 In typical Tuesday fashion, it is a loaded MLB DFS slate for tonight at Pitcher. We have got a bunch of aces on the mountain with 14 games. What else would you expect? Plenty to go through, plenty to choose from and it allows us to be a little bit picky, which I think is always a fun thing as well for DFS. Let's dive on and get to set for Tuesday's main slate. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the FanDual Podcast Network and numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com. Here to break down tonight's 14 game main slate with lockset for 705, four to nine. And there are a couple of weather notes here specifically rain out east. And the way this works out, at least as of right now, it appears as if the rain will be there before lock and then leave around first pitch somewhere in there. The games impacted by this rain are in New York for the Yankees and Royals, also in New York for the Mets and the Braves, and finally in Philadelphia for the Nationals and the Phillies. So if you're planning on using Nationals, Phillies, Mets, Braves, Yankees or Royals, hitters or pitchers, make sure you check back on that forecast later on to see what the timeframe on that weather system is. If it is moving out before first pitch, good to go, might be a situation, which is what I would assume right now where they potentially push back first pitch, still play that game all the way through, but just keep a note on the weather in New York and Philadelphia for today. We'll talk more about that today on the afternoon stream. That is at 4 p.m. on the Fandall YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. But as a reminder, every Tuesday, we got Brandon Cadulla hopping on at 3.30 to break down PGA, DFS and betting this week for the Travelers Championship that's on the Fandall YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. Make sure you are subscribed there. Also later today on the Fandall YouTube page and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed, we're breaking down the Travelers Championship for PGA, DFS, that is myself and Brandon. 10 a.m. today on YouTube and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed after that, so make sure you're subscribed on your platform of choice for all of your DFS needs. What's going on basketball fans? The conference finals of the NBA playoffs are in full swing and Fandall is giving you a chance to get in on the action. Tuesday night features game two between the Suns and the Clippers. All you have to do is head over to Fandall.com and create a daily fantasy lineup with players from this game. For less than $8, you have a chance to compete for a part of the $500,000 prize pool. Go to Fandall.com today and create your very own NBA Daily Fantasy lineup. Eligibility restrictions apply. For more details, go to Fandall.com or download the Fandall Fantasy app. Pitching preview for this Tuesday main slave, Zach Wheeler, is the highest salaried pitcher on today's slate. He checks in at $11,400. It's a well-deserved salary. Garrett Cole is $11,000. Max Scherzer, coming off an injury. No rehab start, just 12 pitches last time out. I'm guessing he'll be pretty limited. He's at 10.8. Lucas Geolito is 10.5. Clayton Kershaw is 10.2. We got Marcus Stroh went up to $9,800. Freddie Peralta is 95. Sandi Alcantara is $9,300. We have Kyle Hendricks, Tarek Scoogle, Andrew Heaney, Zach Grinke, Charlie Morton and Zach Gallin as the others at $8,000 are higher. So again, a loaded slate for today. And as I look at these pitches for tonight, I'm okay crossing off Scherzer due to the potential for length concerns. I am okay being lower on Cole. We'll talk more about him in Things to Watch. And once I kind of make these recalibrations, the guy who stands out most to me is Zach Wheeler despite that salary at $11,400. And I think I've been too low on Wheeler throughout most of this year. I haven't fully been appreciating how good he has been, but I want to stop that tonight. I think he's doing enough to deserve being the top arm on this slate. He's facing the Nationals and Scherzer and the Nationals, not a high strikeout team, but they are a plus matchup for a righty regardless. They have just a 90 WRC plus versus righties with a 145 ISO and Wheeler is dealing right now. He's doing something that I generally hate and talk a lot about here on the show. He is increasing his sinker usage. Sinkers suck in general. We don't like sinkers because they tend to decrease strikeout rates, but it is working for him. In nine starts with more sinkers, Wheeler has a 2.61 skill interactive ERA. His strikeout rate is 34%. Both the hard hit rate and the fly ball rate against him are lower than 30%. So what you're getting with the good, bad, and ball data for Wheeler is a good real world pitcher who is also striking everybody out. You got to like that a lot. The one downside here with Wheeler is familiarity. The Nationals have seen Wheeler twice already this year. Both of those have come since the middle of May on. One of those was this month as well, three starts ago. That's kind of tough, but Wheeler did do well in both those games. He went 13 in one-third innings. He had 14 strikeouts. They have