 If you want to use a good pitcher tonight in daily fantasy baseball, you're going to have to use a guy who is in a tough matchup because there are a lot of good names on this slate. Adam Wainwright, Nathan Evaldi, Alec Minoa, a lot of names here who are good pitchers, but they're all facing tough teams. Wainwright gets the Dodgers, Evaldi gets the Rays, Minoa gets the Yankees, Shane McClanahan gets the Red Sox, Frankie Montas gets the White Sox. If you want to find a good pitcher, really good pitcher in a good matchup for tonight, you're not going to find that. Even with that being true, I do still think that the best route to playing Wednesday night's slate is to identify a high salary pitcher you can tolerate despite a tough match. I think that those guys, even after accounting for the teams they're facing, are the best options for today's. Let's dive on in, let's know who fits that and get set for tonight's slate. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the FanDual Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Here to break down Wednesday's nine a game main slate with locks ever 705 for tonight. There is only one weather note for today and it's one we'll check back on later on. It's for the Blue Jays and the Yankees. We need to see the timing on the rain because it does look like there will be rain there tonight. It appears right now as though that rain will be there later in the game as opposed to during the game. So check back on that later on. Make sure that doesn't shift earlier because that could complicate some things. But either way, I think we should be good to go for that one tonight. Quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy Podcast feed wherever you get your podcast because tomorrow our NFL podcast is back. I mean myself, Brandon Gadoula, breaking down the week one daily fantasy football slate. We'll be talking about our favorite stacks, talking about some things that stand out, talking about general DFS process with a being week one and potentially some new players in the pool as well. A lot of stuff to dissect. That'll be recording at 10 a.m. on the FanDual YouTube page and up on the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast feed after that. So go right now. Search for the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Hit subscribe and while you're there, leave us a rating and review as well because that does help us out a ton. Week one, just around the corner, we're still going to have NASCAR, still going to have PGA when it's there, still going to have USC, but NFL coming up just around the bend. Hey soccer fans, this season FanDual and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one-of-a-kind soccer contest. Introducing Captain Morgan's Soccer Pickup, a weekly fantasy contest that is entirely free to play. The contest is simple. All you got to do is make quick predictions for Saturday games this soccer season. You'll earn points for each correct pick and compete for a chance to win up to $3,000 in prizes every single week. Head over to FanDual and enter the Captain Morgan Soccer Pickup today. Must be 21 plus to participate. For more details, visit FanDual.com or download the FanDual Fantasy app. Eligibility restrictions apply and don't forget to make your game day more delicious and sub in the captain. Pitching preview for this Wednesday main slate. Adam Wainwright is the highest salary pitcher on FanDual, checking in at $10,000. Nathania Valde is $9,700. Alec Mendoza is $96. Freddie Peralta is $9,400. We'll talk about him and things to watch. Shane McClanahan is $9,300. We got Frankie Montas and Hugh Darvish both at $9,000. Then Kyle Gibson there too at $9,000. Finally, with Luis Gil, we have Latavir Gutierrez, Mike Minor, and Tuki Toussaint as the others at $8,000 or higher. Again, all these guys are in rough spots. The three pitchers we discussed for today, two of them are in what I would deem to be tough match-ups, but I think they're good enough to overcome those. One of those guys is Nathania Valde in part because it is a revenge game tonight with the Valde facing the Rays. Got to love that. And he evolved as a pitcher I was on last week. He did let up three runs, but he also had nine strikeouts. And I want to go at him once again, four to nine versus those Rays. And the Rays fit that tough match at Mule. They have a 114 WRC plus against Rites, and they hit for a lot of power. They do strikeout though. They have a 24% strikeout rate against Rites, which means opposing pitchers have upside as long as they can keep the ball in the yard and keep the Rays from going deep. It does help when the pitchers are well-rounded. They're not just getting strikeouts, but also keeping the ball on the ground and stuff like that. And we talked last week about Eavaldi's curveball, a pitch he has been using more recently, and it is helping him become what I would deem to be a well-rounded pitcher. He has a 28% strikeout rate across those 12 starts with a 3% walk rate, so he doesn't let up a lot of base runners. And it does help make the power matter a bit less in this matchup, because if the Rays do go deep, it might just be a solo shot because Eavaldi pretty good at suppressing base runners. He also lets up hard contact just 36% of the time. It's a better than average mark. So Eavaldi's pitching