 In theory, today's slate of MLB DFS should be pretty good because we've got some big name pitchers at the top of the slate. We've got Garrett Cole, Kevin Cosman, guys who have really helped us throughout most of this year in MLB DFS. The problem is that every stud pitcher on the slate has some sort of issue, whether it be pitch count concerns, whether it be effectiveness, whether it be matchup, stuff like that. There are no true no-brainers on this slate. We're gonna try to dive through, dissect those red flags, see what we can't accept and see what we can't and decide who we should rank highest for MLB DFS. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network in Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire.com. Here to break down today's 10-game main slate with locks up for 705, 4-2 night, and thankfully no weather to discuss. We look to be all fine and dandy on that front so we can proceed as usual. No rainouts like we had with the Brewers on Friday night. So a fresh slate once again for today in MLB DFS. We'll be back once again later on today 4 p.m. Eastern on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter pages. I'll be live there at 4 p.m. taking your questions live on air and getting you set for today's slate of MLB DFS. So make sure you are subscribed there but also subscribe to the Numberfire Daily Fantasy podcast feed because this week we have MLB, we have PGA, we have UFC, and we have NASCAR all coming this week on the Numberfire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Big week of DFS here on the feed. So make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Hey, sports fans, FanDuel is offering an exclusive promotion for newest sportsbook users. Join FanDuel Sportsbook today and make your first best. If you lose, we'll give you a refund up to $1,000 in site credit within 72 hours. Your first bet after depositing will qualify. If you have multiple selections on one bet slip, it'll be the first selection you made. Head over to the FanDuel Sportsbook today and place your first bet. It must be 21 plus and present in Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, A.M. at Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, or West Virginia. New users only, max bonus $1,000 site credit. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. In Colorado, 1-800-522-4700. In Iowa, 1-800-Bets-Off. In Indiana, 1-800-9 with it. For confidential help in Michigan, 1-800-270-7117. In Tennessee, call the red line 1-800-899-789. Or in West Virginia, visit 1-800-GAMBLER.net. Pitching preview for this Monday main slate, Garrett Cole is the highest salary Pitcher on FanDuel checking in at $11,400. Kevin Gawson is 10-3. Frankie Montas is $9,400. We have Wade Miley, Cal Quantrell in Rich Hill as the other guys at $8,000 are higher. Now Cole is kind of the focal point here because he's coming off the COVID-IL. And I don't really know what his pitch count will be because it last started July 29th. So that's a while ago. He tested positive August 3rd. So it's been three weeks since he has pitched and two weeks since he tested positive. For now, I'm likely going to be avoiding Cole for tonight. That could change if we get info before. Specifically, I wanna know how long his bullpen session was. He had a bullpen session over the weekend. I believe on the 10th or so sometime around then. And if that bullpen was 75, 80 pitches, then I'll be in but I haven't seen that yet. So as of right now, I don't think Garrett Cole's pitch count will be high enough for me to use them in DFS. We'll wait and see if we get additional news later on. For right now, Garrett Cole will be lower on my list. And if I take Cole off the menu, I do think Kevin Gosman wants to be in first. And that's tough for me to say because I've been off Gosman for a while now. He just hasn't seemed fully himself. There was a velocity dip for a bit in there. That has come back up. And the reason I can still get here for Gosman is he's still at upside. He has been throwing more forcing fastballs recently specifically that has been up in his past eight starts. And in that time, Gosman's walk rate is shot up. It is 13%, which is a really rough mark. Not only does it add base runners, but also every walk is at least four pitches. So it jacks through your pitch count too. And as a result, we've seen Gosman go six innings just three times in that eight start sample. That's the bad. That's why there are red flags around Kevin Gosman. The good is that he's still getting strikeouts. He has a 28% strikeout rate. He has eight plus strikeouts, half those starts. And that does include two of his past three starts. One of those good starts is against Houston. The non-strikeout played appearances there were kind of rough. So basically the overall picture on Gosman is that he is flawed. That lowers his appeal. The flawed version can still flash though. He's facing the Mets at home tonight. They have an 89 WRC plus against righties with a 