not had a great answer for him thus far. So I am okay keeping Wheeler high on my list despite that familiarity the Nationals lineup has with him. I think he's good enough where we can plug him in and feel good about it. So Zach Wheeler, a guy I am going to stop under appreciating, put in my lineup for tonight, even as the highest salaried pitcher on FanDuel for this evening. Number two for me will be Lucas Geolito who has even a better matchup. He's facing the pirates on the road which means he gets the pirates and he gets to face a pitcher, not something Geolito usually gets. Those are two big pluses and I think it's enough where we can feel good but being high on Geolito for today. Geolito has one big flaw as a pitcher because he lets up too much hard contact, high impact contact. That's an issue for Geolito for sure. In the nine starts with fewer foreseen fastballs, Geolito has allowed a 39% hard hit rate and a 47% fly ball rate. The fly ball rate way above average, the hard hit rate is about a leak average and that can get him into trouble. It's just not an issue here because the pirates don't generate hard contact. They have just a 129 ISO against righties this year. That might be the best possible matchup for Geolito given his specific deficiencies. The only negative here is that Geolito could get lifted for a pinch hitter because it is a nationally park. The hope is that the White Sox will do enough damage offensively that they won't need the run support and can kind of let him do his thing. So I think that that's a good thing for us. Hopefully the offense doesn't have damage. We'll talk about them in the stacking section as well. So Geolito is on the road. He's not as good of a real world pitchers wheeler. That's why I have wheeler higher but the matchup definitely for me puts the Geolito up to second on the list and it's hard to poke too many holes in his outlook for tonight. We'll talk about one more pitcher in this upper tier in things to watch who I do like. We'll go through them later on. But to me, the top two studs for today will be wheeler and Geolito. Now we talked about this a lot on the Tuesday Slates where we have a lot of high salary pitchers who can get just a 60 burger in a game. You need a lot of points from your pitching position so you're not having to make up ground with your hitters. So to me, if I'm going to spend down I need a guy who can give me, you know, 60 or so points. And one guy who can do that is Terak Skubel. There is a lot of risk with Skubel but with both Zach Wheeler and Lucas Geolito in really good matchups, we're not looking at Skubel for cash gains. We're looking for tournaments and we want upside. Skubel has that to me and I want to make him my top value of the night. I simply think he's under salaried here. We're up to eight starts on Skubel since he went back to his old changeup and it's worked out pretty well. He has a 34% strikeout rate with a 3.25 skill interactive ERA. He has struggled with impactful contact but it's not hurting his results too much yet. He has a 3.48 ERA. And that's despite some really tough matchups in this stretch. He faced the White Sox twice in a row and got 11 strikeouts in the first matchup there. He held a zone for the most part in the second one. So even when he was facing arguably the best or second best offense in baseball versus lefties, Skubel was good. And those were both, I believe in June. So it was after the spin rate stuff, Skubel's on that list of guys who's seen a spin rate decrease but he's still been good getting strikeouts in that time as well. The Cardinals aren't the best matchup against lefties. They're better versus lefties than they are against righties and they do have some power. It's just not a matchup we necessarily need to avoid, especially when Skubel is a low salary and when he is a tournament play. I would rather find the salary for Geolito or Wheeler. We'll talk about one more guy rank above him and things to watch. But Skubel, if you're looking for a strict value play below $9,000, Skubel is the top bar in that department for me. So Skubel, a guy I am willing to use. So that's the pitching section for today. Again, I think that it's a situation where I want to make sure I have enough salary to get there. We should be able to find that via our stacks for today. Let's talk about the stacks right now. We talked last week about how Eli Morgan might be starting out of obligation for Cleveland and certainly does seem to be the case based on early results. And I think we want to stack the Cubs aggressively against him tonight. We talked about the wind blowing in last night in Chicago that is not the case for today. So I think offense should be back on the menu at Wrigley Field. Morgan has made two starts so far in the big leagues. He has let up nine earned runs and six and one third innings. He has a 9.8% swinging strike rate. So his lack of overpowering stuff from AAA seems to have followed him into the majors. He had a 5.48XVIP in AAA across four starts with just a 21% strikeout rate. His walk rate was 11%. We might have been able to stack against Morgan if we put those numbers in the big leagues, but that was in AAA. And now