 We have got an early lock for the main slate today in MLB DFS. 12.35 p.m. Eastern is the lock for that. If you want to play the late slate for tonight, we'll talk about that later on today, but we're gonna blitz through the main slate for today. Let you know top three pitchers, top three stacks, hopefully get you on your way to starting off your day on a high note with some MLB DFS. Welcome on into the solo shop. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire. You're gonna break down this for a game main slate with lock set for 12.35 p.m. Eastern for today. As mentioned, I will break down the late slate tonight. If you want some thoughts on that, check out the episode description. Go to the timestamp there and I'll break down one pitcher, two stacks on the two game slate beginning at 7.07 p.m. Eastern for today. As for the main slate, no weather notes. So we'll dive on in and talk about the pitching preview in just one second. But first, a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy Podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can also check out the solo shot over on the FanDuel YouTube page if you want a video version as well. If you like what you hear, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or leave us a five star rating over on Apple Podcasts. The second leg of horse racing's big three is here and FanDuel is the best place to bet the preakness stakes because right now all customers get a no sweat preakness bet up to $20. That means you'll get up to $20 back if your win bet doesn't win. Bet the preakness with America's number one sports book. Just visit racing.fanDuel.com for your chance to get a no sweat preakness bet up to $20 this Saturday. That's racing.fanDuel.com. Age and residency, restrictions apply, offer valid on first win wager, refund issued is non with travel racing site credit that expires on June 12th, 2023. Restricts his applies to terms at racing.fanDuel.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Pitching preview for the main slave for today, Taj Bradley comes in with the highest salary on FanDuel. His salary is $10,200. Dylan Cease is down 98 with Logan Allen facing Cease in 94, Tyler Wells 92 with Eury Perez at $8,500. Now Cease has not been himself so far this year. And if you look at the recent game logs, I have not seen many signs of improvement either. But today he's facing the Guardians. I'm expecting Jose Ramirez to still be out. It's a rough offense. And I think that allows us to be on Cease today. The Guardians without Ramirez on the active roster have just a 72 WRC plus against Raidys with a 105 ISO. My goodness, that is wretched. Thankfully, Cease needs that because he's been struggling so far this year. The velocity is down. It had been looking like it was coming back up, but his most recent start Velo went back down. He's also been scaling back on his curve usage this year. And it was a good pitch for him last year. The X-Woba against that curve, according to Baseball's Avant, was 268. But it's 369 this year. The velocity on the pitch, the spin rate are both down. So it makes sense he'd scale back on it, but it hurts to lose a good pitch. And it doesn't make us feel good about Cease going forward knowing that one of his strikeout pitches is not a good part of his arsenal right now. But Cease is smart. He's a good pitcher, not just a good throw. He's a good pitcher. And he's been able to make it work at times. He threw six shutout innings against the Astros last week. And this offense is much worse than the one he faced there. So I don't mind pivoting off of Cease if you think he'll be popular, which could happen for sure. But just straight up, I think that Cease is the best pitcher on this slate, even with his struggles. So I like Cease. I think he's in the same tier as some other guys on the slate though. So even like I said, if you think Cease can be chalky, I'm okay pivoting, potentially within that exact same game. This White Sox offense, they struggled so far this year, but there's something pretty good against lefties. So maybe you don't wanna go to Logan Allen on the opposing side. I think he's pretty fun though. And Allen to me is going to be the top pivot away from Dylan Cease for today. Allen thus far has lived up to the hype. He came in with pretty high expectations because he is a well-regarded prospect, but early returns on him are very good. Across four starts, Allen has a 3.96 skill interactive ERA. His strike rate is 25%. And he backs up that strikeout rates with a 12.7% swinging strike rate. Allen has stretched out too. He's gotten eight strikeouts twice already thus far. So he's pitching well. And honestly, this isn't a huge surprise. Allen pitched well in triple A this year before his promotion. He was dominant in double A last year too. So I don't think we should be surprised. I don't think we should think this is flukey from Allen right now. It is a tough task for today, which is why Cease has a hair above him because Cease gets a very easy matchup. Allen does not. The White Sox against lefties, 131 WRC+, 220 ISO, but they also do have the highest strikeout rate on this slate. As a result of that, Allen leads my strikeout projections for the main slate at 6.2. I am fine buying into that, especially if it's a pivot off of Cease, if Cease will definitively be the more popular guy between the two. So to me, Cease is one, but Allen's in the same tier and if I'll get a big rostery discount, I'm fine going to Allen instead. With that said, I think there is a third guy in this