 The pitching options for today in Daily Fantasy Baseball are better in the sense that there are more guys You know are like legitimate big leaguers guys You'd want to use on a typical slate for DFS The problem is that those quote-unquote legitimate options are all guys who have some sort of big red flag And it's a wide range of red flags to whether it be pitch counts Effectiveness arm fatigue like we got a long list of things that are ailing these guys prevent them from being one clear Cut-top option for today in DFS So our job today is to navigate those red flags navigate those downsides and decide which guys are best option for DFS And how can we pivot and take advantage of what could be a pretty volatile slate welcome on into the solo shop That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire comm my name is Jim Sonnis I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire comm here to break down a Tuesdays at nine a game the main slate with Vox ever 705 for two night over on a fan dual calm There is some weather to note for today over in Anaheim for the Marlins and angels winds are out to right at 16 miles per hour It's close to being a crosswind. So Check back on that later on but I would be fine giving bats a slight bump tonight worth noting though again Temperature around 74 in Anaheim not as hot as it was last week There is a decent chance of rain in Minneapolis for the twins and Dodgers Winds are in from right at 12 miles per hour and the temperature is 52 degrees The wind might be blocked by the big parking garage out there, but there's also like this big mezzanine out there So I wouldn't be shocked if it actually does play a role I downgrade bats in Minneapolis if that game plays mostly due to the temperature more so than the wind in Arizona First pitch temperature is just 71 degrees for the Diamondbacks and Astros So it's not a downgrade relative to all parks because it's about the same as them But it is a downgrade from typical Arizona where it's not as much an advantage as it usually would be Finally, it is just 48 degrees in San Francisco for the Giants and Padres So downgrade hitters there as well We'll break down the pitching options for today in just one segment first a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the Number of Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts run up a podcast Spotify Stitcher Google podcasts You name it you can find us there while you're there leave us a rating and review as well our PGA podcast for today Leave it later than usual. We typically record 10 a.m. We're new 3 p.m. Eastern today live on the Fandall YouTube page If you're watching YouTube right now, you can see I'm in the Fandall office in New York So we're here for some meetings to Brandon and I in person for the podcast for today for the first time ever So it should be a lot of fun 3 p.m. Eastern on the Fandall YouTube page and up on the Number of Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed After that, hey sports fans There is no better time than today to sign up for Fandall fantasy for users who have yet to make a deposit on Fandall fantasy You can deposit today to receive two free entries All you have to do is deposit a minimum of $10 into your Fandall DFS account And you will instantly be rewarded with two free vouchers. This is a limited time offer So be sure to deposit now and play for free head over to Fandall.com or download the Fandall fantasy app today Eligibility restrictions apply go to Fandall.com or download the Fandall app for more details Pitching preview for this Tuesday main sleigh. You Darvish is the highest salary pitch on Fandall checking in at $9700 we got Dakota Hudson at $9,500 Luis Garcia is 86 Patrick Sandoval 84 and you say kikuchi is $8,000 rounding out the top group now the top option for me today is you Darvish I want to note though that this is a very risky move and for Darvish because everyone's risky The risk here is due to the matchup. He's facing the Giants and they are a very good offense. They have a 118 WRC plus versus righties since the start of the last year based on their current active roster They got a lot of power too. So I don't want to use pitchers facing them. It's a downside They will strike out though They have a 24% strikeout rate versus righties, which is the second highest mark on this slate And we know Darvish is stretched out because last week in his debut. He went 92 pitches Now he did get yanked with a no-hitter, which means that 92 was probably his like absolute limit I'm projecting Darvish for 95 for tonight. He wasn't overly sharp in that first game He walked four guys compared to just three strikeouts across six innings. So that could be a cause for concern So there are kind of like one and a half red flags with Darvish That's another reason why you could pivot off of him if you get the sense that Darvish will be prohibitively popular for tonight. I just think that he is the highest upside option of this group Which is always going to be my preference for DFS gunning for upside So I do see reasons to pivot and I will not talk you out of it But straight up just looking at things straight up you Darvish is the top option for today So he is number one, but you do have leeway to pivot There are some interesting pivot options available as well One of those could be Patrick Sandoval the problem is Sandoval is also risky just for different reasons I do still like him against the Marlins and the reason for concern with Sandoval is health Because he was originally scheduled to start last Friday and that got pushed back to today He said it was due to arm fatigue That's not what you want to hear ever Especially right at the start of the season Sandoval was stretched out back in the spring He went 77 pitches in his final spring