 Big thank you to Tom Vecchio and Austin Swain for filling in for me for the past couple of days. Much appreciated on their part and a no thank you to the Major League Baseball scheduling overlords who decided to thank me or welcome me back as with a just brutal slate because yeah it's a 14 game slate and there are a lot of good pitchers on the mound for tonight but pretty much every single one of them is in a difficult situation for one reason or another whether it be a repeat match of whether it be coming off of the covid list or facing just a tough team in general maybe checking all three box at the exact same time it's not ideal there are no clear cut no thought about it pitchers for today except for maybe potentially one and it's tough so our job is to sift through those flaws decide which ones we can tolerate which ones we might not be able to tolerate and decide who grades up best for MLB DFS so let's dive on it and get you set for this Friday night slate welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire that's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire dot com my name is Jim Sonos I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire dot com here to break down Friday's 14 game main slate will accept for 705 p.m. Eastern for today and somehow despite this being a 14 game slate we've got no weather to discuss it's pretty good out there for the most part it is a bit warmer than usual in Atlanta 90 degrees at first pitch for today there so bump up bats there hopefully not too much depending on uh we'll talk about some pitchers later on but overall pretty low key slate in terms of weather so hopefully that does stick for later on for today now before we dive into the pitching preview for today quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast because the next half week or so pretty big week here on the feed we of course have the NASCAR podcast for Atlanta coming up later on today Austin swimming as you covered with usc each and every week and on Monday we'll have our preview of the open DFS preview for golf's final major of the year myself and brandon gedula breaking down our favorite golfers any salary tier for the open championship that'll be on monday sometime not really sure what time specifically yet but that'll be up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed after the fact and on the vandal youtube page live as well so search for the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast and if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well this baseball season turn case into cash and big hits into big wins with vandal sportsbook right now new customers can step up to the plate with a no sweat first bet up to $1,000 with great promotions every day a safe and secure app and the ability to get paid fast there is no better place to bet america's pastime than america's number one sportsbook download the vandal sportsbook app and sign up today to get started with your no sweat first bet up to $1,000 must be 21 plus in present in select states first online and real money wager only refund issued is non-withdrawable free bets that expire 14 days after receipt restrictions apply see terms at sportsbook.fandula.com gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLE or visit fandula.com slash rg in arizona one hundred next step protects next step to five three three four two in connecticut 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in louisiana 1-777-770 stop in new york 1-878-hope and why or text hope and why in tennessee call the red line at 1-889-9779 in y oming 1-800-522-4700 or in west virginia visit 1-800-gambler.net pitching preview for this friday main slate nester quartets is the highest salary pitcher on fandula checking in at $10,300 followed by zack wheeler at ten two charlie morn is $10,000 chris bassett off the covid list 98 facing pablo lopez who is $9,700 john gray 93 facing off with the sunny gray two shades of gray $9,100 tyler anerson is 9,000 with lucas g elito adam wainwright george kirby terrick scubble blake snell paul blackburn tyler wells zack gallin hosier keady and jt brubaker the others at $8,000 are higher so yeah a lot of names a lot of dudes at $8,000 are higher but a lot of flaws within those guys and i can nitpick every single one of those guys except for potentially one that one guy is charlie morton he will be our top pitcher of the day and it's definitely a hot streak here from morton and hot streaks don't always last and we don't want to buy into them at all times but i will buy into it here morton is the top pitcher today he has hit 10 plus strikeout from three of his past five starts he had nine in another and he had eight the start before that five game streak began now that could just be cherry picking because you know we play with stats all the time but there was a change in approach for more than six starts ago that's when he had been throwing he started throwing his foreseen fastball last before that starts the usage on the pitch was 37 percent it is 29 percent since then and it hit a season low of 19 percent in his most recent start that foreseen fastball was getting rocked he had a 504 expected second percentage allowed to it according to baseball survived so it's good to cut back