tier too. And that third guy is similar to Allen, where he is a prospect, a guy who is young, coming up and impressing. It is Natasha Bradley. It's Auri Perez. Just 20 years old, I'm gonna make him our top value for today and the number three overall pitcher on the slate. Perez made the very difficult jump from double A to the majors. And that's a tough way to go, but he's looked good in both spots. I think we can justify using him today. It does help. He's in a good matchup, similar to Cease. He's facing the Nationals, 79 WRC plus against Reides, with a 103 ISO. Perez did let us some hard contact in his debut, so the lack of power in the opposing offense is definitely a good thing here. In that debut, Perez was throwing gas. And that's not just saying he's throwing hard, but it was unhittable. He can't hit gas and his swinging striker was 17% with a 35% strikeout rate. He was very, very good there. And like Allen, Perez is stretched out. He went 88 pitches in that game. He did hit 90 pitches in triple A. I have Perez projected for 5.02 strikeouts tonight, which is not as high as Allen, but he's in a plus matchup. He's at home. He's kind of fun. So I don't mind having some fun today, both with Allen and with Perez. So if you want to be off of Cease, I don't blame you. I think for single entry, I'm not going to Cease personally. I'd rather go to Perez or Allen, who might have lower roster rates. Perez, lower salary too. I think that's the preferred way to go. So straight up, I prefer Cease most because the matchup is so good. But if you want to pivot, I am fully on board with that for sure. Let's talk about some stacks for today. I do like stacks. Again, it's a small slate, just a four game slate, but really good options here. And I think the stacking options are better than the pitching options. That begins with the raise. We're facing Tyler McGill, who has some potential to be fun. He got strikeouts last year, even when he was a starter. This year though, that has not happened. And he's facing the raise today. And I think that we should stack the raise against him. McGill in eight starts has a 17% strikeout rates with a 12% walk rate and that low strikeout rate is validated by his swinging strike rate at 8.9%. Now those issues have not hurt McGill yet because his ERA is 4.02, which is actually better than what he had last year. But his skill interactive ERA is 5.44. His expected ERA is 5.90. He's doing a decent job with contact suppression with a 34% hard hit rate, but he has also had a lot of soft matchups. Look at the game logs, a lot of lower ranked offenses there. The raise aren't that. They have a 138 WRC plus against Reides with a 232 ISO. I am very willing to stack the raise here. I think they make a lot of sense and a team I want to be high on. The thing I love about the raise is the stolen bases because last night Kodesenga had 12 strikeouts against them. But if you stack the raise, you were probably still okay because they stole like 47 bases. Now maybe if Francisco Alvarez is not catching today, maybe that's not quite as prevalent, but they have five separate guys in this roster with a 170 ISO against Reides and at least throw three stolen bases. Those guys are Josh Lowe, Randy Arosa-Rena, Taylor Walls, Wander Franco and Jose Ciri. I think that's the kind of team we should want to build around in DFS. They have five of them all in the same roster that doesn't count some guys who are probably right beneath those thresholds. So I'd be sure to factor in speed when deciding which guys to include in this stack, but also every stack. I had a lineup last night with eight stolen bases in which I don't think I've ever had in my entire life of a decade of playing MLB DFS. I don't think I've ever had eight stolen bases in one lineup. These matter a lot. We need to factor them in. And I think that's part of why the Reys make a lot of sense for stacking, not just today, but pretty much every day they are on the slate. Number two stack is gonna be the Orioles, facing Tyler Anderson, who's still trying to rekindle last year's magic. He has made changes that have helped him a bit, but I do still want to stack the Orioles against him. For the full season, Anderson has a 5.78 skill interactive ERA. He was at 4.04 last year, so a big drop off. Over his past four starts, Anderson has cut back on his forcing fastballs in favor of more cutters and changeups. And his ERA in that time is good at 4.3. So that could lead you to believe he's turning things around. But his skill interactive ERA in that stretch is still 5.72, and that's even with some plus matchups in there. He faced the Brewers who adore striking out against lefties. He led a five runs to the Royals, three to the Guardians, and those are not great teams. The Orioles might be, it's a small sample, but against lefties, they have a 126 WRC plus with a 191 ISO. I do think Anderson will figure things out eventually cause he's a good pitcher, but he's not there yet. And I think that allows us to stack against him, especially when it's a team as good and as fun as the Orioles are for tonight. All the righties and switch hitters are fine in this lineup, but I also don't mind Cedric Mullins. Now, earlier on this year, they were facing a leftie and Mullins got dropped down the order. And that was kind of like a red flag. Like, okay, they don't trust Mullins against lefties, but he actually has more walks and strikeouts against them in a small sample this year. He was not terrible against lefties last year either, and he's willing to