really well. And we've seen this matchup twice in this 12-start stretch. The most recent one was almost a month ago, so not super concerned about familiarity here. In that matchup, which is also at home, Eavaldi had 10 strikeouts over seven innings of one-run ball. The strikeouts have been there. The run suppression has been there because he has a 3.54ERA. Eavaldi has gotten a little bit of a boost from being at home as well. So it could go wrong because the Rays are good, but I think that that downside is present for all pitchers. I think the upside here is really nice. So to me, when I consider matchup, consider pitcher quality, consider venue, all that stuff, I think Eavaldi is the number one pitcher on tonight's slate for daily fantasy baseball. Number two is Frankie Montos. He is facing the White Sox, and it's another tough matchup because they have a 108 WRC plus against Rides. But again, I think Montos is talented enough to overcome that. It helps in this situation, unlike with Eavaldi, that the White Sox are not as powerful as the Rays, versus Rides. Not as powerful as they are against lefties either. Their Iso goes down to 165 against Rides. The White Sox just draw a lot of walks, and Montos can't issue those. So that's why Eavaldi, to me, pretty easily number one for tonight. And it is a tough spot for Montos. But it's not as tough as if they were to draw walks and also have power. I like the strikeout upside here for Montos. We are up to a 14-start stretch since Montos started using more splitters. And it's a really long sample. So similar to Eavaldi, we've got a big sample here. And this sample has been very good because Montos has a 29% strikeout rate in that 14-start stretch. That is the second best mark on the slate. And the guy above him isn't fully stretched out right now. Montos is. He has a big pitch count to go along with those strikeouts. He has gone 100-plus pitches in five of the past eight starts. He has racked up 10 strikeouts three times in the span. He had nine in another. And he's gotten the quality start bonus on FanDuel in 10 of those 14 games. We did see this matchup against the White Sox on the road in mid-August. Montos didn't pitch super well there. He led up three runs across five innings and had just six strikeouts. But in that game, he had a 16.2% swinging strike rate. And now he's back at home. We see Montos at times in his career have home road splits that were pretty decent. It makes sense, given that Oakland is a pitcher-friendly park. And I think that when you combine that to get it, being at home, facing a team that doesn't have a ton of power, which does mitigate some of the matchup there, and being able to go long in games and pitch really well, I think that's enough to justify locking in Montos at $9,000. I do think he is a step below Evaldi, but I think that to me Montos is a step above everybody else as well. The third slot is kind of tough. If I feel really good about Montos, feel really good about Evaldi, I'm going to wind up on Darvish, you Darvish going third. And the reason that I struggled to put him third, we'll still do so, but struggle to do so is because he's been struggling a lot recently. Darvish has a 6.94 ERA over his past seven starts, and he's led at multiple earned runs in all those starts. That's why he's third on this list, not higher. But he's $9,000 at home in a potentially plus match, but I think we can make some tournament swipes at Darvish here. He says to the Angels, and the Angels don't have the DH tonight, which means we might see Shohei Otani sit again. He sat last night, so it's possibly plays today. But even with Otani, it's a good matchup for Darvish. They're WRC plus against righties down to 101. Strikeout rate has increased to 25%. They're actually now a high strikeout team with an 8% walk rate. So it's a good spot for the Angels if Otani plays. It is a great spot if Otani sits again. And Darvish's peripherals have remained good throughout this bad stretch for him. He has been lowering the usage on his slot over his past seven starts, which to me is a red flag because we can see guys shy away from their high wear off speed pitches when they're hurt. And we've seen Darvish doing that, but he does still have a 28% strikeout rate in that time. He has a 3.43 skill interactive ERA. He has allowed a 35% hard hit rates. Those are good numbers, and he had a 12 strikeout game in the stretch. So I don't think he's completely broken. There are red flags, which definitely do lower me on Darvish. That's why I can't make him above. Yevaldi can't put him quite in the same tier as Montas. But as the third-rank pitcher on a slate with a lot of question marks, I can deal with it. I think that we've seen enough from Darvish to deserve that. So proceed with caution. Put a lid on your exposure to you, Darvish. Make sure you're not going too crazy here. I'd want to get enough Yevaldi and enough Montas to limit my Darvish exposure, but I do still want some Darvish tonight on the off-chance. He's able to see the peripherals shine through into the results as well. So that's the pitching for today. Yevaldi won Montas II, Darvish III. As far as stacking goes, I have been stacking the braves against lefties a bunch recently. They lost rather than Kunya Jr., but they still have lots of dudes who can yoke