 I realize it is a bummer to hear my voice right now and not Tom Beckios because Tom did such a good job as always filling in for me the past 10-ish days or so here on the solo shot and on the MLB GFS Q&A. So you're bummed, I get it. As a consolation here to try to make things up as if I am a delinquent parent coming back from vacation I have brought you a gift to hopefully ease things over here and it is a split slate podcast for today breaking down both the main slate and also the very early only slate for today on MLB DFS over on FanDuel.com. So no, there's no Tom, I apologize, but at least we get a couple of slates to break down here for today. 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 both the main slate and the very early only slate for today over on FanDuel.com. If you are listening to this right now and early enough make sure you check out the timestamp in the episode description over on NumberFire.com because lock for the very early only slate is at 12, 10 PM Eastern. So if you're listening after that feel free to tune out after the main slate discussion is done, but if you're listening earlier than that want to get in on the very early only slate check out the episode description see what the timestamp is there jump ahead and then come back to the main slate after getting your lineup since. Let's start with the main slate and then go through the very early only slate after that. So plenty of it coming up later on today but first a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast because tomorrow got some USC coming up. I've got NASCAR for Indianapolis as well and NFL just around the corner twice weekly via myself and Brandon Godula recap podcast Monday preview podcast on Thursday each and every week. So make sure you're subscribed on the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast feed to get notifications as each of those episodes go live. Hey baseball fans, NLB is putting on a one of a kind event with the field of dreams game between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox today. Fandals giving fans a chance to get in on the action with the $5 field of dingers promotion. All you have to do is opt in and place a minimum of the 25 plus dollars on a three plus legs same game parlay for the 2021 field of dreams game. You'll receive a $5 bonus and site credit each for each home run hit in the game by both teams. Relive the magic of the field of dreams by heading over to FanDuel today must be 21 plus and present Colorado, Iowa. There you go, fitting. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. Bonus issued is a non-withdrawable site credit that expires in seven days. Max bonus $35, terms apply. Gambling problem called 1-800-Gambler. In Colorado, 105-22, 4,700. In Iowa, 1-800-Bets off. In Indiana, 1-800-9 with it. For confidential health in Michigan, 1-800-270-7117. In Tennessee, call the red line 1-800-889-979 or in West Virginia, visit 1-800-gambler.net. Let's start things off here with the main slate for today with lock set to go at 7.05 PM. It is a four game slate and does include that Field of the Dreams game we discussed earlier on and just want to go quickly over the field for that for today. There is apparently a 12 foot wall in center field for today. It might be corn. I don't know. We'll see how that works out. But there's allegedly a 12 foot wall in center field and it's supposed to be modeled after Kamitsky Park. It is 400 feet to center. 339 feet to left and right field. And those dimensions, if you're looking for like a comp from a park perspective are very similar to Bush Stadium in St. Louis. The wall not quite as high there, but it is 85 degrees with 71% humidity. So that's good weather for home runs. I'm going to do it as being like mostly neutral in terms of park factor that could be off, but we will see how things break down. I would value the thoughts of someone like Derek Cardi who does good park factor work. Obviously, it's a guessing game. We don't know the dynamics of how the wind will play there, et cetera, et cetera. But as of right now, I am assuming this game will play somewhat neutral in terms of park factor for today. So that is my baseline assumption for that field of dreams game between the Yankees and the White Sox. There is no big weather to note for today. So pitching preview for this slate, Lance Lin is the highest salary pitcher on Fandal at $10,300. He is starting in that field of dreams game. Shohei Otani is 10-1. Herman Marquez is $9,000. And Jose Barrios is the only other guy above $8,000 at $8,500. And it's not just those four guys. There are tons of great pitchers on this slate. We also have Andrew Hini, you Darvish is here, we talked about him. There are a lot of good pitchers available for today on this main slate. Most of those really good pitchers though are in tough matchups. The big exception is you Darvish. And that'll put him at the top of my list here at $9,200. He's facing Arizona, which is just a, it's been a rough offense for a long time, but really rough right now. They have an 80 WRC plus versus righties based on their current active roster with a 125 ISO. That ISO is easily the lowest on the main slate. The strikeout rate for Arizona has also been creeping up. It is up to 25% versus righties now. And Darvish is pitching really well again. He has a 31% strikeout rate since he started to sprinkle in more curveballs, lowering that slide use to a bit, increasing his curveball usage. Seems