 Last night it was pretty understandable for pitching to be pretty rough because it was a five game slate We had course field available to us So it makes sense and may be difficult to find Pictures we want to use for daily fantasy baseball today It's a 14 game slate because it's a Friday got all games on this main slate except for one and yet for some reason It's still really tough to find pictures. We truly want to use for DFS So although it's a big slate It's still a pretty tough one to picture there are three guys So I do like enough to use but some of them may take some convincing So let's dive on in and get you said for this Friday main slate welcome on into the solo shot That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire comm. My name is Jim Sonnis I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire comm here to break down Friday's 14 game main slate with lock set for 705 4 2 night and fortunately as of right now It looks like the weather is good to go for today Don't see anything really standing out there. No super high temperatures either So things relatively flat across the slate, which is good for us We can play things straight up look at generic park factors and be good to go for today As always we are back here later on today 4 p.m. For the MLB Q&A But also before then we have our NASCAR heat check podcast That'll be on the fandal YouTube page at 10 30 and up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed after that We also have our USC Vegas 36 podcast via Austin Swain already posted you can find that by searching for the number fire Daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts and while you're there Leave us a rating in review and hit subscribe as well Hey soccer fans this season fan duel and captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one-of-a-kind Soccer contest introducing captain Morgan's soccer pick up a weekly fantasy contest that is entirely free to play The contest is simple. All you got to do is make quick predictions for Saturday games this soccer season You learn points for each correct pick and compete for a chance to win up to $3,000 in prizes every single week head over to fandal and enter the captain Morgan soccer pick-up today must be 21 plus to Participate for more details as a fandal.com or download the fandal fantasy app Eligibility restrictions apply and don't forget to make your game day more delicious and sub in the captain Pitching preview for this Friday main slate show. Hey, Ohtani is the highest salary pitcher on fandal checking in at $10,800 Frey per Alta is 10 to Alec Minoa is 10,000. We have Adam wait right in $9,600 Kyle Gibson is 94 Nathan the Evaldi is 91. Let's say your kitty is $9,000 We have Madison bum Garner Vladimir Gutierrez shamanaya John means an Anthony D. Sclafani We assume at at $8,000 or higher as well D. Sclafani not officially confirmed That's already X he's dealing with some injuries as well. So I assume in CSC Afani no confirmation on that one though and Speaking of injuries. Oh, hey, Ohtani seems like he's good to go He was supposed to start back on Wednesday but got pushed back because of his hand injury and his wrist injury and He's their price guy. The angels would not risk this if there were any question about his health So I think that their actions of having him start for today Allow us to be in on him at $10,800 he's facing the Rangers here, which is why I would love to be here if I can justify it They have just an 82 WRC plus against righties, which is the third lowest number on the slate They're 145 ISO is the second lowest They don't draw that many walks and the walk number is good because it should allow Ohtani to be efficient with his pitches That's good for us from a floor perspective because there is some concern They could keep Ohtani short down the stretch because you know Why would you not given they're not going to play offs and he is again their future alongside my trout? We have seen some of that Ohtani's gone just 90 and 84 pitches this past two starts But he still went eight innings in one of those because he was disgusting the 84 pitch start was Because of ineffectiveness more so than pitch count there I think that he will go long enough to be usable for DFS and even in the Baltimore game where he let of three home runs He still got seven strikeouts. Not like he was totally toast out there. Just had some, you know Hard hip balls against him Ohtani has a 26% strikeout rate the past 10 starts since he's been using his slider more often I think he deserves to be at the top of our list tonight There are just too many things working in his favor and too much talent in Ohtani for us to go elsewhere So show me Ohtani to me the number one pitcher for today as far as the non Ohtani options if you're concerned about the hand or don't want to pay that salary I do think there are two guys around $9,000 who do great out pretty well one of those is Nathan the evolved he's facing Cleveland for the second straight start And I always hate those situations I really wanted to avoid the evolved because of that when I was initially doing my research But if all these good we don't have many good pitchers on this slate So I think that he evolved he should be high on our list despite the fact this is a repeat matchup You've all been that game at least was solid yet a 14.4 percent swing strike rate he had seven strikeouts across five innings and Getting that many whiffs right now for you've all the is not a surprise. He has a really good curve ball It's his best pitch to generate with it whiffs. It is a 38% rate according to baseball savants You've all these been a bit more willing to throw it recently You should just still not super high, but it's up to 19% over his past seven starts And he has a 28% strikeout rate in that time. He has just a 3% walk rates He is letting up some fly balls So it's not all perfect tree of Aldi my pitching perspective and Cleveland is not a super high strikeout team So I'm not saying this is like a no-brainer no doubt matchup But they're not a good team either. They have a 94 WRC plus against righties So they're not a team. I think we need to avoid e of Aldi is at