he's in the majors. Things are probably not going to trend the right direction, given that being the case. He's also struggling with hard contact in a small sample in the majors. So I really see no reason not to go at this spot here tonight. And I do think that the Cubs check every box for stacking. So I will put them at the top of my list. Now, usually I try to find a hitter I know we'll play to talk about here in the section on the offense. But I'm not sure Patrick Wisdom will play. He does so about half the time against righties. But if he does play, I want to officially give him the stamp of approval here because it's a small sample. But in 45 plate appearances versus righties, he has a 4.39 ISO. He had good numbers in AAA previously too. So it's not like his stick comes out of nowhere. So again, he's mostly regarded as a lefty banger. He might not play for today, but $2,800. I think that's pretty fair, honestly. So on the off chance he does wind up in there, I am very okay using Wisdom for today. And I want to make that clear that if he does wind up in there, I approve. And I think that he'd be someone I would use for today. Might not play, but consider him if he does. The second sack for today, also Chicago friendly, the White Sox playing in Pittsburgh, which means they do lose a DH, which means there's no Yarmine Mercedes, which stinks. But I still think they deserve to be number two for tonight. They're facing Tyler Anderson. Anderson got off to a nice start this year, but hasn't been able to maintain it. He is one of the guys who has had decreased movement recently. For him, it's over his past four starts. And in those four starts, Anderson's strikeout rate is 15%, but a 4% walk rate. He's letting up a ton of balls in play about 8% of the time. And 41% of those balls in play are fly balls. The hard hit rate for Anderson has been good in that time, but it's about league average for the full season. And now he has to face the White Sox. Obviously, as we know, a very good team against lefties with a 182 ISO and a 122 WRC+. It's a really tough assignment for Anderson. If you look at implied team totals for tonight, the White Sox don't grade out super well. I think that's great because it means people will likely not be going here as aggressively as they would otherwise. It also led to, I'm not sure if it led to this, but either way, the salaries in the White Sox really low. So if you want to find a team to stack with Wheeler, that'll give you salary flexibility, it's really kind of the White Sox. Part of that is Andrew Vaughn. He's arguably the biggest benefactor of them facing a lefty. He is $2,200. He has a 387 ISO versus lefties, the 40% fly ball rate. He is tremendous against lefties, just kind of not a big power guy versus righties. So I think that Vaughn needs to be a priority for today, whether using the White Sox or stacking the White Sox or not. I think a great one off, but also an integral part of the stack. But I mean, Jose Ebreu is $3,200. Tim Anderson is 33. This is a great team to stack if you're trying to get to Wheeler at 11.4, which I didn't expect with it being the White Sox. Again, I don't think they'll be too popular given the low implied total for today. So stack the White Sox, feel good about it and get to Wheeler at your picture at $11,400. For the third stack, we're going at what is effectively a bullpen game tonight. The A's are facing Taylor Hearn, who will start today. He's making a spot star to give Jordan Lyles some extra rest. Hearn has gone 34 pitches his last two times out. So if I had to guess, if I had to project out a pitch count for Hearn, it'd probably be somewhere around 50 to 60 or so, then it'll give way to the bullpen. That's definitely not a bullpen we have to avoid though. They have a 4.72 ERA for the season and the long relievers especially haven't been that great, which includes Hearn. He has a 4.84 ERA this year. He's had issues with hard contact. He's a fly ball pitcher, not overpowering with a 9.8% swing and strike rate. And he's also a lefty and the A's crushed those. The A's have a 112 WRC plus against lefties with a 182 ISO and a lot of fly balls. So against lefties, the A's are a very good team. What Hearn is out there, I would expect them to do pretty well. Then when they go to the bullpen, probably not a lot of shutdown arms coming in after Hearn. So the A's grayed out really well. I will say that the roof is almost certain to be shut tonight in Texas and that does stink because we prefer it open as always. But it's still a park factor upgrade for the A's most likely gives me 70, 75 degrees compared to 66 or so in Oakland in general. So still a park factor upgrade despite the fact the roof will likely be closed for tonight. And I think we should be high on them here even with being a bit of a wonky setup. I don't tend to target bullpen gains all that often. But I think for today, it does make sense to do so with this A's team. One thing worth noting here is that I tried to be overweight on Matt Olson. He's clearly the best batter on this team. And that's true against lefties as well. He has a 343 ISO in 110 plate appearances this year. So when Hearn's out there, Olson will