 We got a fun little pictures duo lined up out west for tonight between you Darvish and Julio Urias Those are the two headliners for tonight's slate in MLB DFS should be a fun ones We're gonna get in Get you set for that slate answer your questions live on air and make sure everything is all neat and tidy for tonight in MLB DFS Welcome on into the Fandall fantasy Q&A. That's right here on the Fandall YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter channels My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com here to answer your questions for the next 25 minutes to get you set for tonight's slate of MLB DFS We're starting things off already over on Facebook with DJ. DJ is asking Kyle Gibson or Tyler Malley and for me I will go with Tyler Malley there. It's a really rough matchup for Malley and it's a Situation where he doesn't have a good floor. However, I do think that the ceiling is good for Malley because You see this number here 30% striking rate for Malley. That's what we care so much about when it comes to MLB DFS We want those three points for a strikeout Malley can rack them up facing the twins very good team 101 WRC plus versus righties sells them short because it doesn't have a fully baked in Byron Buxen in there He's now back in the lineup. He's very good at baseball So it's not a good matchup and it is really scary But I do think that this ceiling is still there for Malley to have a really good game So if I'm picking between Malley and Gibson, I want the upside I want the ceiling not going here for cash games just for tournaments I would say go Malley over Gibson Malley is my favorite guy with a salary below 9,000 Urias is right at $9,000 So would prefer him overall But if I were to go for a value play and deviate from Urias would be Malley number one Let's talk to Blue Dot over on YouTube What are your thoughts on the Atlanta Braves this year tough luck with the pitching staff? given all the injuries they've had all the Wonkiness they have gone through so it's kind of tough to judge what they would have been Had they been at full health a full year, but obviously like from a DFS perspective, they've been a fun team You know, they hit for power. It's what we want. They've had some fun value type guys pop up I mean obviously Austin Riley's among that Abraham Amanthes had his his days where he's been kind of fun as well I use dance v swanson more than others one contraris actually kind of interesting too So I think that that's really interesting and it's been a fun team to track So far this year, let's go back to Facebook and talk to DJ Milwaukee or a Houston stack. I think that both these teams are in play However, the Astros to me are the number one stack on this slate by a pretty significant margin Facing Keegan Aiken Aiken is a lefty, which is obviously a bump up for the Astros But in four starts this year for Aiken 5.01 skill interactive ER a 20 percent strikeout rate 11% walk rate Doesn't have the best bad at ball suppression numbers meaning that from a stacking perspective He kind of checks every box and the Astros so good against lefties one 23 WRC plus 171 ISO low strikeout rate good temperatures for today 84 degrees now We'll note that there are some weather concerns For this game Kevin Roth a rotor grinder this morning said that it was too far out to know And if we go over here to look at the games and Linus page of number fire You do see some rain potentially in the middle of this game now because the rain odds are not super super high I think that we should be okay to get this game in obviously a DJ Just popped in here to ask about that whether that game will play I think it does play but we'll hopefully get an update from Kevin Roth later on He doesn't update around five thirty or so on the weather should have a better idea then but as of right now I am operating under the assumption this game will play and that I'll be comfortable stacking it from a DFS perspective Houston the number one stack for me the Brewers number four for me DJ Let's go back to blue dot on YouTube. What is your early prediction for who is making the finals this year? I have to go with LA right now in the National League obviously a lot of injuries for them I think the Dodgers will still go They've had a lot of injuries But they have a lot of depth and it seems like again most the guys who are hurt we back in time to play in October So I still long term Expect them to be that team are presented in the National League as far as the American League goes I Guess I don't have a super firm grasp on that right now. I think it's to be determined, which is kind of fun I guess I probably I mean Houston's rotation is not great And that's kind of the the one thing holding me up there All these teams have question marks. So I honestly don't agree with the American League who will go there But in the National League give me the Dodgers. Let's talk to Alvin favorite Astros bats since the lineup is out Okay, so we do the lineup here for the Astros Chas and McCormick is indeed batting second as a result of that It is cool He's gonna be the number one guy on this slate for me twenty four hundred dollars from a Cormick batting second Let's pull up the Astros here Actually, let's put a let's put a reass in there first to have a baseline of what we're working with me hitting perspective And then we're gonna go here and we're gonna pull up McCormick as an outfielder at twenty four hundred dollars. Okay, so we have thirty three seventy one left I'm assuming we're gonna go with Gouriel Korea and I'll poo baby. Let me double check here over the on the Numbers versus lefties this year as you can see here Alvarez despite being a left He does actually a better