outing. So I am still projecting him at 85 for right now I just think it's worth noting that there is cause for concern with the arm fatigue and it does Prevent me from you know going cuckoo for him on this slate The good thing is that the rest of the profile is very good for Sandoval He is facing the Marlins They are a high strikeout team against lefties with a 24% strikeout rate and just a 173 ISO Sandoval had a 27% strikeout rate over his final eight starts last year when he was throwing a slider more And he also did keep bad at balls and check So Sandoval is a very good pitcher and if not for the fatigue issues I would be in very much in and want to be high on him probably higher than Darvish for today But I just can't I got to proceed with some caution here because of the arm issues So Sandoval is still a good option one. I will turn to but just know as with Darvish There are some very real risks here Now with so much risk on this slate we can afford to take swipes on assumptions try to Take some swings on by low spots And I think there are a couple spots we're doing so we'll talk about one in things to watch My favorite guy for tonight doing this is Jesus Lizardo Lizardo is facing the Angels, which is not a bad matchup for a lefty just a 1 69 ISO against lefties The 22% strikeout rate is about average. So Those two aspects are acceptable and Lizardo Is kind of fun. He he did show promise last year after the trade He started to increase his curveball usage over his final nine starts last year It is classified as a slider on pitch info, but kind of looks more like a curveball So we'll go with that but across those nine starts with more breaking pitches. He had a 23% strikeout rate That gets your curiosity, but he threw that pitch a ton this spring He threw it 48% of the time in a start back on march 27th And he had good velocity and he got a good number of widths That gets your attention. He is $7100 and it's a slate fully devoid of safety So you might as well shoot for the fences and see what happens I think Lizardo counts for a quote-unquote shoot for the fences type of play I'll be happy to use him when lowering my exposure to Darvish and Sandoval. So to me I think that Lizardo Worth the swipe for today based on the promise he showed this spring based on his prospect pedigree And based on what he showed at the end of last year as well So pitching for today very tough lot of risk and you got to be okay with that But I do think there are some good options despite that so our stacking goes It's probably boring to say to stack the astros against Madison bumgarner, but Sometimes boring is boring for a reason and it's because it's right So the astros are the top stack of the day for me bumgarner Let up just one run in his first start this year and you know, that's fine But that's deceptive It was because he walked four batters in the third inning and then got yanked That was not a good showing and that came against the Padres which are a much worse offense than the astros Against lefties the astros a 190 iso against lefties plenty of fly balls minimal strikeouts That should give bumgarner some pretty big issues here His strikeout rate is down to 18 percent over his past nine starts with his curve usage down His slide ball rate allowed is 45 percent I don't think that specific formula low strikeout high fly ball rates will work against this offense So I will be heavy on the astros here if you go with someone like Lizardo You can afford to be a bit chalkier with his stack So I do think the astros work out pretty well here The good thing with the astros is that we can stack them without it being Fully boring they got a lot of young guys or at least fresh faces who are legit options for DFS The last time they faced a lefty they had both Jose Siri and Jeremy Pena in the top of the order Siri's not young, but he's fun because he's new He had a the first time they faced a lefty. I'd expect him down there probably again Pena his hit seventh and second I think they're both very fun. Siri is $2,000 Pena $2,300 I'm expecting probably a seven eight type spot in the batting order for those two but Keeps things fresh saves salary allows you to get to the studs in this team So the astros can still be fun despite the fact we've been stacking them for what feels like forever at this point Now back in opening day One of the teams I did not stack was the cardinals and that burned me because they were kind of like the key to that slate I'm not going to make that mistake again here on Tuesday. I think they're a pretty good option Against Daniel Lynch. The big thing is that Lynch is a lefty and the cardinals torch lefties They have a 127 WRC plus against lefties by their non pitchers since the start of last year and Lynch Really did struggle in his first season with the Royals. He can get whiffs. I know that for sure But he had just an 18 strikeout rate last year It did go up to 20 percent over his final 10 starts When he was throwing more sliders, but Even a 20 mark if we assume he sticks at that going forward is not great He had some rough batted ball data too with a 43 hard hit rate allowed and a 40 fly ball, right? And those are numbers we can stack against especially with a lineup this powerful like st. Louis's Weather's good in st. Louis 73 degrees for today So this is a stack that really checks all the boxes for me The fun thing is You really can't go wrong with whoever you use on this team because the cardinals right now have 13 non pitchers on their active roster Only five of those 13 have an ISO lower than 200 against lefties Since the start of last year the guys above that eight guys Paul Goldschmidt, Tyler O'Neill, Noah Naranado Albert Pouls. Yes Albert Pouls, Yadir Molina, Tommy Edmond, Harrison Bader and Lars Neutbar in a very