 If you were to teleport someone to today's slate for MLB DFS and just let them look at the pitching stars today without knowing what happened earlier on this year, they'd be pretty confused because these are the guys in order of salary for pitcher first night. It's Kyle Wright, who's highest, then Justin Verlander coming off injury, but very good pitcher. Lucas G. Alito, very good. Joe Ryan makes some sense given the surges he had a time last year, then Jesus Lizardo. So Kyle Wright, Jesus Lizardo, and then kind of Joe Ryan, all guys going to the year you wouldn't have expected to have salaries of $10,000 or higher. But in the context of the slate, it makes a lot of sense. We're going to break things down from a DFS perspective. Let you know our thoughts on those guys. If I think that their salaries are legitimate, how we're handling them, we're going for MLB DFS for today. Welcome on into the solo shop. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I'm a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Here to break down Tuesday's 12-game main slate with lock set for 7.05 p.m. eastern for today. Do a couple of weather notes for today. Thankfully, just wind-related, no rain for today. The wind at Yankee Stadium for the Jays and the Yankees is in from center at 12 or 11 miles per hour. With downgrade hitters a bit there, but not too dramatically. In Chicago for the White Sox and Guardians, winds are in from right at 10 miles per hour. Downgrade bats there a bit too, although after the outburst last night after I went to bed, maybe not too much there. In Los Angeles for the Angels and the Rays, winds are out at 13 miles per hour. So slight upgrade to batters for that one as well. We'll talk about those rising pictures for today and get you set for today's main slate. Last one second, but first, a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts because our PGA podcast back for today previewing the AT&T Byron Nelson, myself and Brandon Cadulla, back on that. Getting you set for that, we have a major coming out just around the corner too. So a lot of good PGA action, great deal with this week as well. So a lot of good PGA stuff. Of course, Austin Swain has you covered at USC. I've got NASCAR as well in addition to the MLB podcast every weekday. So make sure you are subscribed to the NumberFire 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, FanDuel and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one-of-a-kind soccer contest to spice up game day. Introducing Captain Morgan's soccer pick, I'm a weekly fantasy contest that is entirely free to play. The contest is simple. All you have to do is answer 10 questions about Captain Morgan and that week's soccer matchup. People with the most correct answers will earn their share of cash prizes. Head over to Fanduel.com slash Free Games slash Captain Morgan and spice up game day with a free shot at cash prizes every Saturday. No purchase necessary must be 21 plus to enter. Location restrictions apply. Avoid we're prohibited. See full terms at Fanduel.com. Pitching preview for this Tuesday main slate. Kyle Wright checks in at $10,900, followed by Justin Verlander at 10-8. Lucas G. Alito is 10-3. Joe Ryan is 10-2. Jesus Lizardo is $10,000, followed by Aranola at 97. Brad Keller is 9,000. Then we have Robbie Ray, Carlos Carrasco potentially. The Mets have not officially announced who their starter is. We'll talk about that and things to watch. Corey Kluber, Martin Perez, Alex Wood and Cal Quantrill as the others at $8,000 are higher. Now again, entering the year, you probably would have viewed the Red Sox against Kyle Wright as being a good spot to stack. But Wright has been sick this year and the Red Sox have struggled. I think that Wright actually does great out well for tonight despite the high salary, despite the discombobulation associated with seeing this type of matchup. My strikeout projections like Wright a lot. They've come for 7.7 strikeouts, which is the highest mark on the slate for today. And most of the other guys in this realm are on the road. They're facing scrappy opponents, stuff like that. The Red Sox aren't either of those right now. Their WRC Plus against Wrightys since the start of last year is down to 101. They have a 23% strikeout rate. They're not drawing that many walks and that's a perfect combination for Kyle Wright. We're up to a 5-star sample on Wright this year and it's hard to nitpick his new approach because he has a 31% strikeout rate. His bad at ball data is great. He has a 2.47 skill interactive ERA. So the peripherals are very good. Baseball's Avant has his expected ERA at 2.51. So they think he's legit. I think he's legit. I'm having a hard time finding reasons not to buy into what he has done. 5 stars for a starting pitcher is a decent sample and plus, like I said, he is at home in a not bad matchup. So it may feel odd to pivot this far in such a short time. Go from stacking against Wright to having