 I had an absolute blast this past weekend at the World Fantasy Baseball Championship via Fanduul out in Denver, Colorado. That was on Saturday night watching the best DFS players on the planet duke it out for half a million dollars first place. Had a great time out there and a Fanduul fan fest on Sunday. But now back here for a 14 game slate to break things down. It's a big thank you to Tom Vecchio for covering what looked like a pretty gross slate last night. So thank you Tom. Sorry I had to go through that. But back here today for a 14 game slate and one I think we got a lot of different ways to play things. There is a super high side picture I like. There's mid range guys. But also if you want to go Corbin Burns 11 five, you can do so because I do think there are some good lower salary stacks as well. So plenty to discuss. Let's dive on in and get you set. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the Fanduul podcast network and numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com here to break down Tuesday's 14 game main slate with lock set for 705 for tonight. And despite it being a 14 game slate, there's not a lot of weather to note for today. So it should be good to go to play things straight up before we dive into the pitching preview for tonight. Quick scheduling update for this week here on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed with the PGA event being pushed back to finishing up yesterday, salary has been pushed back, lots and pushed back. So instead of doing the PGA podcast as our usual time on Tuesday, we're going to push that back to Wednesday, Wednesday at 11 a.m. Eastern on the Fanduul YouTube page, Brandon Goodula and I breaking down the PGA DFS slate for the BMW championship. That is again 11 a.m. on YouTube and up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed after that. Brandon's Q&A will also be on Wednesday, 3.30 p.m. on the Fanduul YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. So I'll be here regular time for MLB today, 4 p.m. Brandon's back tomorrow, 3.30 p.m. on the Fanduul YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages and I'll be in with MLB after that. So make sure you're subscribed on those platforms, but also check out the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, sports fans, Fanduul is offering an exclusive promotion for new sportsbook users. Join Fanduul Sportsbook today and make your first bet. If you lose, they'll give you a refund up to $1,000 a 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 make. Head over to the Fanduul Sportsbook today and place your first bet. Must be 21 plus and present Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. New users only max bonus $1,000 site credit. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduul.com. Gambling problem call 100 gambler in Colorado, 105, 22, 4700 in Iowa, 100 bets off in Indiana, 1809 with it for confidential health in Michigan, 1802, 707, 117 in Tennessee, call the red line at 1-800-889-979 or in West Virginia, 1-800-gambler.net. Pitching preview for this Tuesday main slate, Corbin Burns is the highest salary pitcher on Fanduul checking in at $11,500 and we have Jack Flaherty at 10-3. Julio Arias coming off the aisle at $9,700. Charlie Morton is 96 facing the Yankees. Tyler Malley, $9,200. Hermann Marquez is $9,000 facing the Cubs. We have Madison Bumgarner, Dylan Cease, Jose Barrios and Luis Garcia as the other pitchers at $8,000 are higher. And I am going to rank Corbin Burns first for today. And once again, there is risk with Brewer's pitchers because they could get Yankees early to keep guys fresh for October. We've seen that happen. Now it burns yet, but that probably means it's somewhere down the line. I think that's a bit less likely tonight than usual though because they are facing the Reds and the Reds trying to chase down the Brewers in the NL Central. It's a seven-and-a-half game lead, so that's big, but it's also still just August and they could erase a lead like that. So if they're going to let Corbin Burns rip against anybody, it's probably going to be the Reds. That should help out our confidence in him for tonight. He's been using his curve more over his past eight starts. And I think we've seen Burns start to get back to similar to where he was before the sticky stuff discussion. Definitely a down tick there for Burns after that began, but before then pitching really well. And he's not quite fully back there, but he's getting closer. He has a 3.03 skill interactive VRA with a 30% strikeout rate and a 5% walk rate. The bad of ball data for Burns in that time is very good as well. Now the Reds are a good offense. They have a 112 WRC plus against Reds and a lot of power. So a league average pitcher is not going to fare well against the Reds, but Burns clobbered them the one time they did face. That was back on July 18th. So more than a month ago, not familiar with what he's doing right now, Burns had 12 strikeouts over eight and a third shutout innings. Backing was in Cincinnati and now he's at home. It does help if this game stays close because we want to increase the odds that Burns stays in there. And I think that that