25% strikeout rate. Their walk rate is decently low at 8%. Which could help up Gosman as well. And as always, this is a great part for pitching. I don't mind fading Gosman for single entry. Like let's say you get a read that Gosman will be the runaway chalk on this slate. I am very okay deviating and jumping elsewhere. And it might be the optimal way to play things. Straight up though, he is the top option. It's hard to gauge popularity and stuff like that this early in the morning. So for right now, Gosman is one. But I would say if you get the read that Gosman will be popular, I'd be very okay pivoting to Frankie Montas for stuff like single entries. Let's talk about Montas here. He's very similar to Gosman where he has his flaws but he has upside. Part of the flaw for Montas is not him. It's his matchup. He's facing the White Sox, really solid team against righties and lefties. Against righties specifically. They have a 108 WRC plus and they are healthier than they've been most of the year. The other flaw for Montas is that in the past he had had really rough home roads. This game's on the road, whereas Gosman is at home. The reason I can still go to Montas, number two is that those road flaws have been lessening recently. He has three 10 strikeout games in his past six starts and all of them came on the road. He led up four total runs against those teams and one of those double digit strikeout games was against Houston in Houston. If you look at his past 10 starts with more splitters, he has a 3.38 skill interactive ERA with a 30% strikeout rates. He's letting up just a 30% fly ball rate in that time. So if we're looking at Gosman versus Montas and each guy's most relevant sample, Montas has been the better pitcher than Gosman. So if you get the sense that Gosman will be much more popular, which I would assume will be the case right now, I'd pivot to Montas for single entry. I think he's great there. The circumstances for him, the matchup, the venue, those are why I can't rank him higher than Gosman straight up. But if there is a massive popularity gap in addition to the salary gap, then I am okay going Montas for single entry over Gosman. So my assumption right now is that for a single entry lineup, I'll be going Montas for tonight because I would bet that Gosman does track to be very popular. And in that case, I am okay pivoting. If you get the read though, that people are hesitant on Gosman, then I would say, you know, if we're playing things straight, then go Gosman. But for right now, based on the way I think things would break later on, I would say Montas over Gosman for single entry, but Gosman over Montas straight up. As far as the value plays, it kind of does feel like it's a no-brainer-to-go two-key Toussaint. And for me, he ranks third behind Gosman and Montas. Again, assuming I can't use coal, we'll see if that changes based on, you know, if we get any vibe around pitch count later on. A lot of it for Toussaint is the matchup. He's facing the Marlins. They have just an 84 WRC plus versus righty, so they won 32 ISO. Toussaint has a 25% strikeout rate and he doesn't walk that many guys, or at least not so far he has not. That's about as peachy as you can get, all right? I should say for the Marlins, not as many walks as you would hope. So it's a peachy matchup in terms of projected pitch count, in terms of strikeout rate, in terms of power. That's a good two-key, similar to Gosman and to Montas does have his flaws. He's led up a 51% hard hit rate this year. That's very bad. The upside is there though. He had 10 strikeouts against the Phillies and it's tough to keep on leaning on that one start because he hasn't had more than five strikeouts and then he has other starts. But there aren't many pitchers in general, but specifically pitchers on this slate who have the ability to get 10 strikeouts and he did do that. That means something to us. Overall, in the big leagues this year, Toussaint has a 24% strikeout rate. The walk rate manageable at 8%. So if he were $9,500, we would not use him because it's one start where he was really good. That's tough to lean on. But he's $7,900 in an elite matchup on a not ideal pitching slate. I can live with that and I will. So I am happy to have shares of all three of Gosman, Montas, and Toussaint tonight. There's no real top guy. So I would say I'm just gonna use all three and see what happens and go from there. But do you think that all three worthy of exposure for tonight? We'll see on coal, but for right now, those are the three guys I want to use in DFS for tonight. Now the pitching landscape is pretty tough because, you know, there are red flags everywhere. And on a 10 game slate, that likely means stacking is pretty good. Indeed it is. And I do think it starts at Coorsfield. Both sides of this game are pretty fun. I'll start the Padres. I do prefer them by a tiny bit, but I think the Rockies are in the same tier. We'll talk about them in just one second. But first, the Padres