 If you were a long time listener to the solo shot, you know it's not all that often we get split slate podcasts because it requires a couple of things. First, it means we need to have a smaller main slate where interest may be reduced. We also need a big enough early slate to support the idea that people will not only listen to this, but listen to this early to get their lineups in before lock early on the day. So we don't do these all that often. But today, with opening day for a lot of teams with some home openers where they're starting things early, we actually have really good slates across the board. There is an early only slate, a late slate, and a main slate. We're gonna break down two out of those three because two out of three ain't bad. We're gonna break down the main slate first, early only slate after that, and get you set for what should be an awesome day of baseball. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the FanDual Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sotis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Here to break down both the main slate and the early only slate for FanDual for today. We'll talk about the main slate first because a lot of you listening may not be listening to this before lock for the early only slate. So we'll talk about the main slate first. Then we'll talk about the early only slate after that. Two pitchers, two stacks from both those. The early only slate locks at 105 PM Eastern. So if you want to listen to that slate first, go to the episode description, whether that be NumberFire, Apple, Spotify, whatever it may be, there will be a timestamp in there letting you know when the early only slate discussion begins. So find that timestamp, jump ahead there, then come back and listen to the main slate later on. So we'll dive into that in just one second. But first, a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy Podcast because we are in full swing right now. We got MLB of course. Austin Swain is breaking down USC later on today. I've got NASCAR for Martinsville later on today as well. And of course we still got NHL via Tom Becchio, couple of days left for the NBA two. And then PGA podcast with myself and Brandon Cadulla every Tuesday. We'll have a fun one next Tuesday too. It's coming around the corner. So a lot of good reasons to make sure you're subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy Podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there, if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Hey soccer fans, this season, Fan, Duel and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one of a kind soccer contest to spice up game day. Introducing the Captain Morgan Soccer Pick'em, a weekly fantasy contest that is entirely free to play. The contest is simple. All you have to do is answer 10 questions about Captain Morgan and that week's soccer matchup. People with the most correct answers will earn their share of cash prizes. Head over to fanduel.com slash free games slash Captain Morgan and spice up game day with a free shot at cash prizes every Saturday. No purchase necessary must be 21 plus to enter. Location restrictions apply. Avoid where prohibited. See terms at fanduel.com. Let's dive in now to the main slate here, which is a five game slate with lock set for 705 PM Eastern. There are a couple cooler games out in Washington and Atlanta. The first pitch temperatures for those games are 57 and 52 degrees respectively. The wind is out at 12 miles per hour in Atlanta to help things out a bit there. The two warmer games in the main slate are the Astros and the Angels in Anaheim and then the Padres and Diamondbacks in Arizona. I'd bump up hitters there. Didn't work out as much last night, but I do think that is the overall long-term good process for us. Pitching preview for this main slate, Max Scherzer is the highest salary pitcher on FanDuel, checking in at $11,000. We've got Jose Barrios at $9,300. Charlie Borton is $9,000 and Shawn Minaya is $8,800. Tonight we do get a Max Scherzer revenge game going up against the Nationals, where Scherzer facing his old team, the problem is he's dealing with a hamstring injury and that could scare a lot of people off. I do still think that Scherzer is a top option for this main slate because the hamstring doesn't seem to be too big of a deal. They've known for about half a week that Friday would be the day that Scherzer went, which means to me that the hamstring was less of an issue about a half a week ago. That means the bullpen session went well for Scherzer and it's a long season where the Mets, maybe because the Mets, we can doubt this, but they probably wouldn't risk making things worth the Scherzer and tossing out their price-free agent out there before he's fully healthy. Plus, we know Scherzer is a horse, he's a battler. He threw 89 pitches in his final spring start. So I think he stretched out enough to go deep despite