ISO versus lefties this year than Korea does But Korea the lower strikeout rates That's enticing to me So I think I am gonna wind up favoring him over Alvarez as far as Jose Altuve goes again The lower strikeout rate as well better fly ball rate So I think to me the optimal stack for the Astros will be this go to the Cormick Korea and Gouriel And going with the four righties there leaves you three thousand dollars left per batter That is pretty easy for me to do so I feel good about that one. I think this is gonna be the top four stack for me I would say if you are You know if you're not super enamored with anyone or if you have positional constraints I would say Alvarez easily the next guy up on that list for me So that is the stack I like for Houston seems anyone else here Abraham Toro. Let's check out Toro's numbers Both overall and then let's look at his career versus lefty. I think that's probably gonna be the best sample for him Given the limited data So so far this year he was in triple a for a lot of it good power numbers and triple a earlier on 32% fly ball right in the majors 29% we include triple a making pretty good contacts. That's encouraging Let's pull up what he's done versus lefties across his career probably gonna be a small sample still But we can at least check it out 59 plate appearances He has an 077 ISO did it for you know, I guess only 26 plate appearances, but bad a ball percentage wise Thor 40% hard hit rates not a ton of ground balls So I would say that Toro like if you're in a massive bind and really need to say some salary Is he actually it? Yeah, he's in the player pool there the minimum salary. I Would say the Toro is at least interesting if you're looking for a Lower salary guy for today within the asses, but I think you can make this work Not with Alvarez obviously because too many guys but with these four guys be the core for for me within the Astro stack DJ we're talking about one childish Albano. Who do you think is gonna win? I think we were talking about World Series here I'm gonna go with the Dodgers. I'll stick with them again the guys who are injured the impactful guys were injured should be back So I still have a long-term faith in that DJ. Well the cubs play considering what the state and suburbs went through with all the tornadoes Hadn't heard about that. I have family in the suburbs. So Hopefully they're okay. I guess so this is the first time I've heard about that. I don't know It sounds like I didn't see anything from weather perspective for them So I'd assume that they are good to go, but we shall see hopefully everyone is everyone there is okay Jerry, how do you feel about Cincinnati in Houston? Do you think Gibson will do well tonight? I love Cincinnati in Houston. They are my top two stacks for today. Houston number one Cincinnati number two Cincinnati is facing Jay Hap. Hap is one of the guys who's spin rate declined here recently He wasn't that good before then either if we look at Hap over his past six starts more forcing fastballs 4.93 skill interactive ERA 18% strikeout rates lot of rough bad at ball data So I think that Cincinnati deserves to be number two on this list It's not the warmest temperatures in Minnesota for today Minneapolis at 65 degrees. So, you know, it's not as good as it could be They're also not as good against lefties as they are against righties But still gonna be a high-quality stack for today Jerry did also ask about which since he bats So let's go through those here because their lineup as always is out Gotta love a prompt team with the batting orders here. I'm gonna feel pretty good about these top seven guys here I like Castellano Stevenson Suarez and Aquino the most most likely but let's Clear these guys out and build out a Cincinnati stack as if we remember our average left per batter for the Reds Was three thousand if you want to stack them With the Astros, let's go with Aquino batting seventh. That's high enough for me We're gonna go Stevenson in the four hole and I'm gonna take Castellanos and Take Suarez likely at third base cuz I'm probably not gonna go Torah or Torres or Toro as much easy enough I think that's that's gonna be pretty easy to fit those in together So not only are since Ian Houston my top two stacks and mesh up pretty well from a salary perspective as well So these are gonna be the four guys. I like most here on the Cincinnati team Let's check out the which check out India which check out Vato we have to check out. I think it was winker with the other lefty who's in there Yeah, winker, so let's check out what they've done versus lefties a sample on the Reds versus lefties It's not as large this year as the Astros versus lefties, but we can still at least clean something here Get some signals because I slid the slugging and stabilizes around 80 or so plate appearances As far as India 116 iso decent hard hit rates decent plate discipline data So India I think would work as well Vato versus lefties not a big fly ball rates That's gonna be a downgrade for me not looking to go there winker 075 iso. He's a lot better versus righties So I would say go with these are probably the top four guys for me in the Reds I think the India is Going to be a solid selection as well. Let's go back to DJ is Montas work worth a look for tonight So it's about Frankie Montas Frankie Montas facing the Rangers not a bad lineup Or not a bad matchup I should say as we go over here to the pitching tab and Montas overall this year has pitched decently relative to the slate with a 25% strikeout rate. This is over his past 10 stars I believe yeah 10 stars of the 14 fast-forwarded 34% He's been good the concern that I have is that in a very small sample, which is I guess like it's