are facing Antonio Sanzitela. Definitely not the model for stacking because he does let up just a 28% fly ball rate. And when you have a 28% fly ball rate that does limit some of the damage you can do against this guy. He makes up for it though by letting up a ton of balls in play. Over the past seven starts with more forcing fastballs and fewer sliders. Sanzitela has let up an 18% strikeout rate with a 3% walk rate. He is letting up hard contact 45% of the time. And it has led to some issues even when he's not at Coorsfield. He let up five runs to the reds in Cincinnati at the start of this stretch. Now he's at Coorsfield and facing the Padres. And for none of the Thatis is back. That's a pretty tough ask. So the Padres are very obvious, but sometimes the obvious plays obvious for a reason. I think that that is a Padres for tonight. So they are the top stack of this slate. Against Sanzitela, we don't need to worry too much about righty versus lefty, et cetera, et cetera. Lefties strike out less against him, but they also hit more ground balls. So I just picked the guys you prefer straight up. And that means Tommy Pham gonna grade out pretty well as being under-sourced here. He's $3,800, probably gonna bat fifth for tonight. Batting fifth may not present as much stolen base juice as he had when he was batting leadoff, but I do think that it's hard to pass Pham up in a situation where it's a righty who is not dominant versus righty. So Tommy Pham under-sourced for today and a guy I would like to get to for sure. As for the Rockies, the Padres have not yet confirmed that Ryan Weathers will start this game for them. It is his turn. It's his time to go. So I think we can say it'll be him, but check back on that on the 4pm show just to make sure things do not change. And if it is Weathers, that would lead us to stacking the Rockies here. Weathers has had a rough year so far. He was up in the big league, started in the bullpen, moved the rotation, got hurt, came back, got sent down to the minors and then came back up, went on the IL again. He's made seven starts as he came back in the minor leagues and had that one IL stint in between there. And those seven starts have not been great thus far. He has a 5.18 skill interactive ERA with a 17% strikeout rate and a 10% walk rate. The hard hit rate against Weathers is 44% in that time. He does get some ground balls, but it's not enough ground balls to erase the issues he has elsewhere. So he's facing Colorado. Colorado's offense is not good, but that's more so true against righties and more so true on the road. When they're at home against the lefty, that's their best state. And that's what we get here for today. And honestly, I'm very okay stacking Colorado versus the lefty at home. And that's what we get here against Weathers. I do think it's a great spot to stack them. And I do think they are in the same tier as the Padres from a stacking perspective, but they're also much lower salary than the Padres. I was talking about a fan being under salary to $3,800. There are no Rockies with a salary higher than $4,000. And they've got some guys who are hitting for power, not just Crow, not just story, et cetera, et cetera, but Connor Joe, $2,900 likely to hit lead off. Elias Diaz had a Homer binge at the end of July, early August. He's $3,100. Brendan Rogers, he has smoked lefties. He's $3,300. So there is a lot to like here. I think you can make a very easy argument for ranking the Rockies first, given the salary savings they provide relative to San Diego. And honestly, like if you're going Galsman, it might be the Rockies first just because you have to due to the salaries on the Padres. So I like the Rockies quite a bit and we vary in on them. And I would not be shocked if I wind up having more Rockies stacks than Padres tonight, but I do like both and I will happily get to both. The third stack was tough because there were some good contenders. We'll go through all those in things to watch. But I did wind up settling on the raised third. They're facing Matt Harvey who has been a lot better recently to the point where I actually bet an opposing team total under two weeks ago, which against Matt Harvey seems unfathomable, but he's facing the raised night. It's a pretty tough team for him to face. So I want to stack them here. The reason that there are a rough team for Harvey to face is that they have a bunch of lefties. If you look at Harvey's results against, it would say to favor righties against him because they even ate a 382 Oba against him, whereas lefties is 311. That is a deceptive number of small samples. All the peripheral numbers, the numbers that stabilize more quickly say lefties should smash Harvey. Their strikeout rate equal to that of righties against him, but lefties make more hard contact and hit much fewer ground balls. So yeah, the results say favor righties, but going forward, I would expect lefties to have better numbers against Matt Harvey and they're gonna have