home He has had better bad at ball suppression there than he's had on the road. He's had better results, too So it may not be a perfect situation and I wish it weren't to repeat matchup, but I'm struggling to find a really good alternatives on this late So to me e of Aldi does deserve to be number two Despite the fact there are some factors working against him Now part of the pitch on e of Aldi was that he has been altering his pitch mix Leaning more on a good pitch for him and it's helped him find a lot of success that same Reasoning can lead us to Vladimir Gutierrez our top value play and the number three guy for tonight And that makes that weird because Gutierrez is a guy I have stacked against several times this year But he's made some tweaks recently like e of Aldi that allow us to use him here at $8,700 Versus the Tigers the primary issue that Gutierrez has had this year has been trying to get left-handed batters out his strikeout rate against them is 15% compared to 21% against righties and They were putting the ball in the air tons. They had a lot of home run issues One way for a righty to try to cancel that out is to throw more change-ups Initially Gutierrez wasn't really doing that his use was around 8% on that pitch But over his past six starts the change-up usage is 17% and it's a pretty good pitch It has an ex-woeba a guest of 274 according to baseball savant It has a 30% with rates and he uses it almost exclusively versus lefties It's really helped him turn a corner here in those six starts Gutierrez has a 3.84 skill interactive era a with a 23% strikeout rate. He is still struggling with our contact. So I Would not deem him to be a cash gameplay But he has a ceiling he went seven innings with just one earned run against the Marlins two starts ago They did get to him over the weekend But that was their second time seeing him over a couple days He had seven strikeouts against the Cubs six versus Pittsburgh And yeah, those are all plus matchups, but the Tigers lose the DH They have an 89 WRC plus against righties. They also have a 26% strikeout rate So if this were a larger slate, I might not have gotten here, but it's a thin-knit a pitcher So not only is Gutierrez a top value, but I'm fully willing to include him At player pool at pitcher and I think the changes he has made have made that fully viable So to me the options for tonight are Ohtani Gutierrez and then e Evaldi in the middle But all three to me pretty even in terms of separation for tonight Let's talk about the stacks for today stacks Easier than the pitching and I think that there are just a lot of options We do turn to the one that stood out most of me was the Astros based on Jake Arietta Coming out the I out today for the Padres making a second star for them And we know how the time for Arietta in Chicago ended his first start in San Diego Which was in Colorado granted didn't look a lot better But I think that makes the Astros a priority stack here Arietta really seemed to turn downward once the sticky stuff discussion started He was throwing more change ups likely because he could actually grip that pitch and he struggled in that time Then Arietta went on the IL most of July. He came back on July 30th and since then things have been pretty nightmarish He's had some great match ups He faced Miami once Colorado twice some other teams that struggle with righties and in that time He still has an 11 81 era over his past eight outings Arietta's let up four or more runs in five of those eight. He let up six another but three of those were unearned so It's not a good situation Across the board for Arietta the Padres Obviously don't have a lot of great alternatives here starting Arietta Seems like it's purely a desperation move out of necessity Houston does as a DH and going to a nationally park But I think that they are still a top tier stack for today So the Astros to me do great out really well despite losing that DH I do want to give a bump up to the lefties tier the guy sitting I would assume will probably be Michael Brantley or your Don Alvarez I'm hoping it's Brantley because the power surge he had earlier this summer has gone away Alvarez Likely the top option is here to play Kyle Tucker is up there as well I would down go to the bit if Brantley is in there while Alvarez sits or if Tucker sits But they would still be a really good stack so the Astros to me bump up the lefties But being on them either way the Razor in kind of a similar situation facing Randy Dobnack. Dobnack is Like Arietta where he gets more ground balls than you would like Everything else those says we can stack against him and that's what we're gonna be doing here Dobnack coming off the 60 day IL which means we've barely seen him since the sticky stuff discussion started and We have seen him as a bit as a starter overall though And that time did not go well He made six longer outings back in May and June Before hitting the IL and he led up at least six earned runs in three of those six outings Included a four home or game against the Yankees So even though Dobnack does get ground balls That doesn't mean there are no home runs and the big reason is that he was letting up tons of hard contact the hard hit rates Was 57 percent over that time He had a 10 strikeout rate If you put lots of balls in play You don't need the fly ball rate to be as high and we saw that with Dobnack The raw number of fly balls will increase because there are just more balls in play it can also We can also jack up the fly ball rate versus Dobnack by targeting lefties they had a 33 fly ball right against Dobnack when you include his time in the bullpen 16 percent for righties, so The raise plenty lefties we want to use And I think it makes them an easy team to target here giving heavy preference to the lefties over the righties When ranking the lefties all year long I have been super high in Austin Meadows and Brandon Lau and they were far away the top two guys here I think wonder franco is in that same tier now. Now franco did leave last night's game earlier the headache So keep that in mind so may not play but Against righties since the start of august franco has a 205 iso He is still