 Fun little slate we have on tap for today in MLB DFS, because at least to me, we have a pretty clear picture at the top in Robbie Ray, solid option who I think we can feel good about, both for cash gains and for tournaments. And we get to use Wanderfranko and feel good about it. So let's dive on in and get you set for today's slate. This is the FanDuelFantasy Q&A. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com, here to answer your questions live on air for the next 25 minutes. No matter where you are watching for today, you can get your questions in, you can get them in via YouTube, Twitch, Facebook or Twitter, we've already got questions on. Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, they are all popping there. So get your questions in now. We'll answer them live here on air to get you set for today's slate of MLB DFS. And before we dive in for today, quick scheduling announcement, fun show on tap for tomorrow, Aaron Dolan is gonna join me. She'll be on at 4.30 to talk betting. We have the DFS Q&A at four o'clock. We're gonna have a betting Q&A coming your way at 4.30. So if you are a person who wants to both play DFS and bet, feel free, dive on in. We'll be here tomorrow with Aaron. She is tremendously, you've seen her on sports grid. She was on covering the spread with us for the Super Bowl and the NCAA tournament. So make sure you tune in tomorrow to check out that. Aaron is a blast and it should be a whole lot of fun. That's tomorrow at 4.30. She'll be on, I'll be with you regular time at four o'clock for MLB DFS then as well. Let's start things off over on YouTube with Michael, which A's do you like aside from Matt Olson? So the lineup, at least last I checked is not out yet for the A's. It was not the last time I refreshed either, but we can at least have a good idea of who we'll play for today for the A's. Mention this morning that if Seth Brown works his way in there, I'm gonna be in on him. So we'll see if he, I don't want Google translate, no, okay. All right, so if he's in there, I'm definitely in. You mentioned later on, Michael, you mentioned Kemp. Yes, I would be in on Kemp as well, but we'll see if they play Tony Kemp so far this year versus Reides, 168 ISO, 118 plate appearance. That's enough for me to feel good about that ISO. So if Kemp does work his way in there, I will be good with him. Other A's to like versus Reides, besides Olson, obviously he is a number one. Ramon Laureano, not just because the power is there with the 261 ISO, but also he gets some steals. Six stolen bases so far this year versus Reides. Obviously that's enticing. Mark Kanna is thought of as being a lefty basher, but he can also do well versus Reides. Let's actually pull up, let's put Robbie Ray in here just to see how much space we have to work with here and let's scroll down to the A's. And I do want to put Olson in there just to see how much of a bind that puts me in. Kanna $3300, it's not too bad. Laureano, 36. That Chapman's 31, hitting the ball really well recently, so I am at least open to that, but I think you want to start with these two guys because of the upside. Once I do that, I am kind of in a bit of a pinch for value, so my hope would be that Kemp or Brown wind up playing Sean Murphy $2,600 does have upside as we see here versus Reides this year, 233 ISO, open to him if we need him for some value. I'd rather not go to Mitch Moreland, just a 116 ISO. Jet Lowry also not my favorite value player, the 143 ISO. So I think to me the ideal value plays. Guys who actually have a path to the upside are Seth Brown, Tony Kemp, Sean Murphy. I would rank them all above. Lowry will probably be higher in the order, but I'd still rather get to those guys there. If you have to use Jet, that's fine. He gets doubles, stuff like that, so I'm okay with it, but I'd rather prioritize those guys in terms of value for today. It's Mr. Jackie Moon over on Twitch. What are the questions supposed to be about? We're talking MLB DFS, Jackie. Welcome to the FanDuel Fantasy Q&A. Talking MLB DFS for today. So if you got any questions about today's slate for MLB DFS or if you don't know what MLB DFS is, let us know. Happy to answer any question you may have for today. Let's talk to DJ. How long do we ride at Wander Franco indefinitely? Just forever, honestly. I don't know who they're playing tomorrow. I do the main slate mapped out for tomorrow. They are facing Nick Povetta. So I guess maybe not tomorrow, but Povetta does allow some fly balls. Maybe we can go there tomorrow too, but today, keep on riding him. He'll be popular, but let's have some fun. It's more fun