him as our top guy at 10-9. But I'm fine with that because he's doing so well in the areas that stabilize quickly. So to me, I'm fine being high on Kyle Wright here and making him my number one arm no matter how weird that may feel. Number two for me is Lucas Geolito. He checks a ton of boxes for today. He is a great pitcher. He's pitching well. He's fully stretched out because he went 100 pitches last time out. So that's all the boxes he checks. The one key thing that keeps him from being on top of Wright is the opponent. He's facing the Guardians and they've had great plate discipline numbers this entire year. Their strikeout rate against Wrightys is down to 21%. And that does matter. That pushes Geolito's strikeout projection down to 7.28, which ranks behind Kyle Wright. It is still a very good number, though. And the rest of Cleveland's profile, unless Josh Nailers of the plate, isn't all that scary because their WRC plus against Wrightys is 105. Their ISO is 167. They're not drawing a lot of walks. And the low number of walks could keep Geolito's pitch count down in addition to the fact that he may not get as many strikeouts as he typically would. So I would say that the most legit criticism recently of Geolito is that he hasn't been super efficient with his pitches. But again, if he's not thrown a lot of balls, his team's not super patient, he could get a boost in that department for this start. This will be just Geolito's second home start of the year. He didn't have huge home road splits last year. So not a bump up to be at home, but typically it's not a bad thing for pitcher to be at home. And the strikeout rate for Geolito is 41%, even with being on the road for three of his four starts this year. He has a 16.7% swing of strike rate. So if you put Geolito above Wrightys, I'm not going to fault you. I just like in terms of strikeout projection, the matchup more for Geolito than the one I like for Wrightys. So I think both these guys, Geolito and Wrightys, high upside, high full options, very okay with both. And I think that hastens Lizardo kind of in that same range for me, but I would put Geolito above him. I put Wright above him. And Lizardo kind of a third to consider. If I have one more guy, it could be that discussion it thinks to watch as well. As far as the value plays go, because all the risers for this year have had their salaries increase, you're going to have to make some exceptions. The value plays are pretty thin. And that's going to lead me to Alex Wood with the consolation I'm making here being pitch count. Because Wood is yet to hit 90 pitches so far this year, did get up to 89 last time out, but he got yanked in the sixth inning at 89. He's topped 85 four times, but never 90. So I can't tell if it's circumstance or if they're intentionally trying to keep him from going too deep. He does have an injury history, so I would get it if they were, but I've got him projected for 87. That's not a great number for this late. There are a lot of guys who are pretty stretched out, but 87 pitches for Wood at home. Still projects him for 5.8 strikeouts. That's pretty good for today's value plays. And there is upside for more if they let him stretch a tiny bit. If you were to go 95, we'd be probably in business at that point. Wood's ERA 4.38, so the results not great, but the peripherals are pretty good. Got a 25% strikeout rates with a 25% fly ball rate allowed. Just a bit too much hard contact so far. The Rockies on the road, not a huge threat in that department at the moment. They also don't strike out too much. So they're not a great matchup in terms of DFS. But as Carlos Rodan showed last night, they can with in the right spots. Obviously Wood is nowhere near Rodan, but he's a good pitcher and his salary is $8,200. So you do get some salary relief here with Alex Wood down to 82. I think that that's enough where you can make a consideration. Personally, I might not go down this low tonight. I think that I might stick with Geolito, stick with Wright, stick with Lazardo, maybe Tyler McGill if he starts. But I think that for me, Wood would be the top guy down here. But I think I prefer to spend up with the pitchers we have for today. Let's move now to the stacking section. This does play into it because I don't think the stacks are all that hard to get to. Outside of maybe the Yankees, we'll talk about second. But first, some of the Cardinals, they're facing Kyle Branesh today. The Cardinals offense is very righty heavy. So I do prefer that when they're facing a lefty for that reason. But I still think they are worth a look here as a top spot. Branesh has just two starts in the majors in his career. He was a big strikeout guy in the Miners. Going back to last year, 86 innings at AAA. And his strikeout right there was 28%. But it came with an 11.6% swing and strike rate. And that's not what you'd expect to be when the strikeout rate is 28%. This year, his swing and strike rate in AAA was 