match up against Tristan Mackenzie. So, yes, the strikeouts are always going to be there for Tristan Mackenzie, but too many walks and too many home runs are a dangerous combination to be playing with. So, Mackenzie is a pitcher that I'm going to be looking to stack against tonight. Another pitcher I want to be stacking against tonight is Drew Smiley from the Atlanta Braves, a pitcher that's also giving up too many home runs this season, sitting at 1.78 overall. He has a low 20.4 percent strikeout rate, an average to slightly bad walk rate sitting at 8.4 percent. He has a 42.6 percent fly ball rate, a 36.9 percent hard contact rate, a 4.68 Sierra, and a 4.80 X fit. We look to some of his individual splits versus righties and lefties. He's actually struggling a bit more against lefty hitters despite being a left-handed pitcher, allowing 2.10 home runs per nine to lefties and 1.66 versus righties. So, ultimately, it doesn't really matter who we attack him with. We do see plenty of power on the side of the Cincinnati Reds. We'll get there in a minute. And his fly ball rate is generally the same versus both lefties and righties, 45.8 percent against lefties and 41.5 percent against righties. He's at home in Atlanta, which is a solid hitters park. It's not amazing. It's not terrible. It's slightly better than league average, but we still want to be looking to the Reds with all of their power. And the Reds come in with a 4.77 applied run total slightly below the top, which means that there's a chance they could be going slightly under the radar, which, of course, is great for tournaments. We'll circle back on all of this when we get to the 4 p.m. show. But Kyle Farmer leading the way with a 254 ISO for the Reds, obviously great to see. Nick Castellanos with a 236 ISO in this split. We can even look to Eugenio Suarez at 172. Joey Vado obviously has a smaller sample size because he's spent so much time on the IL. But of course, a player we can certainly add to the Reds stack overall. Jesse Winker, a phenomenal hitter this year, does not have a whole lot of power versus lefties specifically. He's actually down at .081. But if they were to bring in some righties from the Braves bullpen, obviously things would flip in Winker's favor. And of course, then we get some potential upside for Joey Vado as well. So the Reds with a 4.77 implied run total just below the top tier of teams tonight is another team that I am really, really focusing in on stacking. Because as we've seen specifically over the past few days of the weekend, when the home runs get going for the Reds, they are one of the teams that you absolutely want to be having as stacks in your player and team allocation just because the home run upside for them is absolutely immense. It seems like the Reds and the Braves are these teams when the home runs get going. We are really in a spot to see plenty of scoring. Now, this isn't to say that I don't like the Yankees on tonight's slate. I don't like the White Sox on tonight's slate after all the runs that those two teams put up last night. I'm fully on board with stacking those two teams. I think they're absolutely phenomenal. Again, I'll give more details on the 4 p.m. show. But also looking to the Detroit Tigers side with their 5.25 implied run total right now that's tied for the third highest on the slate. They're in Baltimore, which is of course a great hitters part. They're taking on Keegan Akin for the Baltimore Orioles. Now, Akin is another young pitcher doesn't have the largest sample size this year or last year, only coming with a total of 77.1 innings pitched between the last two seasons in the majors. But he has a low 19.7% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate giving up a 39.8% fly ball rate. None of this is terrible. None of this is amazing, but he's giving up too many home runs overall. And yes, the Tigers, a team that we should be looking to for some potential scoring tonight. Yes, the Tigers might not be the best team in the league, but they certainly have plenty of power. And more importantly, they're facing a very weak pitcher in a very hitter friendly part. So, looking to Eric Haas with his 402 iso versus lefties is absolutely great tonight. Jonathan Scope at 263. Even Robbie Grossman at a 226 iso is someone you can be considering. You want to take a shot with Miguel Cabrera. That's certainly an option as well. Akil Badu is not a player I'm necessarily targeting at the start tonight for the Tigers because the lefty-lefty match is so difficult for him. But ultimately, if I'm going to be targeting the Tigers tonight, I'm not going to be too worried about either A, Keegan-Akin, or B if he gets run out of the game because the Tigers put up a whole lot of runs. I'm not going to be worried about the Orioles bullpen. So, Akil Badu is a player that I want in some Detroit stacks. He's just not the player that I'm starting the stacks with. I want to be going for some of that homer and upside with Eric Haas, with Scope, with Robbie Grossman, whoever it might be. So, all of those players are certainly in play tonight. And yes, they do have a 5.25 implied run total. So, the Tigers could be a chalky team on a 13 game slate just because their match begins with Keegan-Akin. And ultimately, the Orioles bullpen is just going to be so good. So, the Athletics tonight, the Tigers tonight, and the Cincinnati Reds tonight are three of the teams that I'm focusing on a little bit heavier than compared to some of the others. Again, I still want exposure to the Yankees and the White Sacks. And even the Orioles on the other side of the Tigers because the Orioles are going up against Casey Meis, a young pitcher for the former number one overall pick from the Tigers who's still giving up too many homeruns this season. And a pitcher we can certainly