with Wander Franco than our lives. Alvin, if going 4-3-1, which team would be one from your favorites? So basically trying to map out which team is the best for one-offs. I think is the way that I would phrase that here. So to me, I think I definitely want the A's being one of the larger stacks in this equation here. The other larger stack I'd want would be the Astros. Obviously there is a lot of issues where I do need to find some value, but I think we can talk about the Astros lineup later. We do have some value in there for today. Kyle Tucker's back, Abraham Toro batting seventh. We can find ways to make this work. So I would say get the A's, get the Astros, and then probably Franco is like a one-off. Might be the one in there for you, Alvin. I do realize that it might be stupid to use the one Ray who is guaranteed to be super, super popular as your one-off, but again, he's really good. He's under salary. So to me, Alvin, I would say a 4-3 between the A's and the Astros, and then Franco probably a one-off as being the one in that situation. DJ, Danny Duffy or Rich Hill? Duffy is not going to have a full leash for today. Robert actually mentioned that over on Facebook too. And I think that I would be wary of that. Duffy has not pitched since, I think like May 12th or somewhere in there. Didn't have a rehab start. So not only am I expecting a low pitch count for Duffy, but you also have to question how effective he'll be with no rehab starts. I'm not like actively seeking out the Yankees from a stacking perspective, but I'm not opposed to them given the possibility that Duffy does struggle. I would project if you're like making out projections, which I'm sure all of you are, you know, every single day, cause why not? I would say that the projection is probably going to be somewhere around 40 to 50 or so for Duffy for today. Let's talk to DJ also asked, or James Caprellian. Yeah, James Caprellian is a guy willing to use checking in at $9,000 for today. Actually, right there already on the A's. The reason that like Caprellian is that he's been good even with some decreased movement recently. It's been a big thing to track is the movement on pitches because that's directly, that's what spin rate does gets you more movement. Caprellian into the three starts with fewer or with less movement has a 30% strikeout rate. He's facing the Rangers with a 26% strikeout rate at 90 WRC plus versus righties. I think that adds up pretty well. So among those options for me, it's Caprellian by a mile. Rich Hill was the other one who was included in there, but he's facing the Red Sox. They don't strikeout versus lefties and Hill really weird pitch counts, especially recently, 56, 59, 70, 86 over his pass four. So Hill's not a guy I'm going to use, but Caprellian to me is the number three pitcher for today. Close. So anything, any thoughts on the Mets Braes game for today? I think it has some potential for runs. Thanks. Conrad, oh hey, if that's the Conrad, hello. What's up Conrad? So I think that both sides of this game are at least in consideration for stacking. Tyler McGill starting for the Mets, he's coming from AAA, really good AAA numbers and good numbers in double A before that. So I'm not like actively seeking out the Braes, but the Braes are a very good offense. As we know, a super high ISO against righties, McGill is coming up from the minors and we've seen a lot of guys who've come up from AAA see the striking right tumble in a massive, massive way when they've made that jump. So you can definitely justify the Braes. I'm not going to be like ranking them super high for today because I am worried about them not having a lot of film on McGill and the fact that he hasn't pretty good, but they're a consideration. Probably would rather go towards the Mets. Kyle Wright is a guy who definitely has upside and I still think, I know that the major league numbers for Wright so far have not been good, but I still think that there are some causes for hope for Wright to be a good big league pitcher. Across eight starts in AAA this year, 22% strikeout rate, that's not ideal by any means, 12.2% swinging strike rate. That's why I think you can stack here. The reason I'm not like actively seeking out the Mets is that Wright does get ground balls, 48% ground ball rate in AAA this year. It was a 45% in the majors last year. So I would say if I had to choose between stacking the Mets or the Braes, I would rather stack the Mets, both of them are a consideration, but neither in my top three among stacks for today. The Mets would probably be fourth or fifth among the stacks and the Braes