is more likely in a close game against the one team trying to run down the Brewers right now. And I like the upside for Burns if that does happen. So I think there is enough in Burns' favor to still view him super highly, despite the fact there is some risk with the situation here where the Brewers could yank him early. So to me, Burns still worth it. I can find ways to make his salary work too, giving the stacks we like for today. So Corbin burns to me the number one pitcher on this slate. As far as number two, Jack Flaherty is not a guy I was on last week. I feel good about that process, not being there for that one because I wasn't sure of his pitch count. He didn't look great in his first or back. He was fine, but not great. But he looked good in the second start. And I think he looked good enough where we can't like him tonight against the Tigers. He faced the Brewers in that game and he got eight strikeouts there. The Brewers are regarded as being a super high strikeout team, and they were earlier on this year. And in general, they still kind of are, but they're not as extreme there as they were in the past. So I think that Flaherty getting eight strikeouts there is more impressive than it would have been against the Brewers earlier on this year. That's one big thing. We also did see Flaherty go deeper in games. He went 92 pitches in that one, which makes me think he's probably fully stretched out, probably going 95 to 100 for tonight. That's good. If we look at the two starts for Flaherty since he came back, he has a 2.80 skill interactive ERA. His strikeout rate is 31%. He's not walking guys. The bad at ball date is pretty good too. So you combine the two starts together and the numbers at least are good. The swinging strikes haven't necessarily been there, but that's still gotten him strikeout. So that's the one lingering concern is not a lot of whiffs as of yet for Flaherty. The Tigers have cooled down a bit recently. Their WRC plus against righties is back down to 90. They have a 26% strikeout rate versus righties, which is tied for the highest mark on the slate. Flaherty is also at home, which means the Tigers lose a DH in a National League Park. So yeah, there are still some issues again. The lack of whiffs is a concern for me, but there are concerns with every pitcher on the slate, at least in my mind. So I'm willing to use him despite the imperfections. So to me, the stud tier is Burns 1, Flaherty 2. Before we talk about value plays, I do think that some of the other stud pitchers would be above them as well. Specifically, Charlie Morton $9,600. The Yankees playing good baseball right now, they lose a DH tonight going to Atlanta. So that may thin things out a little bit, which could help Morton. So Morton is number three for me before we talk about the value plays. Emmanuel Marquez $9,000 facing the Cubs. We'll talk about him in Things to Watch. But for a strict value play below $9,000, I've got some concerns about Luis Garcia. He has an underwhelming pitch count. He has not gone longer than 90 pitches since June 30th. And he went to 70 pitches last week. And the 70 pitches came against the same team he will face tonight, which means it's a repeat matchup with familiarity and there are pitch count concerns. But among the values, Garcia is my favorite. A repeat match appears with the Royals. And Garcia's results in that game were not great. He led up three runs across five innings, but he got whiffs. He had a 17.1% swinging strike rate in that game. Just didn't translate to strikeouts for whatever reason. And that's been a theme for him, where Garcia has gotten a lot of whiffs, a lot of swinging strikes, even in the short stints he's been out there. He's been leaning pretty heavily on his cutter over his past seven starts. And in that time, he has a 32% strikeout rate with a 3.09 skill interactive VRA, which has helped Garcia get strikeouts, even with his limited pitch counts. In that seven-start sample, Garcia has had less than seven strikeouts just twice. They happen to be his two most recent starts, but you look at those starts, dig into the numbers. I don't see anything too concerning to expect a down tick for Garcia going forward. He had nine against Seattle. He had eight strikeouts twice. Basically, we just need Garcia to be around 90 or so pitches, and he could potentially pay off at $8,300. $8,300, a very fair salary, big discount from the other guys on the slate. I think he's worth a few looks. I do prefer Burns with Flaherty up for Morton. I feel like if I had to rank out the guys, if we go 9,000 and lower, Marquez would be above Garcia for me, but we'll talk about Marquez and things to watch. Garcia, realistically probably ranked fifth for me tonight behind Burns, Flaherty, Morton, Marquez, and then he's sitting in fifth, but that might be high enough to get some looks out of 14 game slates. Not a guarantee that Garcia winds up in my player pool, but very willing to consider him if you are insistent on spending down. As far as stacking goes for today, we do want to try to find some value. Try to find some guys who can make allow us to use Corbin Burns, our pitcher in 11-5. We do need to find