look to attack. So, we are looking at a slate where we should be seeing plenty of offense, that there are plenty of teams in great spots going up against bad pitchers which should present plenty of upside for stacking. Now, when it comes to the final three things on tonight's slate, an extra pitcher, an extra stack, and then a homerun call. Of course, we can recap all of this on the 4 p.m. show. We'll give one homerun call now. I'll give one homerun call later. Starting off with the pitching option, or the another pitching option to consider saying would be Alex Wood, $8,600 at home for the San Francisco Giants. Now, two of these most recent starts have not looked great for him. Giving up four earned runs at Arizona on the team he's facing tonight and then four earned runs against Houston. Yes, he's facing the same Arizona team he did in this most recent start, but still Alex Wood, a good overall pitcher, not bringing in the highest strikeout rate. Ultimately, that's not necessarily why we want to be targeting. He comes in $8,600. I think he makes a solid point per dollar play. I think he's going to be a nice pivot away from Logan Gilbert since they are at a very similar salary. So, yes, we can be going to Alex Wood with his 25.1% strikeout rate, which is certainly solid, his 3.77 Sierra and 3.68. Exit all solid numbers from him overall. Yes, one bad game against Arizona is not the greatest, but overall Arizona is still a weaker lineup. And I think we can be looking to Alex Wood as a solid at tournament pivot away from Logan Gilbert who should just be much chalkier going up against the Texas Rangers at an only $300 difference. So, overall, we are looking to be in a good spot for pitching. Multiple options at every different price point allows some natural pivots, allows you to certainly change things when it comes to your roster construction in the hopes of being different, which is always good to see. Now, when it comes to another team, we'll be stacking on tonight's plate. Again, like I said, you can go to both the Orioles and the Tigers. I think that they're both firmly in play liking that as a bit of a game stack. The athletics, the Reds are to the main teams. I'm targeting along with the Tigers. And again, the Tigers make a lot of sense just because ultimately they offer a bit of salary relief, which we'll need if we want to pay up for pitching or be pay up for potentially expensive Red stack. So, I'm also on board with that. And then I also think that you can be looking to go to the Seattle Mariners tonight, attacking Kobe Allard, a pitcher that we truly don't need to be afraid of going to both Logan Gilbert and a stack from the Mariners tonight is something that we should be considering. Kobe Allard is allowing 1.65 homeruns per nine overall this season. A 21% striker rate is absolutely nothing we need to be too afraid of. He's not walking a ton of haters, which is actually, I guess, good to see for him with a 5.2% walk rate, but ultimately not a pitcher when you be truly worried about a 39.9% fly ball rate is something that is, you know, right on the edge of presenting plenty of upside for the Mariners hitters. So, I'll dive into the Mariners a bit more on at the 4pm show, you know, targeting, whether it's Mitch Hanniger, even Kyle Seger in a lefty-lefty matchup for Seattle is solid. Mariners aren't that expensive overall. You want to add in some Thai friends, Abraham Toro, who's been hot for the Mariners as of late, all certainly viable. And ultimately, I don't think the Mariners with their run total singing at 4.68 should be too popular tonight, and they are heavy home favorites alongside Logan Gilbert, who is pitching. So, plenty of options on tonight's plate. We have plenty of chalky options. We have some aces on the mound with pitchers in the mid-tier, basically everything that we want. The clear opposite of what we had on a small, what turns out to be three-game slate last night after the Brewers and the Cubs were postponed. So, certainly looking at Alex Wood tonight, I think it's going to be a good rebound spot for him going up against Arizona, like in Seattle as a bit of a secondary stack tonight. And then the first home run call on tonight's slate is going to be Nick Castellanos for the Cincinnati Reds, again, going up against Drew Smiley, allowing a 41.5% fly ball rate this season to right-handed hitters. 1.66 home runs per 9 to righties this year, numbers that we absolutely want to be taking advantage of. And Nick Castellanos, of course, a great power hitter this season, coming in with a 2.36 ISO versus lefties, obviously something that he's shown in plenty of years past. He has a 22.7% home run fly ball ratio versus lefties and a 47.1% hard contact rate versus left-handed pitchers. So, the home run upside for not only Castellanos, but plenty of the other Reds players is something we absolutely want to be capturing within our lineups and within a Red stack tonight. So, Nick Castellanos is my first home run call on tonight's slate. We'll go for the second one on the 4pm show today on the Fingal, YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook page. I will take all of your questions there and we will run through the updates, not only for the starting lineups, some extra pitchers, some extra stacks, but more importantly, the weather on tonight's slate because we have, was it four, five, six games that could be impacted by weather, something we actually want to focus in on, don't want to get left with some dead players in our lineups. Alright, so that does it for today's podcast. It's always going to be found on iTunes, Samclad, state your Google play. Make sure to give it a like, follow, or subscribe. You can follow me on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom. Until next time, good luck in your contests.