it. And I think that that's really intriguing. And I think we should go to them once again tonight. They're facing Sean Nolan this time. Nolan was a fine pitcher in AAA. He had a 3.80 ERA there at 47 in the third innings. The problem was that there were signs that Nolan had the potential to let up a lot of balls and play once he went to the majors. His swinging strike rate there was just 10.3%. And you've put that up against big league teams. That had some potential to be rough. And there have been some bumps in the big leagues. Despite the fact it hasn't been a disaster, there have been some bumps. He has a 20% strike rate across four starts with a 5% walk rate. Nolan is letting up a lot of balls and play. 43% of those have been hard hits, which is why his ERA is 5.71. And what's interesting here is that Nolan has faced the Mets in three of those four starts. And they're not a great team against lefties. Other team in that stretch was the Brewers. And those teams are both below the braves in WRC plus against lefties. And they are well below them in terms of ISO. I think that Nolan's contact issues could be even more evident tonight than they've been through his first four starts, which makes the Braves a great stack to meet. Most of the Braves guys here are pretty obvious who you do want to target against the lefty, Jorge Soler, Disgusting Power, Ozzy, Albie's very good, et cetera, et cetera. But the one we're discussing is Travis Darno, because he's not as obvious of an inclusion in a stack, brought to about three weeks since Darno came back off the IEL, which is a decent sample to look at some bad at ball data. And his bad at ball data is pretty good. His hard hit rate in that time is 41%. Two of the three barrels for Darno came over the weekend. He has a 278 ISO in this time. So when you're building out your Braves stacks and looking for some value, I think that Travis Darno fits that pretty well. $2,900? If we assume he plays, I think that he is a rock solid option. I'm not going to rank him above Duvall. Despite the fact Duvall will hit lower in the order. I'm not going to rank him above Soler, Swanson, Riley, et cetera, et cetera. But if you need a value play, Travis Darno really good option with some power in a good situation. Our second stack will take us to a bad park factor that is out in Oakland. And I don't stack there very often. The good thing is that things have cooled off elsewhere from a temperature perspective, which makes it less of a detriment, less of an opportunity cost to use the A's than it usually is. And I think that gives us the leeway to stack them here. They're facing Dallas Keichel. Keichel used to be a tremendous pitcher, but the key thing that he did really well that made him a great pitcher is no longer there. He could get by with minimal strikeouts because he did such a good job of suppressing hard contact. And he did that recently as well. It's not like an old age thing for Keichel. Even at an advanced age, he did this pretty well, but it's not happening right now. If we look at the starts Keichel has made really sticky stuff discussion and really ticked up. Keichel has made 13 appearances. He is letting up a 43% hard hit rate in that time, which is pretty rough. And it's especially rough when you're getting a strikeout just 13% of the time with a 10% walk rate. And that has led to some big issues for Keichel. He has a 7.08 ERA in that time. 13 outings is not a small sample, so a 7.08 ERA is rough. And it's been especially bad recently. Keichel has let up five plus earned runs in three straight starts. That includes starts against the Royals and the Cubs. And he faced the Rays too, who are not as great against lefties as they are against righties. The A's aren't either. They're about late gathered against lefties, but they've got some guys we can feel good about using here. And I am pretty down to stack the A's for tonight as my number two option behind the breaks. One guy I want to be high on here, who I was not high on earlier this year is Matt Chapman. Chapman was coming off a pretty rough injury. So I was okay being low on him earlier on, and the results were bad, but he has been amazing recently. He's been pretty good against lefties all year in the 274 ISO, but if you look at the past four weeks, Chapman has put 47 balls in play. 13 of those 47 have been barreled. That's a disgusting number. His barrel rate is above 26%. That's absurd. Like a league average barrel rate is around 8%, and Chapman is around 26%. So he's not low salary, but this dude is back to me, Matt Chapman, MVP at Chapman. He's back. So Matt Chapman back, and I'm excited to use him for tonight against the leftie, despite the bag of park factor and including him within my A's stacks. Finally, I've had some fun this week stacking the Orioles and Royals series in Baltimore to not terrible offenses, not great either, but not terrible, and two bad pitching staffs in the great park for hitting. So it's been fun for DFS, and I think we should keep that rolling tonight and stack the Royals side of things. They're facing Matt Harvey, which is technically a Matt Harvey revenge game. He did throw 11 and two thirds innings for them last year, so big time revenge there, but Harvey is struggling right now. He has been going with this new approach of more curveballs