small sample And when you've got eight legitimate options plus a couple others who are close and are still good options, too That's phenomenal. Uh, so the cardinals are high salaried. You're not Getting a discount here by any means, but if you use Lizardo, you've got the the coin to get there for sure So I think that they're very worth it and the cardinals and the Azzar make a very fun high upside top two stacks for today in DFS Our third stack is malleable depending on what happens Uh with the Orioles starter for today, so we'll check back on that and things to watch but for right now Let's go with uh the Rangers over in texas today You got the Rockies and Rangers and I think you can stack either side here with the Rockies facing martin pares Rangers getting Chad cool We're going to focus in the Rangers here, but the Rockies are in play as well against Paris Cool is back in the rotation after losing his spot last year He made 14 starts before he got that demotion and his skill interactive era was 5.10 strikeout rate of 20 percent with a 12 percent walk rate and You know, you can see why he lost the spot in the rotation He's getting another shot this year, but it's mostly because the team doesn't have a lot of great options We saw cool really struggled during the spring. So It's likely best for us to expect him to struggle once again if this were 2021 I might not care uh because the rangers offense was so bad But there are a lot better now with Corey seager marcus semian mitch garver all in town So they're not an elite offense, but they are Palatable they are competent and that is a big improvement from where they were last year So there's enough here where I am okay stacking them against cool in this spot Most of cool struggles last year came with lefties So that's where I would lean hardest with this rangers team obviously that puts you towards core seager But I also do like brad miller here miller's batting leadoff for the rangers typically He has a 250 iso against righties since the start of last year a lot of hard contact Plenty of fly balls. I remember last year the Phillies whenever he was in the lineup He was like an auto start versus a righties 2700 dollars So I would say seager and miller are you two building blocks for this team? In which should be a pretty fun spot as they face cool for a two day Let's finish up here with things to watch going back to one more picture I do want to eventually take some swipes at alex cob. He pitched. Well at the end of last year and apparently he was Hitting 97 on the gun this spring Just not sure if now is the time to do so just yet. I've got cob projected for 70 pitches Not convinced. He's stretched out just yet. So I do want to see what he's got I'm just not sure if I'll get there today Due to pitch count. So it's kind of like an evaluation start, you know You watch cob see what he does and decide going forward if he's someone you want to use for dfs I mentioned before the Orioles not sure who they will start for today There's a pretty good chance that we'll want to stack the brewers against them The two most likely options for the Orioles seem to be Spencer Watkins and alexander wells wells really struggled last year let up a lot of hard contact And the same thing with Watkins who actually had worse results than Watkins to go with it Or then well, so the brewers Pretty likely to wind up as one of the top three stacks. I just can't quite put them there right now not knowing whom they're going to face so Astros awesome cardinals awesome brewers likely awesome and then most likely the Rangers in that fourth spot one more team I'd consider For stacking or two more teams I'd consider would be the twins and Dodgers The problem is that weather is legitimately bad for hitting the twins face andra heaney the Dodgers face chris archer and both Those guys give up a ton of hard contact. So both offenses very good offenses, too We'd set to downgrade them due to the weather and when I've got great options like the astros cardinals and likely brewers It's hard for me to justify going with a team in less than ideal weather so I will be okay stacking them, but I want to make sure I am ranking them below The brewers below the astros and below the cardinals because those are more pristine situations Whereas this one is a very good matchup, but not the best weather Let's finish up here with some homerun calls for today The boring one will be Tyler O'Neill his numbers versus lefties are stupid. He's facing lynch Let's say a lot of fly balls and a lot of hard contact. I think you just don't overthink this one You lock him in go from there. So the boring homerun call will be Tyler O'Neill the fun one You could push back on this being fun because he hit fleet off of brad miller would be my fun one because You know, he's he's a lower salary guy $2,700 not a guy you think of as like the uh, The superstar within this rangers team right now So Tyler O'Neill and brad miller the official homerun calls for today. Hopefully I don't jinx as much as I jinxed Danny Jansen by Making him the homerun call yesterday before he was placed on the il That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot But as mentioned we had pga coming up later on today 3 p.m on the fangirl youtube page and up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed after that So go make sure you're subscribed and if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well 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 fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big Thank you to everyone for tuning in. Good luck to you with your dfs lineup source night We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to get you sad for wednesday's slate This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network