would be like sixth or so. Jason, Oakland again today. Yes, Jason, I agree. I think that Oakland last night, very logical play that worked out well. And I think it's just as good of a spot for today, facing Mike Fulton-Evich, not enough strikeouts, not enough bad ball suppression, really good offense for Oakland, not the best park by any means, especially again, assuming that the roof is closed for today in Texas, but still too good of a situation for me to pass up. Let's go back to Jackie over on Twitch. Thanks for sticking around Jackie. I see you got to go back to work. So sorry, the timing there, but would you stay away from Bauer versus the Padres? Hopefully Jackie's sticking around long enough to hear the answer here. I would probably be wary of Bauer. He has a really good pitch count and that does matter a lot for DFS. As you can see here, 117 to 115 is past two starts because he's a robot, but in the three starts in June, since the sticky stuff discussion came up, Bauer's strikeout rate is down to 27%. So he got a lot of volume, but a reduction in the strike area for Bauer. And it's always kind of a dilemma. Do we go with the volume? Do we go with the, I guess you could deem it as being efficiency in terms of a high strikeout rate. For Bauer, if you look at his game logs here, 34, 31, 55, he can still have good games. That good game though came against Arizona and San Diego is a much different beast. So to me personally, I think it's an okay night to stay away from Bauer, go with Ray if you want to spend up or go down for Caprelli and a Jose Arquiti if you do want to spend down for a pitcher for today. Let's talk to Matteo over on YouTube. So it looks like I am using the Houston pitcher. What do you think? I like Jose Arquiti quite a bit. He is a pitcher who really struggled at the beginning of this year, didn't get many strikeouts, went on the injured list and it seems like his changeup has been much better since he came back. There's been more movement on that changeup and he's gotten some good whiz. Last time out, it wasn't working versus the White Sox for whatever reason, potentially because they've got a lot of righties, not really sure what the reasoning for that was, but it wasn't like at its best last week. Either way, he's been much better in the four starts since he returned or he has a 3.18 skill interactive ERA that ranks third on the slate behind Robbie Ray and Joe Musgrove, 28% strikeout rate that ranks fourth, fifth. I guess Duffy doesn't really count because he's not going full today, but no walks, the Orioles, 25% strikeout rate versus righties, 86 WRC plus. I think Arquiti really saw a play for today. He is my number two pitcher overall behind Robbie Ray. So Ray, I think is my preferred route because he is so good in a plus matchup as well. But if you want to spend down, I will not, I think that Arquiti is a really good way to do so and I am higher on Arquiti than I usually am on the value plays for today. Let's talk to Alvin. We'll stick with the Astros here. Which Astros hitters are a priority, if any? All of them? Is that a cop out Alvin? Sorry. I think they're all kind of worth prioritizing here against Thomas Eschelman. Eschelman didn't have a great time down in triple A earlier on this year and now goes up to the big leagues. I think that it might be better to talk about the guys I'm not prioritizing and the guy I'm not prioritizing is Uli Gurriel. Batting thirds, obviously the spot in the order makes a lot of sense, but his ISO gets cut in half versus righties compared to what it is versus lefties. Yeah, 138, I think it's around 280 or so versus lefties, so I'm not prioritizing Gurriel. Kyle Tucker is back. If you're looking for someone who I want to make sure I get exposure to Kyle Tucker will be that guy. He's coming off the injured list, so you do have to worry about injuries whether he's healthy coming back, but he didn't miss a lot of time. So he comes back here, he was sick, so should be good to go. Last time, let's see here, June 13th, it is now the 23rd. So he missed the minimum number of days in the COVID IL. So we're gonna put Tucker in there. I do like Michael Brantley a lot, but the availability of Tucker kind of makes me like, ah, maybe I'll just go Tucker instead. I think I need to say some salary because I do want to go Robbie Ray. So we're gonna go Abraham Toro here. Third base, $2,100. If you look at him in his career versus righties, I think it's like a 160 ISO or so. Not the best number by any means, but it's high enough where I still feel okay using him for today in order to save value and get to Robbie Ray