on a pitch like that and he has and it seems to be helping it has been aided by a good schedule here because morton faced the reds the pirates and the rockies in that time but he also had 11 strikeouts against the giants that was not a super easy spot and plus the giants are a you know a good team whereas the nationals are not they have a 98 wrc plus against varieties with a 136 iso not a big strikeout team i think if you were to find a flaw with morton it would be that they're not a high strikeout team but morton is in a groove i think he can get strikeouts even against a lower strikeout opponent so yeah it's a heater and heaters can sometimes lead us down the wrong path but there is an explanation for it given morton's change in his approach and he's in a decent spot here so i will put morton as my number one pitcher for today i think kind of by himself as the one guy without any major major flaws so charlie morton to me is the number one guy of the night now we talked a while ago about lucas gilito and his velocity had been dipping which meant i couldn't consider him despite a low salary and that is still true it's velocity has been down his past couple starts as well but the results and the peripherals have both been better so we get gilito the question marks are there the flaws are there as with every guy in the slate but the path upside is still there and i think that i want to put him number two for today he gets the tigers at home tonight and it looks like gilito is at least adjusting to the reduced velocity he's cut back on his fastball usage in his past couple of starts using more change ups and more sliders instead and that does seem to be helping a bit he had a 15.6 swing and strike rate against the angels now the angels are a high strikeout offense but that game was on the road despite striking out a lot they are a good offense as well he's out facing the tigers at home and they're definitely improving the tigers now in july are different than the tigers we had in may but still a 73 w r c plus on the current act of roster against righties that is the lowest in the slate by 10 percentage points 24 strikeout rates minimal walks so we bumped them up because they've been better and that's i think probably what i would expect going forward is to then be better but it's still a good bounce back spot here for gilito despite considering that i'm not sure if he's fully healthy based on you know the velo dips those are a concern but he might be able to be okay here even with the velocity being down not fully convinced which is why i prefer morton which is why i think that there is a legitimate red flag tied to gilito's name for today that's why i would lower gilito if you think that he will be super super popular for the slate which i think there's a decent chance that he is but just straight up i would say all things considered gilito to me is the number two pitcher behind charlie morton for today so to me it's morton one gilito two but i think there is a gap between those two guys at the top of the slate now with gilito being the value play the board is open here for our third pitcher of the night and i'm gonna go zack wheeler in the situation it's a really difficult spot because it's a tough matchup facing the cardinals on the road and it's a repeat matchup he just saw them last week that's brutal i hate that combination i hate it i hate it i hate it but i think all things considered even with everyone else having somebody flaws wheeler does belong in the third slot for today the cardinals have a 116 wrc plus against righties with a 20 strikeout right that is not an ideal spot at all but wheeler is a very good pitcher we're up to 11 starts since his velocity stabilized he has a 2.76 skill interactive er right his strikeout rate is 30 with a 4 walk rate he's also a great bad at ball data in that time as well a lot of things are working in this favor you know in terms of what he does as a pitcher and that helps a lot in the tough matchups he's faced these cardinals already in this stretch is mentioned it's repeat matchup uh in the same situation the same 11 start sample he's also faced the dodgers once the braves twice in the angels so five tough matchups he has a 2.87 er right in those five specific games but there is one big issue again the cardinals just saw him last week and he didn't shut them down he threw seven shut out innings against them but he had just five strikeouts now they're seeing him again this time in st louis it is very much in wheeler's range of outcomes to struggle tonight with all those things considered but it's also possible that he is the highest scoring pitcher on the slate so there's a lot a lot of risk here there's a lot of downsides in using zack wheeler but the ceiling is there too and i like ceiling plays especially when they're not my primary pitcher of the night so i think that the upside is worth the gamble here for wheeler i would make sure you have less of him than morton and gilito because they are in better situations all things considered but behind them i'm probably going zack wheeler as my third highest exposure pitcher of the night let's move now to stacking we're talking about the yankees facing connor siebold uh we've seen two stars for siebold so far and