for total starts Montas has really struggled on the road. It's like a 17% strikeout right there versus 27% at home I'm not gonna cross off Montas because of that because the sample is so small I'm just gonna downgrade him. So I would say that for me Montas is ranked fourth among all pitchers for tonight It is Arias one Darvish to Mali three Montas for the ranking of pitcher Montas still worth considering despite the bad road splits But that does lower me on him a pretty decent amount Let's go to Jerry asking about Oakland bats. Okay, so they are facing Kyle Gibson, I guess Jerry did ask about Gibson earlier. I missed that my bad Jerry. So facing Kyle Gibson Gibson is a ground ball pitcher So I'm not super Enthusiast about going at batters phasing him Let's check out the platoon splits here for Gibson see if we can have some daylight to go with lefties Maybe Matt Olson can create out well here I would note that the roof probably any clothes for today in Texas that does downgrade the park factor a bit But it's still fine Relative to where Oakland is usually at. Okay, so lefties 16% strikeout rate and 34% art at rate the ground ball rate does go down Maybe there's some leeway to use Matt Olson, but Oakland won't be super high on my list for today. Let's talk to Derek over on YouTube Do you downgrade the Astros hitters at all because they might be playing in a light rainstorm if they do play? So I think that's a good question. I personally do not this is from a long time ago but Jonathan Bales wrote a book about daily fantasy baseball and I believe that his conclusion was that it was actually a positive to stack teams that were in Potentially rainy weather as a result of the decreased popularity you might get on them people Fill an alliance during the day don't want to deal with the rain later on so I would say no I don't downgrade them. I think they're still good to go. The other thing that's important here is temperature 84 degrees in Baltimore for tonight whereas it is 70 or lower assuming the roof the roof will be closed in Chase fields night. They did confirm that so We could put it at 70 degrees for that one Then it's 70 degrees for the Rangers and A's as well It's the only outdoor shading with the temperature above 70 degrees So I think it's a great weather for tonight And I do think that we do want to be in on the Astros for sure Just check back to make sure that game will play later on Derek I'm stacking the Reds regardless best pivot stack at the Astros weather looks shaky I'll have a nice amount of salary if that happens. Yeah, so let's say the weather update later on Does wind up looking pretty bad. Let's let's game plan around that just in case it's a good question From Derek, okay So the other ones I like are in this game the Diamondbacks and the Brewers This is despite the fact that we know the roof will be closed for today It does downgrade it where it would be relative where it would be if the roof were open But I still think that they're gonna be the top two once we want to go at Diamondbacks facing Brett Anderson The sample on Anderson is in his past three starts with the spin rate being down He was awesome against the Reds last week nine strikeouts even when you include that game though Just a 16% strikeout rate 50% hard hit rate He's still a ground ball guy like the decrease spin rate did not make him a fly ball pitcher, but He's had some rough starts in there So I think that there is a possibility that the Diamondbacks get to him They've been pretty good against lefties so far this year the 194 ISO So I'm okay with going at the Diamondbacks here. They'd be number three for me Number four is the Brewers facing Meryl Kelly rough for results recently the peripherals not as bad But you can see here why we might be okay stacking against him in that sample with more foreseeing fastballs a 4.47 skill interactive ERA 22% strikeout rates Not the best bad of all data So I would say there is a window to stack the Brewers there So if we take the Astros out of consideration, then it would be the Reds one Diamondbacks to Brewers three But I do think that the Astros should be good to go based on the way the weather looks at least as of right now Jerry is calling a home run for Joey Vato for tonight. So I like that Jerry lefty-on-lefty You're going bold Vato worked out for you before lefty-on-lefty for my home run call for tonight I'm gonna go Chas McCormick. McCormick was good to us last week We talked about him on the stream and I think he had a double-dong So I'm not gonna go double-dong again for Chas McCormick But I will say at least one home run for Chas McCormick as my home run call for today Rob I apologize if I missed it, but what are your thoughts about Houston even playing tonight with the weather in Baltimore? Again, I think it should be good to go. I would make sure you check back at Kevin Roth WX on Twitter around 5 30 or so to see Um what The updated weather looks like in Baltimore as of right now. I'm thinking this game plays the weather the the rain odds the the Number of fire games in line of this page pulls in from dark sky weather and as of right now It doesn't it doesn't have like the largest rain odds throughout this game So I would say based on my reader probably good to go So I feel comfortable using them right now, but I would check back with what Kevin says later on Let's talk to diffuse over on YouTube Dynabax one-offs currently rolling with Rojas and Marte I think that any of their guys will bat right-handed for today is gonna be near the top of that list So Eduardo Escobar some trade rumors around him right now. So, uh, you know, it's always tough Just thinking about things like psychologically like it'd be very