a picture. So I'll go with Toro for sure. And then I'm kind of choosing two between Altube, Correa, Alvarez, and Brantley. So let's go over here to the Astros number versus righties, Correa 267 ISO against righties. It's very good. He's great. Altube 263, one stolen base. We have Alvarez a 209 with a 26% strikeout rate and Brantley at a 190 ISO, but he's been much better than that since he came back from the injured list. So I would say I probably want Correa in there. Works well with the 567. And then it's between, I mean, I could honestly go for any of these guys. I think that everyone in the top seven is a good consideration for today. That does include Correa. I'm just saying I'm not prioritizing him and he probably would rank decently low on that list. All things considered. So if I had to pick, I guess I'd probably take the salary savings and go Brantley. But like, if I've got the salary to get to Alvarez or Altube, I'll take it. So honestly, everyone Alvin is in play, but I do think that Toro is a great value play, very good going there and Tucker under salaried coming off the IL at $3,000. Let's talk to Jason. What hitters from Oakland would you pick? Let's refresh one more time here to see if the lineup is out for Oakland yet because that will dictate a decent amount of what we do here. No lineup yet for Oakland, but hey, let's just, let's build this out for fun because I do wanna go with Olson and Laureano first. So we'll go Olson, Laureano, does put me in a hole for sure. The ideal situation is that we get Tony Kemp at second base. He occasionally bats higher in the order. So it does say eighth here. I don't think that's a given that he'll bat eighth. So let's hope that he bats higher in the order. And then to save some salary, we're gonna go over here to Sean Murphy as well. I love using catchers because no one else wants to use catchers on Fandals, you don't have to. But I think that he's just a good hitter with some power. So I would say these guys stand out to me if we can get Tony Kemp in there. If you don't wanna use Murphy, don't wanna use Kemp, I totally understand. Next gap in my list would be Mark Kana. Matt Chapman has been much better recently, been showing a lot of power, seems like he's getting over the all season stuff that he had. So it's not a big gap between Kana and Chapman, but I would put Kana above Chapman if given a choice between those two. DJ Casey stack against Michael King. Yeah, so I think that I would be good with that. I think there are probably fourth or fifth for me in terms of stacking. The one downside of that stack is that King has been doing a job of limiting fly balls. I would expect this number to rise. It's 26% through four starts in the rotation. I'd expect that number to go up as the sample goes along, but I wouldn't expect it to be like super high ever. So that's kind of the one downside of stacking here, but like everything else is fine. The Royals is not the most powerful team, but they have individual guys who can hit for power. And they could potentially be a value outlet here. You see Ryan O'Hearn batting fourth. So let's pull up the Royals numbers versus righties this year and see what O'Hearn's done. He's obviously not like a full-time guy bouncing around and all that stuff, but 56 plate appearances, 250 ISO, 50% fly ball rates. Yeah, baby. Okay, I'll take that. So we're gonna go here to the Royals. We're gonna put in O'Hearn as someone who can save us a lot of salary at $2,200. I don't know why I put him at utility. It was very stupid. Let's go here. Let's put O'Hearn at catcher slash first base. That does mean we have to omit either Salvador Perez or Carlos Santana. And I'd rather not omit one of them, but hey, sacrifices must be made. If we're choosing one of those guys, I choose Perez. Just love the upside he possesses. Obviously Santana has that too, but I am a sucker for catchers, as we just said. So we'll go with that one there. Other Royals you could consider if we're looking just like for power, I think that obviously Jorge Soler is gonna be on that list. Let's see what was the rest of the lineup looking like there. Soler Gutierrez, Santana and Witt. Hard hit Witt. 130 ISO, nine stolen bases. I think that the stolen base upside there is a difference maker for sure. We have Gutierrez, I think that in sixth, correct? Yeah, that in sixth. Okay, so Gutierrez, probably not a high enough upside guide to justify, so we're probably choosing between Witt and Soler. And obviously, if given the choice straight up, you would go with Witt. So Witt is $3400, whereas Soler is $3000. I think that gap is