 The Slates for today in Daily Fantasy Baseball are a bit discombobulated because we have a three game slate early on that we have a two game slate tonight. That is technically the main slate. It is a two game slate. It is not good. So what we're going to do for today is change things up. We'll do like a split slate podcast in a way, but essentially we're going to do the early only slate first and just go picture by picture. We'll talk about all pitchers, all 10 pitchers across today's slate. So we will do the early only slate first. If you want some quick thoughts on the main slate, check out the timestamp in the episode description or if you're listening to this afterlock at one 10 for the early only slate for both slates and trying to give quick thoughts in each pitching situation and say how I view them for stacking or whether I use a picture in DFS. It'll be pretty quicky for today. So we'll get through that in just one second. But first, a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, we have course on a podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts, you name it. We are there later on today. We have our week three NFL DFS recap podcast myself branding do a breaking down the big takeaways from week number three, talking about some big roles for some backup running backs and plenty more to discuss there. That is on YouTube at 9am and up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed after that. So subscribe to the fandal YouTube page and subscribe wherever you get your podcast as well. The biggest game of week three is still to come. Mud and football between the cowboys and the eagles. Fandals making it even bigger by giving customers 30 to one odds on either team to win. That is new customers. Simply download the Fandals sportsbook app today and bet on the most anticipated magic of the week. See for yourself why Fandals America's number one sportsbook must be 21 plus and present Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. New users only $10 first deposit required must wager and designated offer market max bonus hundred hundred dollars. See full terms at sportsbook.fandals.com. Restrictions apply gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fandals.com slash RG in Indiana 1-800-9 with it in Tennessee call the red line at 1-800-89-979 in West Virginia 1-800-GAMBLER.net and in Arizona call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or TEXT-NEXT-STEP to 533-42. Let's take a look at the early only slate for today. It is a three game slate with lock set for 1-10 p.m. Eastern. Weather looks fine here. So you should be good to go and play this thing straight up. Cal Quantrill is the only pitcher with a salary above $8,000. He has $10,000. Dallas Kikelin, Matt Manning are the only pitchers in the player pool right now. Jackson Kowar will be there eventually because he was announced late last night as being the starter for the Royals. Kowar's salary is $6,000. So still way down there either way. It's a weird slate for sure. And to me, I think it's pretty easy to just go with Cal Quantrill here. Let me overcomplicate this. Quantrill has been doing some good stuff recently. He's been good with his bad of all suppression all year long on the rotation. But now it looks like he's gunning for more strikeouts. His big whiff pitch is his cutter. It's a slider on baseball savant. It's a cutter on pitch info, whatever it may be. The cutter has a 30% whiff rate on it according to baseball savant. He is throwing that pitch 39% of the time over his past eight starts. So no surprise, high whiff pitch, more usage, getting more strikeouts. Strikeout right in that time is up to 22%. He's still letting up hard contact is 31% of the time. He did just face the Royals last time out, which is kind of annoying since where you can match up, but he held them to one run over six and two thirds innings. They are letting him go deep in games right now. Quantrill has gone a hundred plus pitches in three straight starts. So I think it's a good pitcher and he's trending up. I am very down to use him as my pitcher for today. I know it's $10,000. I know he is the chalk. I don't find any other way to go around this one. I'm not inclined to stack against him. Quantrill is the number one guy on the early only slate. The guy I view second most favorably is Raver San Martín. The problem is he's not in the player pool. He is making his debut for the Red Sun. Makes sense. You know, a lot of times that will happen with guys making their debut. He may be added before first pitch. So check back on that, but he's facing the pirates. Great matchup for him. I am not looking to stack against him because the pirates, because San Martín gets a lot of ground balls based on his minor league track record. And I wouldn't use him as a pitcher if I could. I just can't hear. Maybe that'll change. Maybe they'll get him added to the player pool before 1, 10 p.m. Eastern. If he does, I would say he's number two behind Cal