steal on them. So it's a lefty and lefty matchup. Mullins has not always had the faith of his managerial staff against lefties, but I faith in him personally. So assuming that Mullins does play and assuming he's not dropped way down the order, I'm very okay, even though he is a lefty facing Anderson here. Finally, for our third stack, I am gonna go with the Mets facing Taj Bradley. He is the highest salary guy in the slate. He is a super fun prospect. He looked great in his three big league starts. So this feels bad, not gonna lie, but I do still think we should stack against him here. Bradley was awesome early, and I wanna acknowledge that first and acknowledge how awesome he was. 38% strikeout rate in three starts, 3% walk rate. Those are great phenomenal numbers, but he is a big fly ball guy. He always has been and I'm not really sure if the strikeouts will remain that high because in those three starts, his swinging strike rate was 11.5%. It was 12.5% in triple A and the results against him down there were pretty rough, led up a lot of hard contact and we saw that in the majors as well. So Bradley is going to be good. I have no doubt about that, but I don't know if we need to avoid him on a four game slate just yet, especially if he is the highest salary guy in the slate, we can assume that a MET stack will not be that popular, but I kinda love it. It might go poorly, cause again, Bradley's good and he will be good, but I'd rather stack a good team in a mediocre matchup than stack a bad one with no power. So the METs to me stand out as being a fun stack, especially for things like single entry. So I think you can be different without being dumb on this main slate, you know, going away from seats, going elsewhere, checking out teams like the METs potentially for stacking, I think that that is a fun formula for today. I'm going to keep on buying Brett Beatty within these MET stacks, his salary here down to $2,600, but he is still hitting the ball hard. He has got good plate discipline numbers. So I adore him here. I think that he is great in MET stacks or as a one-off piece of 26, if you need a salary saver to help you get to Mullins, help you get to all the high upside raise, I think that makes a lot of sense. So very okay with Brett Beatty within MET stacks or as a one-off. No things to watch here, cause we'll go through the late slate later on. So let's talk about Dinger picks for today on the main slate. The boring one, I'll go Ryan Mountcastle facing off with Anderson, fly ball pitcher, not the best park for home runs by any means, Baltimore, but I have a lot of power in this guy. So Ryan Mountcastle going to be the first Dinger pick for today. For the fun one, I will go Beatty. Again, I really love the contact profile. I think that's gonna start hitting Dinger's eventually. Got the MET off last night cause they're facing lefty back in there likely for today. So I think he goes deep against Bradley, fly ball pitcher, that's a plot hard contact. So Dinger calls for the main slate, Ryan Mountcastle and Brett Beatty. Before we finish up, do want to talk briefly on the after hours slate. That is a two game slate at 7 o' seven PM Eastern for today. As far as pitching goes, I feel best about Julio Arias a pitcher. He is facing the Cardinals who are very good against lefties, not a fun matchup, but Arias is very good. He has a 3.65 skill interactive ERA. Since adding his cutter this year, he has a 25% strikeout rate. So I don't like using lefties against the Cardinals, but I do think Arias is the best option among the pitchers for tonight. So Julio Arias, number one pitcher on the after hours slate. As far as stacks, I don't mind stacking the Dodgers on the other side of that game. They get Adam Wainwright and Wainwright struggled in his rehab stint. He struggled his first two starts in the majors. They've not been great. So I would love to stack against the guy with a better batted ball profile for stacking, but it's a two game slate, not a lot we can go towards. So I do think the Dodgers are the best stack on the after hours slate. As far as the second stack goes, I actually think I like the Blue Jays more than I like the Yankees. The Jays facing Nesta Cortez, Yankees get Jose Barrios. And if you had given me this matchup a month ago, maybe two weeks ago, I would have said, okay, we'll stack the Yankees instead of the Blue Jays, but Cortez really struggling with hard contact. The Jays not as lethal against lefties as they used to be, but I still don't mind going at them here. It might be dumb, but I've done plenty of dumb things in my life. So this is not a first. So I would go with the Jays as the preferred stack of that game over the Yankees, despite the fact it's Barrios. I know Barrios struggled for a long time. He's been a little bit better recently. So we'll go with the Dodgers, the one stack, the Jays to Yankees three, and Urias as a top pitcher on the after hours slate. That is all that we have here for today for this Thursday breakdown of MLB DFS, but we are back with you once again tomorrow to break down a full Friday slate to get that right as it is posted. Make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast scene wherever you get your podcast and also check us out over on the Fandall YouTube page. If you've got questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandall podcast network at Fandall podcast. Want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down Friday slate. This has done the solo shot right here on the Fandall podcast network.