and fewer fastballs over 11 starts now, and it did work initially. He had some pretty good starts in there, and I actually bet on opposing team totals under against Matt Harvey, which was shocking to me. Not doing that right now, though, because it has not been as effective recently. If we look at the 11 starts together, including this time when it was going well, he has a 16% strikeout rate with a 4.77 skill interactive ERA. His hard hit rate allowed is 43%, and he's got knocked around recently. He's let up four plus earned runs in three of the past four starts. Granted, those have all come against very good teams, and the Royals are not that. They're not a great team. So this is not a lock to pan out. And that's why I think that the Braves and A's both belong definitively above the Royals for tonight, but I do think they great out well enough to stack here. And my hope is that we get Ryan O'Hern in there. O'Hern $2,100. He can hit some Yackers, especially in Baltimore, so love to get him in there. It's not a lock, given that they've got some guys healthy again. If he doesn't go, we can build a stack here with Salvador Perez, other Barthamon to see if he plays. He's not played back-to-back days yet. I don't think he hasn't started back-to-back days. I should say he did play in back-to-back days, but hasn't started. Carlos Santana, Andrew Benintendi. I prefer hard hit with Merrifield over Santana and Benintendi, but realistically, I might not be able to jam in all three of Perez, Mondisi, and Merrifield. So I think that those five guys do work in general. Preference is to get to a herd if he plays, but we can stack them if he does not and still feel good about the salary. We're allocating to a non-elite team. Let's move to things to watch. I like everything about Freddie Peralta. I like the talent. I like the matchup. I like the venue. I just don't think the pitch count will be there. He came off the injured list last week, and he threw just 53 pitches. And Peralta's a guy they were piggybacking before he got hurt. Now he's been hurt coming up the IL. If I had to bet, I bet that the Brewers do a slow ramp-up to October for Peralta, like 53 last time, maybe he goes 60 this time, 70, 80, stuff like that. I will likely be off Peralta until I get reason to believe they'll let him crank back up once again. I want to take some swings at the Reds lefties tonight. They're facing Alec Mills. Mills historically has done a good job of suppressing hard contact, but that hasn't been as true recently as he has been lowering his sinker usage. Lefties already put the ball in the air more often against him than righties. So I would say Joey Vado, Tyler Naikwin, good for one-offs. And I would be pretty excited to get to both those guys for tonight. Naikwin, I think it's a really good one-off. Vado, like if he got the salary, I would be very happy to turn his way. So Joey Vado, Tyler Naikwin, guys, I will be in on tonight primarily as one-offs. Finally, if you're looking for a pure one-off, pure, pure, pure one-off, I am down with Juan Soto. Very hard for me to stack the Nationals, but the Nationals, facing Tuki Toussaint, really struggles with hard contact. Soto is good, shocker, and Josh Bell can work too. So, you know, maybe you go Bell and Soto and do like a mini-stack. But I think that if you're just looking for like a true one-off, got a lot of sour to burn, you stack the Royals and just had a lot of left on the table, I think Soto works out pretty well. I don't do true one-offs very often, but I think Soto does make sense in that sense for tonight. Let's finish up here with some Dinger calls starting off with the Atlanta Braves, facing off with Shaw Nolan. Again, those hard contact issues, I think will really come to light tonight, which means I think Jorge Soler is my boring pick for today. Soler power going to go deep. He's had a great iso versus lefties all year long, his entire career even. So, Jorge Soler to me, a great option as a Dinger call on the Braves. The fun one, looking for a guy who is not as obvious in terms of Dingers, I think Tyler Naikwin grades out pretty well there. Facing Alc Mills again, not as good as keeping lefties in the ground as he is with righties. Struggling a bit recently, a lot of balls in play. Naikwin, Ben Good recently again, having a lull in the late spring, early summer. So, I think the home run calls for today, Jorge Soler and Tyler Naikwin. That is all that we have here for today on The Solo Shot. We will be back here later on today, 4 p.m. on the Fandal, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages, taking your questions, getting you set for tonight's slates. We will be live from 4 to 4 30 there. Our schedule for NFL change is starting tomorrow. We'll have the NFL preview of Bucks Cowboys at 4 p.m., talking props, talking betting, talking single-game DFS. That'll be at 4 p.m. 4 30 is when we'll transition to MLB DFS. So, 4 o'clock for MLB today, 4 o'clock for NFL tomorrow, 4 30 for MLB tomorrow. Same schedule on Friday with NFL at 4 and MLB at 4 30. So make sure you are subscribed to the Fandal, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages and swing by 4 p.m. each and every day. If you've got more questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-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.