gotten some strikeouts in those but the results have been really bad and i think we should stack the yankees here those starts came against the jays and the cubs for siebold the jays game understandable uh the cubs game he did pitch pretty well limited hard contact you know didn't go deep in the game but did pitch pretty well but the yankees they're better than the cubs that's the they're more on the jays side of things on this scale down in triple a siebold had a 2.09 er a but he wasn't overpowering a lot of people but let up a lot of fly balls they 45 fly ball right in triple a which implies that he's gotten some weak contact which is good we saw that in the cubs game as well they made almost no hard contact that entire game but when he didn't get that weak contact against the jays things got out of hand in a pretty major way so basically siebold is dependent on inducing weak contact which could happen against the yankees but they have a ton of guys who can hurt you here so i think they're in a good spot to do well here i would downgrade the yankees if erin judge can't play if anthony rizzo can't play if they're both out especially then you know maybe you're looking at like a john carl astanton one-off type situation but um overall i think that the yankees if we assume judge is back in there for today are going to be a high quality stack for tonight one guy worth mentioning here is erin hicks um he was abysmal to start the year but from the middle of june on he has a 48 hard hit rate it's 64 played appearances 48 percent hard hit rates a 13 percent barrel rates with a 286 iso he has homers and back to back games i'm not sure if it'll stick because hicks was so bad at the start of the year but he's low salary to 2600 there is data to back it up given the the hard contact and the barrel rate so i'm okay using him i think josh donaldson is worth the look as well but you know i think there is enough there to buy in so if you need someone to help offset the salaries of judge something he plays uh stanton rizzo etc i do think that hicks works and donaldson would work as well now i mentioned morten i mentioned the weather in atlanta it is very hot that is good for offense bad for charlie morten if you want to hedge and take advantage of that weather while um still dabbling in that game i would say let's stack atlanta i think the braids are a good stack for tonight they're facing eric fetty who's had some decent starts recently he's had two quality starts in his past three outings but the schedule there has been super super soft and the peripherals are not great the most relevant sample on fetty is his past six starts he's been throwing more stinkers and fewer cutters in that time his eray is 3.86 but his skill interactive eray is 4.92 and it gets there thanks to some poor plate discipline numbers but he's also letting up a lot of hard contact a 43 percent rate there in this six start sample we've seen him uh we've seen some of these issues in the tougher matchups he has had in this time we did see fetty faced these same braids in washington let it three runs across five and a third innings let a couple barrels in that game he had a uh let up a 50 percent hard hit rate and now the braids get to see him again it's not super recent that uh matchup was about a month ago but you know it doesn't hurt to have seen him about about the go they're in atlanta tonight 90 degrees for this late i think there's a lot to like with the braids in the situation now it's going to be tough to stack the braids with morton given the salaries and their hitters the salary at morton but i think you can make it work i'd at least give it a shot uh but if not if you're going like g alito or something the braids very very easy to stack for today now do you think we can feel good within those braids stacks about viewing ronald the kunya jr as being mostly what he is at his peak obviously he missed time due to his foot injury again uh but he's had just one extra base hit since he came back that's a concern injuries are an issue in mlb dfs even guys are playing they're playing hurts they might not be at full strength but a kunya has four stolen bases in this time he has a couple barrels he's not striking out at all so i think he's fine i'm gonna treat him as close to his usual self even if he hasn't shown all that upside recently i think that we'll see that eventually just because he is hitting the ball hard he's still in bases which to me is an indicator of health so a kunya hasn't popped off since he came back but i think he probably will soon so a kunya to me really not quite back to full health but like a guy i'm okay viewing as being a superstar level talent when i'm assembling my braids stacks for tonight now for a third stack we'll find some value here i said a couple months ago that i liked stacking the diamond backs i thought they were pretty fun for dfs and pretty much right when i said that the offense hit the tank they became real bad real quick so i jinxed them if you're arizona fan i'm sorry that's my bad but they're facing chat cool tonight i think they could do pretty well here and i think that we should stack them in this spot they just saw cool at cores over the weekend and they scored five runs in five innings so you