10.4%. Before his promotion. And his two starts this year, it's at 9.3% in the majors. So his strikeout rate isn't going to be at 12%. Which is where it's at right now. That will rise. That number will go up. But it doesn't seem like he's overpowering people right now. And Branesh has also struggled with hard contact. Across his two starts, he's led up a 44% hard hit rate. He did let up some five balls in the Miners too, which led to a 4.26 ERA and AAA last year despite all the strikeouts we just discussed. It's also super hot in St. Louis for today. I didn't talk about this in weather, but probably should have. It is 88 degrees for this game, which is even warmer than what it's at in Phoenix for the Diamondbacks versus the Marlins. So, yes, I would prefer to stack the Cardinals against the Lefty. But I think with Branesh, the way he profiles, this is a righty we can stack against. And I'm happy to do that with them here. And also the fun thing with the Cardinals is that stacking them today allows me to talk about Juan Yepez. He absolutely torched AAA this year before his promotion. He had a 2.99 ISO there last year, so over a larger sample, hit the ball really hard, hit for a lot of power, carried that into 2022, got the promotion. Last year also had a 46% fly ball rate. And the Cardinals said, hey, like you're going to hold down the middle part of this order. He's hitting around fifth. I'd fully expect him to stick there with how well he's played so far. And he's got a fun profile. So, Yepez has a mid-2000s salary. I think he should be a focal point within Cardinals stacks tonight. He's a good one-off if you got to save salary. I think he's really fun. So a good excuse to talk about Yepez with the Cardinals facing Branesh for today. Now, the Yankees mentioned them facing Yusei Kikuchi today. It's already the third time they've seen Kikuchi this year. And last time out, Kikuchi did well against them. He held them to just one run across seven innings. And he had seven strikeouts. But I think the familiarity with Kikuchi and the Yankees should put them in the stacking discussion for today. The key part of it is that even when Kikuchi did well against them, the Yankees hit him hard. They had a 54% hard hit rates in that game. They had a 75% hard hit rates in the first game they faced him as well. Nine hard hit balls at a 12-battle ball event. So the Yankees are seeing him well, even if the results haven't showed it. And now they get to face him for the third time this year. Kikuchi has struggled with hard contact beyond just these starts, too. He has been using his forcing fastball more across his past 10-start. That is his most relevant sample. And in that time, hard hit rate allowed his 54%. He's allowed up a lot of walks, just a 21% strikeout rate, and it's led to some really tough results for Kikuchi. His e-array is 4.69 in that time. And you can say, you look at that 10-start sample and say you faced the Astros a bunch, the Yankees, some tough teams. But the Yankees are tough, too. They got a 117 WRC plus against lefties and a 191 ISO. So they're tough and they know what he's throwing because, again, they just saw him last week and they've seen him twice already this year. So I think it's wise to stack the Yankees here and see if they can exploit that knowledge of what Kikuchi is doing. I know that Josh Donaldson hasn't been that great this year, but I do think we'll want to be on him for today. He had lefties really well last year, been fine in the small sample this year, 280 ISO since the start of last year against lefties, 41% fly ball rate. The hard here overall this year for Donaldson is still pretty good at 48%. He just hasn't had the results to show for it. I think a turnaround is more likely against the leftie for Donaldson than a rightie. So I'll be giving him a swim tonight. His salary is not low. It's $3,200, but I think that he has upsides. So obviously you want to prioritize Aaron Judge, you want to prioritize Jean-Carlo Stanton, very onboard of Glavor Torres, assuming he plays tonight, but I think that Donaldson, despite the poor results, still a guy I'd like to be on for tonight. Now, someone whose results had not been poor is Madison Bumgarner. He's been able to avoid regression thus far and now we get Matterbump, not just Madbump, Matterbump after his ejection last week. So a little angry Madison narrative for tonight, but it could be done to go against him, but the Marlins have a lot of lefty bangers on their team right now, and I think it makes sense to stack them here. Bumgarner has had a massive split between his results and his peripherals this year. His ERA is 1.50, but it's still interactive ERA. It's 5.17. He has a low strikeout rate, high walk rate, a lot of fly balls. The reason Bumgarner has escaped is largely because of the dead and fly balls this year, and he's done a decent job at suppressing our contact beyond that as well. And that's why if you go to Baseball