to be working out so far. He had a 12 strikeout game. His most recent start, and that was against this very same Arizona offense. And that does mean they just saw him. So that's a negative for sure, but I'm not sure how much it'll matter given how rough they are and how good you Darvish has been. So I think that you Darvish is the top guy here on the main slate. I am willing to put him there despite the repeat matchup. Repeat matchups do matter. They matter a bit less when the team is as bad as Arizona. So for right now, I am good with using UDarvish for today, despite the fact that it is a repeat matchup. I'm gonna put Lancelin's second on the list right now, and I may change that depending on what people smarter than me think about the park factor in Iowa. Thankfully, we have plenty of time to digest this. I'll hopefully have had more information on this before our Q&A show at 4 p.m. for today, but as of right now, it does seem like roughly a neutral park. That means that Lancelin is someone we can use in DFS. The matchup is not bad. The Yankees did perk up a bit after the trades for Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo, but with Rizzo being out, they're an offense we can target once again. The active roster has a 95 WRC plus versus righties, and that includes Gallo's full season number. So although he was not with the Yankees when he put up those numbers of Texas, they do still count when you look at the current active roster, which is something you can view over at fangrass.com. So not an above average offense, and Lancelin is pitching pretty well. That's despite the fact that the velocity on his 4C fastball has been down over his past nine starts. Hasn't mattered. In that time, he still has a 28% strikeout rate. He's letting apart contact just 31% of the time, and the results, not shocking, even when you get strikeouts and have a low hard hit rate against, have been really nice. He has a 3.12 ERA. He has not let a multiple earned runs, or he has let a multiple earned runs in just three of his nine starts. And he's only done that once in his past seven outings. He hasn't really had like a pop game from an upside perspective in terms of strikeouts, but the building blocks are there. The building blocks for a big strikeout game are a high pitch count, high strikeout rate, decent matchup, and he has all those things here today. Goes deep in games, got a good overall strikeout rate. He's not in a terrible matchup, and if we do need to worry about park factor, I will shift elsewhere. We'll adjust in the Q&A show later on today, but based on what we've got right now, I will put Darvish first and Lancelin second for my pitching ranks for the main slate for today. So that is where we're at for right now, and I do feel like that's probably gonna be where things stand later on as well. As far as the stacks go, the top stack for me, at least, is a no-brainer. That is the Padres against Taylor Weidner, and that is not a shot against Weidner. He was awesome against this team last week. I bet the under on his strikeout prop did not make it because he had seven strikeouts. He was awesome. And I think that labeling the Padres as being the top stack on the slate is more so a reflection of how many good pitches are on the slate than anything to do with Weidner. As mentioned last week, seven strikeouts and five innings against this very same team, and he cruised especially early on in that game. He has a 29% strikeout rate in five starts since Weidner rejoined the rotation, which is just a really good number. The problem is the rest of the stuff in his profile. His walk rate in that time is 12%. He's letting up a 43% hard hit rate and a 48% fly ball rate. And that's why even that good outing last week wasn't a disaster if you stacked against him because he let up two home runs. He also let up two homers against the pirates in his first start after the all-star break. So it's not perfect by any means. From a stacking perspective, we do want to target lower strikeout pitchers because we want to maximize balls of play, strikeouts are the one event where you can't score points. But I think it's the best we've got here. And I'm good with the Padres whether they activate Fernando Tates off the IL or not. He'd be an awesome boost, obviously, but they have enough depth here to be stackable even if he can't go quite yet. So the Padres definitely at the top of my list for today from a stacking perspective on the main slate. Second will be the White Sox. It's a very similar situation to the Padres where they're facing a high strikeout guy, but everything else says we can stack them for today. Facing Andrew Heaney, he has a 28% strikeout rate since his curveball usage increased, which is a very good number, but it comes with a 41% our hit rates and a 44% fly ball rate. That led to Dinger issues even when he was in pitcher friendly parks. Which is why I'm okay stacking him here despite not really knowing what the park factor will break like at the Field of Dreams Park for today. If you can let up homers in Los Angeles and elsewhere, you can probably let them up in Iowa as well. And the strikeouts haven't really hurt the upside against him because if we look at the eight star sample with the increased curveball usage, his ERA is 6.97. He's led up four plus runs in five of those eight starts. He's led up multiple earned runs in every single one. And yeah, the White Sox had not been as automatic against