small enough where we can go with hard hit Witt and then probably go with Soler as the fourth member of the stack. Ohern kind of the big salary saver here. So if you're looking for like a checklist of guys to go through, if you're trying to save some salary to get to the Astros and the A's, I would say that Ohern deserves to be on that list. It is the same Krad. Okay, welcome back, welcome back Conrad. Good to have you back. Good to have you back in the DFS streets as well. Okay, Jerry, I feel like Robbie Ray will be a gem tonight. What do you think, also, what do you think about the Houston, New York and Atlanta stack? I agree, Robbie Ray, my number one pitcher for today. I think that if you're playing the cash game lineup, I would just lock Robbie Ray in there and let the rest work itself out. Playing tournaments, I would be overweight and Robbie Ray. There are good options elsewhere, but he's phenomenal and has the best ceiling on this slate. So I think that for cash games and for tournaments Robbie Ray is an elite option. Stacks for today, Houston, love it Jerry, very on board there. The Yankees, like I said, I'm not gonna talk anyone out because Duffy probably won't be out there super long, not sure what the effectiveness will be coming off of the injury. So the Yankees work, they're not my favorite stack, but they work. Atlanta, pretty similar, facing McGill. They work, not my favorite stack, but again, probably around sixth or so in terms of stacking for today. So Jerry, no real objections to those. I definitely feel best about Houston, love Robbie Ray. I think that that's a good way to start off your lineup is with Ray and Houston in terms of stacking. Let's talk to Kyle on YouTube. Who do you like from potential Ray's and Yankees stacks? We talked about how the Yankees are kind of like middling to me, not super intrigued about going there. And if I had a guess just based on what their implied total is, I would bet I wind up being underweight on the Yankees. Again, justifiable play because Robbie, or we don't know how long Duffy will be in there, but I think we've got better options elsewhere. Let's talk about a Ray's stack though and see if their lineup is out yet. Cause it was not the last time I refreshed and it's still not, but I think we have a decent idea of where Franco should hit because, I mean, we haven't seen him against the rightie yet, but like we should have a decent idea of where he'll be. So let's pull up the Ray's here. I'm going to put Franco in there first because again, we want to have fun while playing DFS using Wander Franco, very fun. So we're going to put him in there first. We're going to go to the Ray's numbers here. I can tell you for sure that Brandon Lau in Austin Meadows would be a consideration for me. And now that may sound weird because Meadows is in a pretty decent slump, but he's still good. If you look at the numbers within that slump they're still pretty solid. So I would say Meadows, Lau, Wendell, all guys I would be good trying to get to. If you're looking for some salary savers, let's check out what the numbers are here. Zanino is $2,600. Gimon Choi is $2,500. Between those two guys, Choi has a 43% fly ball rate, 32% strike area a little bit higher than you'd want. Zanino, it's for a lot of power, obviously. Strikeout rate this year, 43%. I believe that has been going up across recent games. Let me check that though. Check out the game log on Zanino. I kind of treat him similar to Miguel Suno where I care more about their recent form in terms of specifically strikeouts and deciding how I want to handle them. So let's look at here since it started June on Zanino. See what the strikeout number is, 42%. So it's been going up a bit. I would say if I had to choose between Choi and Zanino, I would go Choi, but I'm also okay with either guy. We're gonna go with Lau at second base and I want Meadows in the outfield. And again, Wendell will be the other guy to consider here in terms of a Raystack, but also if you wanna go Zanino, totally fine. He's got upside, so on board with all of these. Let's talk to Jonathan over on Facebook. Should I go with Ray or Caprellian or does it matter? Jonathan, nothing matters because we are all hurtling towards death at the exact same rate, regardless, but if you're trying to win money, I would go Robbie Ray. James Caprellian, really good option. I think that they're both really solid, but I would say that Robbie Ray is the number one. Everything matters, Jonathan, totally joking. But Robbie Ray, number one for me, Caprellian's number three with Jose Orquiti being number two for me. Let's