difficult to deal with trade rumors You're like, oh by the way, you might have to move so keep that in mind I'm not saying that he would like have a down ticket as a result of the trade rumors But you know still tough Escobar versus lefties 258 ISO can tell Marte always good versus lefties His numbers this year won't want to indicate that because it's such a small sample, but overall he's good So I would say Walker Marte Escobar and Rojas gonna be the top guys there If you want someone lower salaried Nick Ahmed has traditionally been pretty good versus lefties Good power numbers in a small sample so far this year So I would say Escobar Rojas Ahmed Walker and Marte probably at the top of that list I'd expect low caster to play but I don't really necessarily want to use him as Drew Bulls also a switch hitter But not the biggest into him either. So those are the main guys for me. I've been looking at there tone Hi, Jim. How about bullpens to attack? Let's actually go through the process of looking up bullpen stuff here Just in case people have not done so before you go to fangrass click on 2021 team pitching stats We'll click on relievers and we'll click on active roster because if guys are no longer on the on the roster We don't want to deal with having their numbers in there So I think that I tend to go with ERA over Peripheral stuff and looking at bullpens because you have a large enough sample where it is decently relevant and a lot of guys cannot perform their peripherals Or can underperform the peripherals in the bullpen due to wonky bad at ball stuff So if we're looking at bullpens that have performed the worst so far this year again based on their current active roster We're looking at Cincinnati Colorado Detroit as the three teams With eras above 5 we're looking at above 4.5. Oh, we add in Baltimore, Texas Atlanta, Arizona That's the list that I would have there. You don't want to Care too much about the middle parts here like I don't really care too much that that Minnesota has the eighth ranked bullpen ERA, that's just fine. So I would say target the outliers So we're looking here Cincinnati Colorado Detroit, Arizona Atlanta, and then Texas as well Let's talk to Derek a favorite fan to a play at $2,300 and under outside of Chas McCormick, I think ID on YouTube may have actually answered this for me by saying are you stated as a Kino? I agree I think that a Kino would wind up being the top guy with a salary below $2,300 I think he's really solid options. Stevenson is at $2,500. So can't quite get there. I believe You could consider Ahmed. I think he's below $2,200. Yeah, so if he he does that six you could potentially get there But I think that a Kino is gonna be the top guy for me with a salary below $2,300 ID. I agree with you very much there Let's talk to Mateo. I am late to the party. Welcome Mateo. Do you like Montas versus Texas? Their lineup is out. So let's check out the lineup for Texas here Frankie Montas has this really weird thing where he Has a much higher strikeout right versus lefties than righties The lineup not refreshing here. It must be out, but it's not refreshing for me So we'll just kind of go based on Expected lineup here for Texas but again the big issue that I had with Montas is The the struggles he has had on the road so far this year So again to me that's enough to push him down to fourth So I think that that's enough of a concern where I do push him down I don't care about his ERA is ERA is fine I care about the strikeout rate because that stabilizes quickly So although it's a four-star sample for Montas If you look at the games he has faced non-Houston teams He's had four or five and two strikeouts in those games That's that's concerning one of those is a course field too. So I would say it's an issue for sure, but it's not And it's going to downgrade him from me, but I'm not going to cross him off So to me Montas comes in ranked fourth It's actually both the game logs here because it's a better indicator of what to expect Colorado two strikeouts at Minnesota four at Tampa Bay five And they're a pretty high strikeout team at Houston five as well. So I get a little bit worried about that I think that that's enough where I push Montas down to fourth But do not cross him off for today Steve FYI for the O's game We have severe thunderstorms storms going all night check out the glob on the radar yikes again I'm not a meteorologist. I just trust what he's what he says So check back on what Kevin says later on today to see what it's like If it's severe weather that might impact it like maybe they just don't want fans in the stands to avoid You know danger seems good to try to avoid that But trust what he says don't trust what I say when it comes to weather I'm just basing it off of the information that I have but I want to fully say His info better than mine as always Um Sham wowsky dj quick. I like that name got him. Don't know what you're talking about, but I like it Uh, I think that it should be a good night for tonight. Uh, let's talk about some other stuff here that we have not touched on yet We've not any questions about Darvish, which I guess is a little bit surprising facing the Dodgers Dodgers a depleted roster due to all of the injuries But still a good team overall the reason I'm pushing Darvish below a reass for tonight is He's one of the guys who saw a spin rate decline as we pull up the game logs here for Darvish over on baseball savants We will uh, check this out here And check out what he did last time versus the Padres. Click on that And we're gonna see the spin rate for Darvish went down a lot in his most recent start It's been down a couple of starts overall as well. So, uh, see the spin rate here down 