lefties recently as they were before, especially like the past couple of weeks. They've not been great versus lefties. They've let us down a couple of times, but it's still for the full season, a 110 WRC plus versus lefties at a 190 ISO. And you look at the individual batters here, especially now where they're at, they should be a team we should be willing to stack when they're facing a lefty. So I am very into the White Sox here, despite the fact that it's not a perfect situation because he and he get strikeouts because they've been trending down a bit versus lefties, I still think all things considered, they are the number two stack on the slate behind the Padres. I will say though, I'm not sure how high I'll be on Luis Robert. He didn't show much power before his injury this year, didn't show a ton in his rehab stint either, but he has been much more powerful as a hitter in his career against lefties than righties. He gets that for today. He's $2,900. That's not a bad salary, but it's also right by Cesar Hernandez and Andrew Vaughn. And both those guys have had great numbers against lefties this year, especially from a power perspective. So I'm gonna want to prefer in those guys in this range. If you're giving me like a mid-range ranking for the White Sox, I'll have both Cesar Hernandez and Andrew Vaughn above Luis Robert, despite the fact that he's been better against lefties. So they're gonna rank higher for me. I will get to Robert just because he's $2,900. He's been good versus lefties. Did have a hard hit ball a couple of nights ago. So I'm gonna get to him, but I will get to those guys first in terms of how I'm gonna rank the mid-range options in this stack for tonight. Do you want to give the Dinger calls for the main slave for today? Just because, why not? I don't think I'll do them for the early, very early, only a slave. Let's do them here for the main slave. The boring Dinger call for today will be Eloy Jimenez. I love what he's been doing since he came back from the IL. He's been disgusting, gets up to an advantage, gets a guy who lets a poem run. So Eloy Jimenez, the boring pick for today. The fun one may not count as fun because he's a pretty good hitter, but he's not the top guy in his team, depending on how you want to view things. So I'll go Jake Kronoworth. And I think that, you know, again, you could say that's not super boring, but hey, you know, my podcast, my rules, welcome back. I do think that Kronoworth will go yard for tonight against Weidner. So the home run calls for today, Eloy Jimenez versus Heaney and Jake Kronoworth versus Weidner for today. That wraps up our main slave discussion. We're gonna transition now to the very early, only slave, which means if you are listening to this after lock at 12, 10 p.m., we'll see you tomorrow or talk to you on the Q&A later on today. But the very early, only slate is a five game slate, which locks at 12, 10 p.m. Eastern. It's a kind of unique one because we have the first game of the doubleheader between the Mets and the Nationals. Usually we don't get that first game of the doubleheader, either game of the doubleheader on a slate on Fandral. They will take this out of the slates and not let us worry about them. But because the game became a doubleheader after slates are posted, they just kept it up. So note, before using players in that game, it is just a seven in the game and it does lower the appeal of every player in that game a pretty decent amount. So just note that the Mets and Nationals game is a doubleheader and will be just seven innings for tonight. There is a chance of reigning Cleveland as they host the A's, not a super high chance. They should be able to play but it is worth checking back on later on. Pitching preview for the very early, only slate, Brandon Woodruff checks in at $11,000, Chris Bassett at $9,900 and Kyle Hunderts $8,800. Nobody else above like 75. So it's a pretty big drop off after those three and Woodruff to me, the top guy by a wide margin. The one reservation you could have with Woodruff is the Brewers have said they plan to conserve their pitchers for October. We've seen this happen with Freddie Peralta specifically and it makes sense. They, these guys, Woodruff, Peralta, Burns are the reason the Brewers are in this position to think about October when we're only in August. They have not piggybacked Woodruff yet. He's been going deep in games and they could but I think some circumstances help us still use him here. Main one is that they don't have a lot of options. The main guys they would use in a piggyback role are Adrian Hauser and Eric Lauer but they're both on the COVID IL. So is Josh Hader and it's put a dent in their pitching depth. They definitely could still piggyback Woodruff at some point. They've got a seven game lead. So they have a cushion to do so but they might choose to do that once they've got more guys back from the COVID IL and that does up our confidence in Woodruff a bit. It's still a risk and it's still something to consider but it does increase our confidence in him. And he's really good. He has a 27% strikeout rate over his past 10 starts. That is all after the sticky stuff discussion began. He's allowing just a 29% hard hit rate and a 31% fly ball rate. Woodruff is facing the Cubs here. They're basically just a shell of a team. We saw Corbin Burns just torch them last night and Woodruff is on that level right now. So I think even with the concerns about potentially having