the hamstring injury and not a lot of guys can say that. Scherzer had a 32% strikeout rate across his final 13 starts last year, where he threw fewer sliders and threw more curveballs. That is the highest mark on the slate by a couple of ticks. Scherzer, of course, the low walk rate doesn't allow a lot of hard contact. And again, it's not super warm at 57 degrees. So Scherzer does have his risks. That hamstring injury is a thing to consider. So if you get to read that Scherzer will be the uber chalk tonight, you do have at least leeway to pivot elsewhere if you want. But Scherzer, to me, is a top option despite the downsides because of all the upsides he brings. I want to shoot more for ceiling than floor. And Scherzer, the perfect combination of that on tonight's slate. I think the second spot is between Jose Barrios and Charlie Morton. Both these guys are very, very good. I have the exact same pitch count projection for these two guys, 85 pitches. And they both have fine matchups. I'm gonna favor Morton here. He gets the reds at home that he has a better weather than Barrios because it's 42 degrees or 52 degrees in Atlanta where the roof will likely be closed in Toronto. So matchup or favor Morton there. It's also a high strikeout team Morton is facing. The reds had a 23% strikeout rate against righties last year, based on their current active roster. That's the second highest mark on this slate. Morton did finish strong last year. He was throwing fewer sliders and more curves over his final 12 starts and more curve, Paulson, Charlie Morton, never a bad thing. He had a 3.18 skill interactive ERA in that time with a 30% strikeout rate. His hard hit rate allowed was just 29%. He is a tremendous pitcher. I have Morton projected for 6.5 strikeouts on this slate. I've got Scherzer at 7.2 and Barrios at 5.8. I think that's enough to rank them in that order. So Scherzer is one at $11,000. Morton two, checking into $9,000. Barrios three at $9,300. I think the strikeouts do determine where we go here. I feel pretty good about the pitchers on this slate. The good thing is, this is not a slate totally littered with top end stats. We'll see that on the early only slate, but on this slate, it's a bit more relaxed. So stacking isn't too bad. I think the top stack here is the Angels. They're facing Jacob Otarizzi and Otarizzi is perfectly fine at what he does. He gets five and he gets out and he gets decent results doing that. But with so many pitchers this time of the year who are really good and such good weather for this game, I think we need to stack against Otarizzi here. It is 86 degrees in Anaheim. That is one of just two games with a high temperature on the slate, which is good for hitting. And we know Otarizzi will give up a lot of fly balls. Over his final 10 starts last year with fewer sinkers, he had a 19% strikeout rate with a 47% fly ball rate. So it lets up a lot of balls in play and a lot of those balls in play are fly balls. The results for Otarizzi weren't that bad. It was fine, but it could have easily been worse. And it could easily lead to worse results in the future because of what his peripherals say we should expect from Otarizzi overall. The Angels active roster had a 108 to WRC plus against righties last year. So I like them a lot here. Now, the one thing that's worth noting with this stack breakdown is Otarizzi used to be a guy with like heavy, heavy reverse splits where he was better against lefties than he was against righties. He's a different pitcher now, different pitch mix that leads to different platoon splits. So he's actually pretty even in terms of his important numbers versus righties and lefties. So obviously gives me a fully way to go with Shohei Otani here assuming that he does play today, which I would assume that he will. Same thing for Jared Walsh who was a leftie. And if you add those two with Mike Trout, you're getting a lot of power. And honestly, I think if you use Charlie Morton as your pitcher, you can make those three fit. You can use Brandon Marsh to get some flexibility at a Max Stasi is fine, but I'll be trying to make that one happen. I try to jam in those three hyper powerful angels and even with shers or I wouldn't count it out necessarily with those three guys just because it's early season. We have some inefficient salaries, a hitter. I think that you can probably make that one work. You got a couple of options for the second stack. I could see the Mets against Josiah Gray. Let's have a ton of fly balls. I actually do like that one a decent amount. I'm okay with considering the Astros against Reed Detmers as well. He's hyper talented. His start got moved up a couple of days and I'm curious what that does to him there. So I like him long-term, but I think that's a consideration. I think my second favorite stack though will be the Braves against Reaver San Martín. This is San Martín's third career start. He made two last year, did