talk to Tone. Hi, Jim, can you provide a quick advice on how projected roster rate works? Okay, so if you want just an idea of who is gonna be popular for that day, a lot of people base their opinions from MLB DFS off of what bookmakers are saying, it makes sense, because there's a lot of money behind bookmaking, so obviously they wanna make good decisions. So you can look at picture and see which guys highest implied or the lowest implied total against. So Robbie Ray will be popular, Joe Musgrove probably won't be, Bauer might not be, but I think that this tells you Robbie Ray will likely be very popular. I've already said that I'm okay with that. Do not care, totally fine. As far as offenses, I'd assume Houston is gonna be up there. Yeah, the Yankees up there. You can assume that these two teams will be very popular for today because they've got implied totals or high implied totals. A's will be up there as well. Wander Franco as a result of Buzz will be popular. But again, I'm not gonna push back on it. So basically what I would say, Tone, is identify which tools people use to decide where they wanna go and then leverage that to know where they're gonna go. I just based on reading MLB DFS content, I know people lean on implied totals a lot. So Houston, New York, Robbie Ray, likely to be the most popular options across the slate for today. That's kind of the way I would phrase it. You can actually, you can pay for roster a projections. I believe Rotogriders has them among other sites, but if you just wanna go quick and dirty type look, you can look at implied totals. All right, so Buzz threw a couple here to end things out. Jerry's given his home run calls. Jorge Soler for Kansas City and Jean-Carlo Stanton for the Yankees. Maybe Judge, kind of feel like Arshela gonna pop one. Acunia always an option. Love Soler, love Stanton. If I'm gonna give a home run call for today though, it's gotta be Matt Olson against both the Nevich. I'm gonna go Matt Olson for one and I will go with, I'm just gonna stick with Matt Olson actually. Just Matt Olson. We're going solo today. Soledolo, Matt Olson, good to go. Okay, the Ray's lineup is out. Laos, Choi, Franco, Meadows, Arosarayna, Wendell, Margot, Wallace and Zanino. Okay, so based on that, I would put Choi above Zanino for sure, like more definitively. Laos great, Franco great, Meadows great. Arosarayna does have speed. So the decreased power of the others doesn't matter as much, but I would still say I'd prioritize the other guys over him for that one, but that does bump Choi up a bit for me relative to Zanino. DJ, if you need George Springer, he is back in the lineup for Toronto. They are facing Trevor Rogers. So not today, but down the line we'll definitely talk George Springer. Trevor Rogers is really good. So not going to any blue J's, but he's always very good. Finally, DeFuse, hopping in a bit late. I would just one quick question. Favorite right-handed A is back. Okay, so Fultonevich, obviously a righty. He definitely is better versus righties and lefties, but obviously like there aren't a ton of lefties within the A's. So we're choosing here between Canna, Chapman, and I mean, I like Murphy. I think that Murphy's up there as well. So that's probably the, a Loriano. So like if I can choose just one DeFuse and like cop out, it'd be Loriano. He's not like a right-handed bat. He's like a right-handed deity. So like I think that's kind of a cop out, but I would go him if you have me to pick a second one because Loriano is kind of cheating because he's too good. I would go Canna over Chapman by a hair. That is all that we have here for today on the FanDuel Fantasy Q&A. But as mentioned, we are back again tomorrow, not just with DFS, but also with Aaron Dolan talking some betting. So make sure you tune in 4 p.m. for DFS, 4.30 for Aaron on betting. That'll be in the same place. It'll be in the same stream too. So just come here, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter. Make sure you are subscribed. Make sure you swing back tomorrow. Follow Aaron on Twitter at AaronK Dolan and I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. For watching YouTube, hit the like button because that does help us out a bunch and then make sure you once again, you are subscribed. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald, their video producer for running the video side of things here today. Thank you, Cal, as always. Thank you to everyone for tuning in and asking fantastic questions. I appreciate it as always. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow. This has been the Fan Will Fantasy Q&A.