hitting more ground balls than you'd like, but he's hitting the ball hard That makes it matter a bit less I would still put him third behind lau and meadows and it's worth noting that again, he did leave last night's game, but The separation between lau meadows and franco is lower than it's been all year I think franco is a superstar in the making and I'm excited to see what he does But we can get in on him now as well and be excited about his future at the same time So to me it is the astros one race two I would rank them above the braves even though the braves are a coarse field That's because they're facing antonio sense of tailor who has been pitching well recently And I think that the braves get downgraded there, but they are still number three for me said the tail is an interesting guy because he lets up a ton of balls in play over his past 10 starts He has an 18 strikeout rate of the 4 walk rate means he's letting it ball and play 78 percent of the time And 45 percent of those have been hard hit That's not a formula that should work at coors field But for whatever reason it has he has a 3.71 e array in this time That is with four of those starts coming at course field He has let up just three home runs and none of them have come in the past six starts He's been on a really nice string here So since a tailor given is his environment is impressive and we should commend him for that But that's not always a formula that will work because balls in play lead to variance for pitchers If it finds a glove you're good But that doesn't always happen. You can run into bad bad at ball luck and get hit hard So the braze floor is lower because since the tailor is pitching really well right now and is I think talented Their ceiling is still good though because of the number of balls in play he allows and the fact that it is course field I think that For cash games if you don't want to get here, that's okay But for tournaments, I do still like them a solid amount The braves to me great out really well and I would like to be here for sure and the braves Did get their salaries bumped up where they were yesterday Which is you know the way it should have been they were way too low yesterday But two guys who didn't get bumped up enough I don't think were Dan's be swanson and adam duval both those guys have big power And they hit a ton of fly balls They do strike out a bit, but sense of tail doesn't really get those So it's less of a concern for me in this matchup and sense of tail It doesn't have massive platoon splits and actually let's have more fly balls to righties and lefties Duval and swanson both 37 hundred dollars. I am going to be in on both of them for tonight I think that they both do great out really well Let's move to things to watch talk about some more potential stacks and one-offs here I am very down for some royals one-offs. They're racing Dallas kichal kichal is Not the pitcher used to be he's been trying to throw more sliders recently But the hard hit rate against him is up to 50 percent in eight starts doing that And it's a race in the one thing he used to do well. So kichal Someone we can use batters against Salvador Perez always a good play out of the bertha monos He got them that off last night, but should be back in there today And then michael a taylor immanuel rivera, Edward olavarez that they play Might not get to a full stack, but I think that they do look good for one-off specifically Perez and monos I am not opposed to some metz one-offs. They're facing Sean Nolan second straight start for Nolan versus the Mets in the first one Pitched decently well, but let up a couple home runs and now is facing them again I think you put a good to a full stack here via pita lanza Javier Bayez from Cisco lindor and kevin pilar Pilar specifically is $2,100. He's not a lock to play right now, but Puts the ball in the air a ton against lefties. He'd be pretty fun if he were to play Finally hazel zardo is facing the filly snites and looked really good last time out like super impressive And he's starting to ditch his saker, which is a great thing for everyone, but especially for him And when you combine that with the park, that's why i'm okay with the fillies not being in stacks Also, the nori's huskens, you know, there are a lot of factors here I am fine with being in on them freddy galvis could be another good low salary option assuming you play so galvis pilar to Almost minimum salary guys who have some power and I think they both do look pretty solid for today Let's finish up here with some dinger calls for tonight The fun one will be from that game and it will be kevin pilar again I think that against the lefty he's someone who's always an option not sure if he'll play But if he does, I think that pilar is a batter on whom We should be in just because the power is good super low salary Probably not going to be on a ton of lot lineups either the boring one to me is adamant of all It's boring because that quirk shielding is super powerful, but I still want to go there at freddy for even last night So we'll go with duval for today for the homerun pick so dinger picks adam duval and kevin pilar That is all that we have here for today in the solo shop But again, we are back here at 10 30 on the fandal youtube page talking nascar for the cookout southern 500 usc vegas 36 podcast via austin swain already Posted on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed find that by searching there and make sure you subscribe because next week NFL's back We have our heat check week one preview coming up on thursday with myself and brandy kadula Live on youtube at 10 and up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed after that So search for it hit subscribe hit the like and review button. We do appreciate those of you who have done so If you've got questions for me, I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can also follow the fandal podcast network at fandal podcast big Thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you tonight We'll talk to you once again on tuesday with no solo shop monday due to the holiday This has been the solo shot right here on the fan duel podcast network