perform pretty well. And he is also a ground ball guy. So there are downsides with stacking against him, which is why I'm okay considering the Mets against Josiah Gray, despite the fact that whether there is not necessarily ideal. As far as San Martín goes, I don't project him to be a crazy high strikeout guy. He had an 11% swing and strike rate last year in the majors. It was 13.8% in AAA, but that included some time in shorter stints. For this year, Zips, Dan Zaborowski's projection system, which you can find over at Fangrass, Zips projects San Martín for a 20.4% strikeout rate. If he does wind up there, that leads to a lot of balls and play against him. And that's pretty scary against his braze offense. Their active non-pitchers on the roster had a 112 WRC plus against lefties last year. They had a 219 ISO, which is the highest for the entire day, not just this main slate. Also had a 41% fly ball rate. So I'm not sure what to expect from San Martín longterm, just because, you know, San Martín had some good numbers in the minors doesn't necessarily mean that he will be great in the minor majors, but also because, you know, he could always turn out to be a solid picture in the majors as well. So not sure what to expect, but I do think that we can stack the braze here. And it's worth noting that just because San Martín is a lefty does not mean we should lower Matt Olson. Like I know you know to use Matt Olson, I'm saying don't lower him at all, because Olson had a 338 ISO against lefties last year. That is sicko stuff. Tons of fly balls, minimal strikeouts. Matt Olson against lefties is what most people wish they were against righties. If we're talking about like left-handed batters, he's disgusting. Ozzy Albees, switchhater, he yokes against lefties. So I think you can get to those two guys with Scherzer because neither is all that high-salary, Olson 37, Albees right around 4,000. So I'd like to get those two guys in there with Scherzer. You can use Adam Duvall, Travis Darno, Marcelo Zuna, I guess as values here. And Dancy Swanson also does count. I want to see where he bats, because he hit super low in the order last night. I want to see if he moves up versus lefty, but Swanson broadly could be a value play you could consider. All right, let's do some Dinger picks here before we move on to the early-only slate. The boring one is as boring as can be, go and show hey Otani, you know? We get him without pitching for tonight. Maybe that allows him to fully lock in at the plate. I think that Otani, a good bet to go deep versus Jacob Dorizzi for tonight. The more fun one, let's talk about the Mets here versus Josiah Gray. I wanted Wardo Escobar. He actually had a 48% fly ball rate versus righties last year with a 210 ISO. So, Wardo Escobar, not regarded as like a high upside power guy, but he kind of has some elements of it. So, Dinger picks for the main slate, our show hey Otani and Wardo Escobar. That is all that we have here for the main slate. So if you're listening to this after 1205, we'll talk to you on Monday for that slate. But let's talk about the early-only slate right now. It is a four-game slate with lock set for 105 PM Eastern. There is a chance of rain in Detroit for the Tigers and White Sox. It's also just 44 degrees. So, bump down hitters in that game if they do want to play. Chicago on the North side, super gross right now. I wouldn't be shocked if that game gets rained out. Just 38 degrees, there's drizzle in the forecast all day. Keep that in mind for brewers and the Cubs. It's 59 degrees with no rain for the Yankees and Red Sox. The only other outdoor game is the Phillies and the A's. Temperature is 59 degrees with winds out at 10 miles per hour. That's fine for hitting. So, I think that the one postponement concern would be the Cubs and the brewers. Pitching preview for this slate, Garakol checks in at $10,800. Aranola is 10-3. Brandon Woodruff, $10,200. Followed by Lucas Geolito at 10,000. Frankie Montas is facing Nola. He is $9,200. Shane McClanahan, Nathan Yavaldi, John Means and Eduardo Rodriguez are the other guys at $8,000 or higher. So, a lot of guys in the 8,000 range and 9,000 range which could make things tough for stacking. Now, my top guy on this slate is Brandon Woodruff. He's facing the Cubs. They frustrated Corbyn Rivers yesterday. They frustrated me because of that. But I do still like Woodruff. There is a chance that game does not play though. So, I'll keep it to that on him and then go through two other guys that like behind Woodruff in case that game does get banned. I'm likely to go with Aranola in the second slot. Couple of things are converging here with Nola. The first one is he's awesome. He had issues with his results last year but his peripherals were sick. We did see Nola lean more on his sinker over his final 13 starts. And I'm guessing he was trying to cut back on the hard contact, the bad results. The results were still not great