a lot of lefties in this lineup. I would bet that four of the top five guys and potentially seven out of nine total in the raised lineup wanted to be lefties for tonight. They're gonna hit them hard. And I want to be there for stacking if they do. The two guys I want to be all over here are Austin Meadows and Gimon Choi. They are $3200 and $2,500 respectively. They're kind of in slumps. That's probably why their salaries are lower, but they both have great power numbers against righties. Even we look just and see all star break. Both Choi and Meadows have good Isos versus righties in that time. Neither guy is striking out to the point where you get concerned. So I think that although they are both in quote-unquote slumps, I think they will snap out of it soon and that could very well be tonight. So to me, I think the raised are a great stack. They are number three despite the fact that I respect the improvements Harvey has made. I do still think that the raised are a great team to stack for tonight. With that said, there are a lot of other options. If you're not convinced by the raise or if you really think that Harvey has turned a corner or think they'll be too popular, you could turn to the Dodgers. They're facing Stephen Brault tonight. He has made two starts off the injured list and both of those have gone pretty well to his credit, but they both came against St. Louis and Milwaukee. The Dodgers, even with Mookie Betts out are a very different beast than those two teams and I can see them doing well here. So I put them next in the list for stacking. They're number four behind the top three teams and stacks, but I would put them lower because the Mookie injury takes away an impactful righty. So I'll put the Dodgers fourth behind the Padres, Rockies and Rays. Both sides of the Astros Royals game in Kansas City are viable tonight. The Astros are facing Carlos Hernandez. He's not a bad pitcher, but he's also not like a shutdown guy and they kind of want to be a shutdown guy to face the Astros. So I could see the Astros doing well against him. The Royals are facing Jacob Oderizzi. The Dinger thread is still very present for Oderizzi and they do have a couple of guys left who can take him deep. Obviously I'm not like leaping out of my seat to use the Royals given Jorge Soler's gone, stuff like that, but I'm not opposed either. So the Royals do work mostly for one-offs, more so than stacks, given the current state of their team. Finally, if you want a stack that may go overlooked given the depth of stacking for today, I would check out the Giants. They're facing Rich Hill who, I guess it's not been officially announced yet, but it seems like he'll be the starter. And Hill has really struggled as past seven starts. He's been throwing more forcing fastballs, which is not a good thing for him. He has a 17% strikeout rate in that time with a 48% fly ball rate allowed. So the Giants, very good versus lefties. Obviously if you deal with guys who may leave early once the lefties out, but still think the Giants great out pretty well. Evan Longoria just came off the IL, but seeing that the ball pretty well in his rehab assignment. So I do like him as a one-off or in stacks. And in general, the Giants are a team I am very okay turning to for tonight. Let's finish up here with Dinger calls. And usually I do a boring and a fun one. You might call both these boring because they're both a course field, but sorry, not sorry. The boring one is super boring is Fernando Tattis had a couple of Dinger's in his return last night. So, you know, I'm not gonna try to get too creative here. Fernando Tattis, the first Dinger call. The second one is a bit more fun. I will go Connor Joe of the Rockies. I consider Brendan Rogers, but I think Connor Joe a pretty fun guy thus far. So I'll go with Tattis and Joe as the two home run calls for today. I believe I cursed everything last week because my Dinger calls was on a sports grid show on Friday were a guy who didn't play, second guy didn't play and a guy whose game got rained out. So I've officially cursed Tattis and Joe, but either way, we'll see how things break for today as we get closer to tonight's slate. Once again, could have some updates later on today based on the Padre starter, based on if we can use any on calls, pitch count, et cetera. So make sure you do swing back by 4PM Eastern today on the Fandle YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages for the Q and A. Take your questions there about all these stacks, talk some one offs, talk some process, whatever you got in your mind. We'll talk about that later on. If you have questions for me before the 4PM stream, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandle Podcast Network at Fandle Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. I hope you had a fantastic weekend. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow for more MLB DFS. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandle Podcast Network.