Quantrill. If not, just leave that one as it is. The third pitcher for me largely by default is Jackson Kowar. Kowar is there simply because he can get strikeouts. He had awesome strikeout marks in the minors between Stints and the Big Leagues. Those strikeouts have not followed him back up to the majors though. He has a 5.73 skill interactive ERA and force since he came back up. That's mostly due to a lot of walks and not ideal batting ball data, but the strikeout rate is 21%. That is at least somewhat encouraging. He also did well against Cleveland back on September 1st, team he'll face today. He went six innings allowed two runs had six strikeouts. He struggled quite a bit since then like a lot, but a good game is at least within his range of outcomes, which is not true for a lot of pitchers on this slate. So I can either stack here or use Kowar as my pitcher. I would say Kowar is my second ranked pitcher currently in the player pool again, depending on what Martin has added. And then they are my second ranked stack for tonight. Cleveland is against Jackson Kowar, so kind of a swing one there. The top stack ahead of Cleveland is the Reds facing the Pirates Bullpen. The Pirates Bullpen is pretty rough. They have a 4.82 ERA for the season. They walk a lot of dudes. Their bat at ball data is not great. And now you're stretching them out and making the middle relievers go longer in the game. Probably not going to end super well. It's instance Natty 2, which make things pretty nice for offense. So the Reds, I would say are the top stack on this slate facing that Pittsburgh Bullpen. I think we should be all systems go there. So Reds are one, Cleveland two, number three for me is the White Sox. They're facing Matt Manning, and that's a good offense. Manning is struggling right now. He's been re-upping his 4-seam fastball usage his past six starts. He added a sinker in there. Doesn't seem like he likes that pitch very much. Been going back to the 4-seamer recently. His skill interactive ERA in those starts is 5.22 with a 17% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate. And he's letting up a 42% hard hit rate. He fights the White Sox last week. He held them to three runs or five innings, but also just two strikeouts compared to three walks. His hard hit rate was 53%. And now he has to face them for a second consecutive start. I think that they will do well here. So to me, I think the White Sox belong number three on this list. And that's, you know, that's not because of them. It's because I do like the other ones more. I think that the White Sox, a very good stack just happened to be behind the other options for today. That means the Tigers will be fourth for stacking, but I don't want to use Dallas Kykel a pitcher. Just no strikeouts there. And I'm also not sure if he'll get a full leash with the playoffs being locked up. He's not like he's a focal point of the rotation, but I'm not going to use him either way. The reason to be lower on the Tigers is ground balls. The fly ball rate allowed for Kykel has always been low. It's 29%. His past six starts with this change of usage back on the increase. His hard hit rate in that time is okay at 37%. He faced the Tigers last week and they did get 11 hits, but just two runs scored because they couldn't generate any power against him. So I'm okay stacking the Tigers here, but I do want to rank them below the Reds, Cleveland, and the White Sox for the bad at ball reasons. So they're fine for stacking just ranked fourth. I will get to four stacks for today, especially because I'm going to have co-war or pitchers in time. So I do think that the Tigers will get there for me. Just not going to rank them above the other options. So the pitching options for today as of right now are Cal Quantrell, kind of Jackson co-war from very much an iffy option. If we get Ray Verson-Martin added in, I would use him as well. Stacking is the Reds one, Cleveland two, White Sox three, and Tigers number four. Do you want to give Dinger calls here? Because don't really, I mean like I can give some good ones on the main slate, but like, you know, this is a better slate. So let's talk about here. The boring home run call from me on the main or the early only slate, Jose Ramirez facing co-war. Co-war doesn't let up a lot of balls in play, which is one downside for looking at some, some homers here, but Ramirez is very good. Co-war lets up a lot of fly balls and a lot of hard contacts. So the boring one is Jose Ramirez. The fun one is the Schrockstar, Max Schrock, been hidden higher in the order for the Reds. He's, I don't know how sustainable the power is, but like it's been fine recently. So we'll go with Jose Ramirez and Max Schrock as the home run calls for today. Let's take a look now at the main slate. Again, it is a two game slate with lock set for 840 as they're trying to avoid a Monday night football. The weather is fine. Pitchers are better here. I will say that for sure. Herman Marquez is