Savant, the expected ERA for Bumgarner, it's 3.55. Basically what that tells me is that Bumgarner has done a good job at getting lazy fly balls, which will almost always lead to outs. And that could continue, and it may, but I don't think I want to bet on it. Instead, I'd rather bet on the fact that Bumgarner is living dangerously, eventually does bite him. That's more likely to happen when he's in the best or second best environment for offense on the slate out of Shea's field. And I also think it's more likely to happen when he's facing some guys who can really hit lefty as well. So it's possible I'm being stubborn and just beating my head against the wall here by stacking against Bumgarner again, but it's not sold on it yet. I'm going to stack the Marlins here and see if they can bring the regression that Bumgarner seems as if he is due for. The primary lefty bangers on the Marlins are obviously Haces Aguilar and Jorge Soler, but Garrett Cooper also a fly ball heavy profile for lefty or against lefties. Avicio Garcia is hit for good power. I'm not really as high in jazz Chisholm against the lefty as I was yesterday, and Chisholm obviously didn't do a whole lot there either, but I think that Cooper, Garcia, Aguilar, Soler, all those guys are guys we can feel good about against lefties and at least have a path to double-dong upside. So to me, I think those are the guys I want to turn to for today, just because they hit lefty so well, they got the continued advantage here today. So those would be the primary building blocks for me within this Marlin stack. Thanks to watch for this Tuesday's slate again. I don't know officially who will start for the mess today. They've not said yet. It could be either Carlos Carrasco or Tyler McGill. I think either is a consideration against the Nationals. McGill has a 28% strikeout rate through six darts. The hard hit rate and fly ball rate numbers have improved for him this year. So $9,500 is a very reasonable salary in my mind. I'd probably put him in the same tier as Lazardo. If McGill gets a start, I would put Lazardo higher, but I think McGill would be up there. As far as Carrasco goes, I think that Carrasco will be the guy. He is to me around the same area as Alex Wood in terms of value placed in. I mentioned that Wood's strikeout projection is 5.8. We've got 5.54 for Carrasco. So both are fine. I'm not objecting to either. I prefer Wood, but Carrasco would be a solid second option if he is the guy who starts for today. Another spot to stack here would be the Reyes. They're facing redetmers. Still hasn't quite unlocked his prospect potential just yet. Got a 6.33 ERA across 10 big league starts at 4.67 skill interactive ERA. Lot of fly balls. Wind is out for today in Anaheim. The Reyes have a 124 WRC plus against lefties, which is the top mark on the slate. So I'll go in on them for sure. I think you could justify putting the Reyes even higher than I have them just because they're a very good offense. And Debtmers are still struggling. Good park for any tonight. So would not push back if you decided to push the Reyes up to your personal board. Finally, I am okay going back to the White Sox again today. They're facing Cal Quantrill, and Quantrill doesn't let up enough hard contact for my liking, which is why the White Sox aren't higher, but he does let up fly balls, does let up hard contact, plus the Velocity is down this year. Or sorry, does let up fly balls, and balls on play, I should say, Quantrill does. And Velocity is down this year. So I'm fine stacking the White Sox, but I prioritize them behind the Reyes and behind the three teams we discussed for stacking earlier on. Let's finish up with some Dinger calls for this slate. The boring one is pretty boring. Aaron Judge facing Yusei Kikuchi. I always have a hard time choosing between Stanton and Judge, but with the way the judges hit the ball this year, I think that for me, it's making it a lot easier to just feel good going with Aaron Judge as my top guys. Aaron Judge, my number one home run call for today. The fun one, going back to Juan Yepez. I talked about him before with the Cardinals. Great power in the minors has been good enough in the majors so far this year for me to believe that will translate. So I'm fine going with him. Just the two biggest power hitters in the slate, Aaron Judge and Juan Yepez, as the home run calls for today. That is all that we have for you for today on the solo shot, but as mentioned, we are back once again later on to break down today's PGA DFS slate. Myself and Brandon Cadulla previewing the AT&T Byron Nelson. To get that right as it is posted, make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review. If you've got 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 FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your DFS lineup. We'll talk to you once again Wednesday to get you sad for another main slate. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.