less length out of Woodruff right now he is still the top guy on the slate. He is still worth $11,000. So Brandon Woodruff to me the number one pitcher for the very early only slate. Number two is Chris Bassett. And I've been out on him for a while because his numbers did take a dip after the sticky stuff discussion began, but to Bassett's credit, he's adjusted. He's really cut down his sinker usage over his past four starts and it's a bad pitch for DFS. It's a bad pitch in the real world too. His whiff rate on his sinker is 16%. Every other pitch is at least 22%. The ex-woba against that pitch is 364. So the fewer sinkers Bassett throws the better made DFS perspective and made real world perspective. And it's led to good outings with the sinker slowly being on the decline. He's had at least seven innings in three of his past four starts. He's had eight strikeouts twice and one of the eight strikeout games was against Cleveland. That game came back on July 18th. So there's enough separation there to not worry about familiarity in the situation. The salary ambassador is high at $9,900 but I am fine with that. So I do think that he's very worth it in this spot and I will put Bassett second behind Woodruff for the very early only slate. As far as the stacks go, the one I like the most is the A's facing Eli Morgan. He's starting to get some strikeouts. So it's not like a no-brainer to stack the A's but I do like it a decent amount. Morgan's strikeouts have been on the rise over his past seven starts. He didn't have great velocity in his first two starts in the big leagues this year. So the past seven paint a more accurate picture of what he's doing right now. He has a 25% strikeout rate in that time with a 3% walk rate. And that's good. His skill interactive ERA is 3.92 very similar to Lance Lynn actually but his ERA is much more lackluster at 4.97. The bad at ball numbers explain why there is a gap between the skill interactive ERA and the results. He's letting up a 39% hard hit rates with a 56% fly ball rate which is a great recipe for home runs. He hasn't had a massive home run issue in this time but Morgan has led a multiple home runs in three of the seven games and there's hot weather for today. It's a good powerful offense he's facing despite having no Ramon Laureano. So I think there is enough here to feel very good about the A's despite Morgan's increasing strikeout rate. Now the one complication with using Brandon Woodruff is that he's $11,000 means we've got to find some salary savers. The two guys here who best do that are Sean Murphy and Seth Brown. Murphy has a salary of $2,400. Brown is at $2,100. Both these guys have big fly ball rates and ISO is over 200 versus righty. So I think that you start with those two guys. Start with Murphy, start with Brown, assuming that they play and then go from there. I think that you plug them in with Woodruff and see which studs you can afford and you should be able to get to some good guys once you plug them in. So I'd start there, start with those value plays and go from there. Another guy who struggled a bit with home runs recently is JT Brubaker which I think means we can stack the cardinals against him. Brubaker has been throwing more curves and forcing fastballs recently at the expense of his slider and it's not working. His bat of all numbers has slid in the wrong direction. A strike area has gone up, but just a smidge, not enough to wipe out the rough moves elsewhere. He's also had some walk issues recently which means that a homer that he does allow can be a multi run innings. You walk guy, let a padinger, that's gonna lead smashes pretty quickly. The cardinals are not great but they do have individuals with upside here. So I'm fine checking them out and seeing if Brubaker's issues with hard contact continue. It does help that Brubaker's bat of all data is pretty even against righties and lefties though the ground ball rate is higher against righties. So I would be okay giving bump up Dylan Carlson the main switch hitter here but the true upside guys are all righties. I am fine holding them in high regard because of Brubaker's relatively even numbers against both righties and lefties. So I would, I'd be fine being high on them. If you want more value, I would check out some of the Pirate's guys. You know, Redulfo Castro has some pop each $2400. You could potentially go there. I'm okay with the Metzamine Eric Fetty start the first game, which has not been confirmed yet. We could potentially check them out but if we're looking for the true top stacks give me the A's and give me the cardinals for today. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shop. But as mentioned, we are back once again at 4pm to break down the main slate. So if you want to check out the main slate, talk about that. Swing back by 4pm Eastern to talk about that over on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. If you have questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jimsonus, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you once again to Tom Vecchio for filling in for me over the past 10-ish days and Tom will be, I'm sure filling in at some point in the very near future as well. Thank you Tom. And thank you to everyone for tuning in. Good luck for you today. Both of the very early only slate, the early only slate, but the main slate will talk to you all again in the very near future. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.