the highest desired pitcher on fan to a $9,000. Chris Flexman is $8,600. Cole Irvin is 83 and Josiah Gray is $8,000 for tonight. And I think the top pitcher on the slate, despite being a chorus field, is Herman Marquez. I just think he's the steadiest dude. We've seen Marquez leaning more on his sinker recently and that's brought a strike right down to 21%. But he still has good bad at ball data. He has a 29% fly ball right allowed in that time. He's facing the Nationals here, which is never fun to target a pitcher facing Juan Soto, who can single handedly destroy a lot of stuff. But I think it's a fine match up overall. They have 93 WRC plus against Reds. One concern with Marquez and one reason not to just lock him in, and despite ranking him first, is pitch counts. The Rockies not in contention and they're kind of acting like it. Marquez did go 99 pitches four starts ago, but that's more so the exception than the rule. He's been sitting around 80 to 90 for the most part. So Marquez not a must have option. I think he's the best option, but he's not a must have option for today in MLB DFS. I'm going to put Chris Flex in seconds. He's not a good DFS pitcher, but he's good for real life. And that does matter on a small slate. Flex has been using more four Seamers recently, specifically over his past eight starts. He has a 2.93 ERA in that time. That does include two starts against the A's team he's facing today, including his most recent start. So they are familiar with him, but Flexon held them to one run on three hits across seven innings last time out. He had eight strikeouts. So I would say Flexon is right on par with Marquez for tonight. I'd probably put him above Marquez if it weren't a repeat matchup, like that's how well I'm going to view Flex in relative to the slate. So to me, Marquez one, Flexon two, but they're kind of a 1A and 1B. And if you're less worried about the repeat matchup, then I would say I'd be okay putting Flexon number one for tonight. I think you consider using, you can consider using Josiah Gray at pitcher or stacking against him. The case to stack against him is pretty obvious because he has a massive fly ball pitcher at Coors Field. There are so many ways for that to go wrong. He led a five runs to the Rockies two starts ago, and that was in DC. Now he's in Denver. That could be terrible. So the Rockies are the top stack on the main slate, but Gray could be the highest scoring pitcher of the night like it's possible. He has a 25% strikeout rate in the big leagues, which is the highest for anybody on this slate in their most relevant sample. He also doesn't let up a ton of hard contact. It's just that the hard contact he does allow is likely going to leave the yard based on the way things have gone. The Rockies are not great. That definitely helps things for sure. So all of both situations covered here, I will stack against Gray a bunch. Again, they're the top stack here, but it'll have some lines with him at pitcher as well, which I think that there is a viable route to that being an okay play for today. That leaves Cole Irvin right forth. He is a super low strikeout guy. It's hard for me to see him blowing up. He is last in the slate in strikeout rate and last in skill interactive ERA. Just days the Mariners last week, let up a couple of home runs and three runs across five innings. His ERA is 4.61 since he started to go with more four-seamers and fewer sinkers, and it's a 13-start sample. So that thing here is really super enticing. I might not use them at all. It's by to be a four-game slate. I don't really feel the need to. He's the fourth ranked pitcher for me, and the Mariners ranked second for stacking behind the Rockies. Pitching ranks will be Marquez 1, Flexin 2, again, 1A1B type situation there, and then Josiah Gray a consideration at slot number three. Stacking is the Rockies 1, the Mariners 2. I'd probably go with the Nationals 3 just because they're at Coors Field, and we'll put the A's fourth against Flexin. Again, short and sweet for today, given that we have really weird slates. More of a regular podcast coming back for your way tomorrow, 9 a.m. on the FanDuel YouTube page, and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed after that. Because the slates are so weird, we're not going to have the MLB Q&A today at 4.30. We'll be doing just the Monday Night Football Preview by myself and Brian Williams, breaking down Cowboys versus Eagles. So check that out on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter pages. Head over there, 4 to 4.30. If you've got MLB questions, I can probably just squeeze them in during the show today, but mostly just focusing on NFL from 4 to 4.30 for today. If you've got questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jinsanis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to Ever for tuning in for today, despite the very bad slates. Good luck to you on both of them. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.