a lot of flexibility there. I will say though that the Red Sox are going to be pretty attractive and that may push you to go Flaherty, may push you to go Morton, Marquez, maybe Garcia as well, because the Red Sox do grade out really well for tonight. We'll talk about some more lower salary options in just a second. But first, the Red Sox, sometimes a bit overvalued. They get these huge totals all the time, which drives the popularity, and there's also their popular team too. But I think that that popularity they will get tonight is justified. They're facing Griffin Jax, and he's had some good flashes as a rookie. The overall body of work is fine, but it also is a body of work we can stack against. Jax has made five starts since joining the Twins rotation full-time. He has a 4.53 skill interactive ER rate. That is not a number you automatically stack against, but a lot of the reason the number is respectable there is due to a low walk rate. The strike rate for Jax is just 20%. He's letting up a 41% hard hit rate with a 46% fly ball rate. And when you let up a lot of balls and play and don't have the best bat at ball data, that can lead to some pretty big time implosion. It has not happened yet for Jax. He has a 2.73 ER rate in those five starts, and it's not due to competition either because he faced Houston once, he faced the White Sox twice. So he's had good results against good teams. I'm just not sure how sustainable that is based on the peripheral numbers Jax has put up. So I think it's worthwhile to stack against him here, especially with such a powerful offense on the other side in the Red Sox for tonight. As far as which Red Sox to prioritize, Jax's platoon splits aren't robust yet, because he's not been in the rotation super long, but the early returns do say that righties are fully fair game here, which means we can feel good about being high on JD Martinez, Hunter Renfro, Kiki Hernandez, but we're still going to obviously love guys like Rafael Devers and Kyle Schwarber. So feel okay with the righties here based on Jax's initial numbers, but Devers and Schwarber are going to be hard to turn down. For the second and third stacks, we're going to stick with the same game, with one game, just one game for the second and third stacks. Because I like both sides of the Angels Orioles game in Baltimore for tonight. I like the Angels more because they're a better team, but I do like the Orioles too. So let's start with the Angels and then talk about the Orioles. Angels are facing Spencer Watkins. And we've talked about this a couple of times where he's just not quite doing enough to get the job done in terms of keeping us away from stacking against him. We're up to six starts since the velocity stabilized for Watkins is pretty low. His first two starts been stable for the past six starts. In that time, he has a 5.34 steal interactive ERA. His strike at rate is 14%. That's very low. His walk rate is fine at 7%, but similar to what we talked about Jax, where fewer walks means more balls and play. And for DFS, we'll take that trade off for sure. The bad of all data for Watkins is not terrible, but it's also not great either. And we've seen good teams get to him. The Rays, Blue Jays, teams like that, the Angels have not quite been that great team recently, but they're also not actively bad. It's still a 101 WRC plus against Reides. So I think they've got no juice here to make this work. And I like the healthy amount here. And again, they can help us get to Corbin Burns for tonight because outside of Shohio Tani, nobody else is a salary above $3,000. So I think that Justin Upton and Max Stasi work, even against a Reides, Jared Walsh is downgraded coming off his injury. He had three hard hit balls with the weekends, but just he's not what he was before he got hurt. So I'm still fine with Walsh, given he did have some hard contact with the weekend. But if I'm ranking out the stacking options of the Angels, and so Tani won, Upton two, Stasi three, and then we're looking at a guy like, looking at or turning towards Jared Walsh after that. So get the other guys first, then turn to Walsh. But because I just think that the number since he came back concerning enough where I can't feel great about him. As far as the Orioles go, they're getting not sure if it's their revenge game for them or revenge game for Dylan Bundy. But either way, Bundy is back in Baltimore. And unfortunately for him and for people who root for Bundy, it's not the same form for Bundy now that he initially had when he left the Orioles. It's a bummer because you saw him go through a lot of struggles in Baltimore. You kind of root for the guys as a result of that, but hasn't been able to sustain things specifically since the sticky stuff discussion began. Since he came back in the rotation though, he didn't seem like he really picked up much when he was in the bullpen. He's had four starts back. It's a 5.41 skill interactive ERA. Strikeout rate is 17%. The bad at ball data, not ideal either. In fact, I would say it's probably more concerning than the 17% strikeout rate. He's living up a 40% hard hit rate with a 42% fly ball rate. We saw this earlier in the