158 revolutions per minute on his cutter Pretty massive deviation I would note here the minimum for that cutter was 1070 probably a misclassification or something weird with the gun Trying to pick up the spin right there But the maximum still not super high relative to his yearly average Uh, same thing with the foreseen fastball On the limited data there the slider was way down. So It's concerning enough. The reason I'm not like crossing him off is that that was a Coors field That could have played a role there for sure. Uh, and you Darvish is a good pitcher So I think that that is a a positive for me to where I still feel okay about him Darvish Uh, go as deep into games So I think that I'm still going to rank him second behind Urias But that's why I don't have him above Urias for tonight despite the Uh, despite the rough situation, uh, the decline spin rate DJ. Can you do a minnesota stack quick? Probably not going to stack minnesota personally because malli gets so many strikeouts I understand like you could stack minnesota because malli has had bad games So I understand going to a minnesota stack for you me personally. I'm not going to stack them Just because malli gets enough strikeouts again It's a it's a risky situation and because it's a risky situation That means inherently that minnesota does have some form of the upside. They're a good team But for me personally, I'm not going to be doing that. So uh, no twin stacks for me for today Let's talk to travis over on facebook Can you explain the thought process on cash games versus tournaments and the difference? Okay, so if you're new to daily fantasy a cash game is a game where 50 percent of the field cash is roughly 50 that's actually a 50 uh, uh, double up but um, 50 percent of the field will cash and what that means is It doesn't matter if you finish first or you finish at the cash line You're going to get the same payout no matter what basically what that means You don't need to worry as much about the top end of the range of outcomes I still do want upside in cash games because I want guys who can erase my mistakes elsewhere. I'm going to mess up something So I want guys who can make up for the mistakes that I had So I think that sometimes the mistake we make when talking about cash games is we focus too much on floor And not on like 60th percentile outcomes. That's kind of the way that I want to focus on it. So to me I still want upside in cash games. Um, but I think that the difference is I'm not going to take as much risk So like malli, I talked about him. I think that he is upside for today I would not touch him in a cash game because I don't care about as much about upside I care a little bit more about floor range of outcomes, etc, etc And malli does not have a good median projection versus the twins compared to someone like orias or darvish So malli would not be a cash game pitcher for tournaments You do have incentive to get the highest score you can get because you want that top end payout That's where someone like malli would come into play Because if you look at his strikeout rate, it's possible. Tyler malli is the highest scoring pitcher on the slate And I want to get exposure to guys who had that within the range of outcomes So that's the key difference to me travis is I care more about risk in tournaments versus I care more about risk in cash games than I do in tournaments in tournaments I'm okay taking on risk in cash games. I try to avoid it without limiting my upside So that's why someone like orias are great at welfare today He has upside a little bit more safe because he's a really good overall pitcher And you're facing a team that has struggled on the whole versus lefty so far this year That's the way the difference for me travis is trying to Minimize risk without without reducing my upside in cash games whereas for tournaments I'm okay with taking on risk if it comes Along with upside. Hopefully that makes sense. Feel free to ask again if I didn't fully clarify that But I appreciate the question for sure. Let's finish up here with craig What are your thoughts on cleveland versus also lay so also lay is coming off the angel list, but Really good pitcher was pitching well before he got hurt missed about 14 days So I would lower his pitch count projection, but I'm not going to be You know totally low on him The other thing I would say here with cleveland is that it's pretty rough weather for hitting for today Outer wriggly the wind is blowing in it is blowing in at 12 miles per hour from left field See a downgrade the batters there So I would say Lower batters. William did ask about if also they will get to six strikeouts I would not put in there because of pitch count concerns as he comes off the il So to me if you're betting a strikeout prop and it's at six I would not take the over on that one That is all the time that we have here for today on the fan dual fantasy q&a good questions everyone as always We are back here once again tomorrow, but branding a deal will be with you at 3 30 to talk about some pga for this week For the travelers championship talk in dfs and betting As producer cow reminded, please feel hit the like button on youtube and subscribe as well We do appreciate those of you who have done so already that does help us out a bunch We are here every weekday 4 p.m. And tomorrow at 3 30 branding will be doing some golf there as well Big thank you to everyone for tuning in big. Thank you to calvin theobald our video producer For one of the video side of things here today. Thank you cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in Go win some money for tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow. This has been the fan dual fantasy q&a