know we could toss it out because it's coarse field but now they get to see him again and cool has been pretty good at cores overall this year he just blanked the dodgers in the start before that the air the diamond backs had a 50 fly ball right against him in that game they had barely any whiffs in that game most of cool's raw first darts have come on the road he's led up four plus runs and five separate games this year and three of those five starts came on the road we also saw cool last is three innings the last time he had a repeat matchup so teams saw him again they were not fooled that second time around led up five runs with no strikeouts or sorry two strikeouts the first time he faced arizona in this two in this back to back stint he has a 5.24 skill interactive era has passed eight starts more sinkers vila's been down in that time it's been rough for cool 46 fly ball rate 41 hard hit rate so yeah that dodgers game is there and it does matter he had that nice start there but the overall numbers say we can stack against an especially when you consider that this arizona offense did just see cool it is most recent start so I will do that here even with the roof being closed at chase field for tonight you can find that by searching for diamond backs roof information chase field roof is closed for tonight but still I think it's a good stack here to go with arizona if you want some value the other plus here is a cool does struggle a lot with lefties the slugging percentage for lefties is about a hundred points higher than that of righties so christian walker's good um I'll still be high on him but if I'm ranking out the guys with to prioritize it in this stack I would say David peralta aria thomas dolphin varsho maybe catel marté question mark on that one but those three guys for sure above walker with any prioritization ladder of our diamond back stacks due to cool's platoon splits and the fact that they're probably just as good as walker against righties anyway let's go now to things to watch here I'm not sure what to think of chris bassett tonight he is at home he's in a good spot against the marlins but he's also coming off the covid list he hasn't started since june 25th which seems like it was yesterday but also was kind of a long time ago now I do have a lower pitch count for basset for tonight as a result of this it's still pretty high because he basically just missed one trip to the rotation but even in 90 pitches it's enough to push basset out of the top three for me so if you believe he'll go deeper in the game maybe consider it there but for me personally I'm okay being lower on basset here I think the angels are worth a look they're facing tyler wells who's done a good job of suppressing hard contact this year that's why both his era and his expected era are very good but wealth lots of a lot of awesome play angels are at their feistiest against a lower strikeout pitcher and they get that here so I think they could be a little fun it might not work but because wells does have good results for a reason he's a good pitcher he's pitching pretty well but I think that the angels are fun as a tournament option for tonight I also am okay with the other side of that game that's the Orioles against Reed Dettmers he looked awesome in his one start back in AAA and maybe found something there maybe worked with a new pitching coach new voice in his ear helped him unlock some of that early season stuff he was doing but the numbers before the demotion even including the hitter were pretty rough the Orioles do have some guys who can pound lefties so I think that the Orioles and the angels both in that game of Baltimore might define plays for tournaments for tonight let's finish up with some dinger calls here for today the boring one I do want to go with Ronald the cunea junior I know it's not boring based on the 2022 numbers but the pedigree says there should be a boring home run call and I like what I've seen again he's getting some barrels he's running which says to me he's healthy and if he's healthy he's probably going to be good so ron the cunea junior the boring home run call for today the fun one let's go David Peralta again the swing changes had so far this year with more fly balls a lot of hard contact good iso against righties face and chat cool cool letting up a lot of hard contact a lot of fly balls I think that does bode well for Peralta did consider guys like Dalton Varshow here I put him above out Thomas in terms of just pure home run potential but we'll go David Peralta along with the cunea as our home run calls for today that is all that we have here for today on the solo shot but as mentioned we do have NASCAR UFC coming up later on the open championship next week on a monday all right here on the number fire daily fantasy podcast so fun weekend for some sports the next couple of weeks make sure you are subscribed if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well 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 fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today good luck to you with your mlb dfs lineups have a fantastic weekend we'll talk to you once again on monday for another slate of mlb dfs this has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network