be fine. And then if they bring in a righty reliever, Olson should be all set there as well. So it sets up really well for him. He's $4,000, so he's not like a value play, but hopefully the field is sleeping on how good he can be when there is a lefty out there and maybe not accounting for the fact that Hearn is not gonna be out there for the full time as well for today. I would also mention I'd probably be wary of Chad Pinder as a value play for today. If he plays, he tends to leave games pretty early when he does start, especially recently. Pinder has passed two starts in the seventh and sixth innings respectively. So Pinder, not a guy I wanna turn to for value. I think that Sean Murphy could work, but be a bit wary of Pinder and try to be high on Olson for tonight when stacking the eighths. Let's finish up through our things to watch and talk about some more of these pitchers on tonight's slates. Again, not on Max Scherzer due to potential pitch count issues. So that's the issue there. With Garrett Cole, it very much is tied to his recent performance that sticky stuff discussion. Obviously the spin rate topic is a big thing with him and we're up to five starts now on Cole with decreased movement on his foreseeing fastball. The spin rate decrease happened about three starts ago, but the movement decrease happened five starts ago so we can expand the sample a little bit. In those five starts, he has a 26% strikeout rate in that time. The Royals have a 22% strikeout rate against Reides. So I think it's a similar matchup to what Geolito and Wheeler have, but I feel better about how those two guys are pitching under the current rule structure than I do with Cole. So to me, I'm okay, deprioritizing Cole, probably skipping over Cole for tonight and focusing more on Wheeler and Geolito in the true top end of the pitching pool for tonight. One pitcher I didn't get to who I do like is Freddie Peralta. He's facing Arizona. They got a win last night, but we've still got some pretty big issues here with Arizona. They have an 82 WRC plus against Reides. They have a 24% strikeout rate. Peralta is pitching well, even with a reduction in his spin rate. He has a 31% strikeout rate over his past five starts with his increased curveball usage, kind of becoming like a three-pitch guy, which is weird given what Freddie Peralta was when he first came up. He's gone from a one-pitch guy to effectively three now. It's been great. So I feel better about the non-strikeout numbers for Wheeler and Geolito, which means that Peralta will not grade out as well as them, but Peralta is number three for me ahead of Scoobal. So overall pitching rankings for tonight are going to be Wheeler one, Geolito two, Peralta three, and then either Clayton Kershaw or Tarek Scoobal number four, with the other one being five for today. All of them ahead of Scherzer and Cole, just based on the way things set up for them. So pretty high on Scoobal, despite the fact that there are really good pitching options in the upper tier for tonight. I think the Astros will be popular tonight and it is justified. They're facing Jorge Lopez. He's had rough results this year and I'm not expecting that to change. Two reasons that I have them lower on my list are first, they'll be very popular on a large slate. And we, which means we have a lot of chances to pivot and I think there are good options for doing so here. Second, it's tough to get to the Astros with Wheeler and Geolito because they have so many high salary guys. If you're going with Scoobal or Peralta, sure, I think that's totally fine, but they're tough to get to with Wheeler. I also do like them for one-offs. I think that Chas McCormick once again, a good value play here, probably going to bet six or so. He's $2,400, still too low salary. So I would check out McCormick as a value play as a one-off, but I'm not super opposed to being a bit underweight on them as the likely chalk for tonight. You know, I'd rather go to the White Sox, rather go to the Cubs, considering that they probably will not be as chalky as the Astros will be for tonight. On a large slate, a lot of chance to pivot, and I want to take advantage of that by potentially being a bit underweight on Houston for tonight. That is all the time that we have here for today on The Solo Shop, but as always, we are back here once again later on. We have the Q&A today, 3.30 p.m. with Brandon. I'll be back on at 4 p.m. to talk some baseball. That's on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. Also today on YouTube at 10 a.m. we'll be live talking about the Travelers Championship from a PGA DFS perspective. That is with myself and Brandon coming your way at 10 a.m. today. So make sure you subscribe to the FanDuel YouTube page. If you're watching over there, hit the like button because that does help us out a ton. And also make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have additional 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 Calvin Theobald, our video producer for setting up the video broadcast for today. Thank you, Cal, as always. And thank you to everyone for tuning in. Good luck to you tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.