year. And that's why Bundy got moved into the bullpen, but now due to injuries, he's back in the rotation. And I don't think the struggles are a small sample thing. It's a situation where I think we should keep stacking against him as long as the opposing team is competent. And I think the Orioles are at least that. I think that competent is a fair word to use with them. They have a 93 WRC plus against righties. That means they're below average. That's 7 percentage points below average. And that's not great, but it's also not like we're not stacking the Cubs. We're not stacking the Rangers or anything like that. We're stacking the Orioles who are fine and seem to still be trying at least down the stretch. The ball in the air a lot too. So I think that in this matchup, they've actually got a pretty good ceiling. Maybe the meeting expectation is not great given that they're not a great offense, but the ceiling is there. And I do like that quite a bit. And again, there's some value here. Nobody on this team has a salary higher than $3300. I would use DJ Stewart at $2300 if he gets in there, kind of a platoon with Austin Hayes. So Stewart should play, but not always a lock for sure. Anthony Santander had a double long over the weekend. Seems like he's finally rounding back into form. He's $2,900. So I think that's Santander definitely a guy to turn to for tonight as a value play and probably one of the better value plays overall on this slate. So the top stack for today will be the Red Sox, Angels and Orioles. As far as other things to watch for tonight, I did not talk about Emma Marquez in the pitching section. I love him and I love the matchup. I'm just not sure how long they're going to let him go in this game because he's gone 76, 81, 83 pitches over his past three starts. That could be a situation where the Rockies realize, hey, we're not going to compete this year and we have Marquez in our long-term plans. Maybe we scale back a bit and make sure he's healthy for 2021 or 2022. We're already in 2021. So I think that that's the concern for Marquez for me. It's the same concern we have with Garcia. So that's why I think that I would put Marquez above Garcia. I feel more steady with the talent there. I like the matchup more. It's also not a repeat matchup. So Marquez over Garcia for me, but that's the reason I couldn't be higher on Marquez, despite the fact his matchup is superb for tonight. I can't stack the Nats because they are just too bad of a team. They're also in Miami, but I am down for some one offs here. Facing Jesus Lizardo still really struggling with his new team. He has a 6.21 skill interactive ERA and four stars with an 18% walk rate. So we've stacked most teams against him. The Nats are just one of those exceptions because there are there are some limitations to how far we can go here. So one so to play for one offs, Josh Belkin at lefties, Carter Kaiboum is pretty solid. So just be cautious with exposure levels because a bad team does drag down everyone fewer run scoring chances, fewer RBI chances, fewer plate appearances. So we should account for overall team strength even with one offs and that does lower those guys, but I still think that Soto, Bell, Kaiboum, etc. can work either way. Finally, it's a similar line of thinking with Cleveland for tonight. They're facing Taylor Hearn and he's struggling to get strikeouts as he stretches out to be a starter for the Rangers. So Framel Reyes, Jose Ramirez, Ahmed Rosario, they're all fine options here, but that's just about where it ends with them though. So check out one offs on Cleveland and on Washington, but probably don't get to quite full stacks there because the overall team context is pretty, pretty bad. Let's finish up shop here today with some Dinger calls. We're going to go back to that game in Baltimore for both of these for today. The boring one is about as boring as it gets. We're going to go Shohei Otani as our Dinger call for today among the boring options. For the fun ones, it's a guy we talked about before, Anthony Santander. Couple home runs back on Saturday. Seems like he's getting a lot of barrels recently, getting back in the form he had before his injury. So the home run calls for today, Shohei Otani, Anthony Santander, and it is Dinger Tuesday as well over at Fandal Sportsbook. So maybe check out those guys, see what the odds are and proceed from there. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot once again, a big thank you to Tom Vecchio filling it for me on Monday with that apparently pretty bad slate. So thank you, Tom, for biting the bullet there. We'll be back once again later on today, 4 p.m. for the NLB DFS Q&A. Brandon is back tomorrow with the heat check at 11 a.m. We also have the PGA Q&A at 3.30 p.m. tomorrow. So make sure you're subscribed, Fandal YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, or Twitter pages, and also make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. If you have questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, G-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandal Podcast Network at Fandal Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandal Podcast Network.