but the strikeout numbers, the peripherals were awesome for Nola still. He had a 31% strikeout rates with a 3.14 skill interactive ERA. And he carried those really good skills into spring as well. Obviously spring numbers can be fluky but strikeout stabilized pretty quickly. I'll put more weight on those than pretty much anything else from spring numbers. Nola's facing the A's. They have traded away most of their good players. Their active roster had a 91 WRC plus against righties last year with a 165 ISO. That should help Nola if the batted ball issues he had last year are still there. Nola's also at home. It's 59 degrees. It's a good environment for pitching. So it's hard for me to not love him even on a loaded slate. So to me, it's Woodruff one, Nola two. The final guy I want to discuss here is Nathan DiAvaldi at $8600. That's a really nice bargain for this slate. And I like everything about DiAvaldi except the matchups. He's facing the Yankees. The matchup is very tough. They draw a lot of walks. Obviously they got power hitters there too. DiAvaldi doesn't walk a lot of guys though. 4.5% walk rate across his final 13 stars with more curve balls. And he got strikeouts. Strikeout rate in that time, 29%. DiAvaldi has stretched out. I've got him projected for 95 pitches for today which is tied with Lucas Geolito for the top mark on the slate. Now you may hear that and be like, hey, why would I put him above Geolito when Geolito is facing the Tigers and DiAvaldi is facing the Yankees? Geolito is not as efficient with his pitches. So although I've got them with the same pitch count and similar strikeout rates, DiAvaldi is still a half strikeout ahead because he's more efficient with the way he works. And he's also much lower salaried than Geolito too. I don't blame you if you want to ignore DiAvaldi here. I get it. And if we get Woodruff then DiAvaldi has bumped down to third on my list but I do see enough here to take a swipe. So DiAvaldi to me, good value picture on the early only slates. You don't want to spend up for Woodruff or for Aranola. Finally, let's move to stacks for this early only slate. Again, there's some bad weather on the slates but one good matchup that is indoors is for the Tampa Bay Rays. They're facing John Means. Means is a solid pitcher. He just lets up a lot of balls in play and his contact suppression isn't what it once was. He used to let up a lot of fly balls but he'd suppress our contact. Didn't see that as much last year. We saw Means throwing his curve ball more to the end of last year. Strikeout rate was fine, 22%. You'll take that for sure but his hard hit rate allowed went up to 39% and he allowed a 44% fly ball rate. His ERA in the time was 4.50. He allowed 14 home runs across 12 games started. Typically Tampa Bay is a pitchers park but this time of year when it's cold everywhere else the relative temperature of Tampa Bay is better than what it is elsewhere. It means it's better for hitting than what we get elsewhere. So relative to the rest of the slate we can bump up bats despite this game being in Tampa Bay and in a good matchup that's enough for me. So the raise will be my number one stack on this early only slate. The raise have a good number of guys who can bop lefties. None of those guys will run you to I have a salary. Wander Franco is the highest salary guy at $3,600. I love Franco obviously. Mike Zanino, you know what to do. He's $2,500. Radio Rosareno's power numbers rise against lefties even Yandy Diaz. Yandy Diaz had a 35% fly ball rate against lefties last year. So I think that works out in a favor. Lot of good options here. And I think the raise definitively for me the top option on this slate. For stack number two, I am going to talk about the Brewers. Again, bad weather. They might not play and you do downgrade bats in the weather they're playing in for today. If they don't play the next two teams I'd consider stacking against or stacking are the White Sox versus the Water Rodriguez and the Orioles against Shane McClanahan. The Brewers are facing Justin Steele so you can hear why I probably wanted to go this direction versus stacking against Rodriguez and McClanahan to very good pitchers. Steele, gonna start this year getting stretched out last year from the bullpen. He was decent with his bad at ball suppression but he had a 20% strikeout rate with a 10% walk rate. Both of those are easily the worst marks on this early only slate which means he's gonna get himself into trouble and that's how you get big innings. He did struggle with the long ball lit up three home runs to the Cardinals in September two to this Brewers team in the start before that. So despite the fact he has good bad at ball data he did still let up a couple of home runs. I think we can stack against him here. On a bigger slate, I wouldn't touch this weather. It's awful but I think we might make the consolation again here and go with the Brewers in this spot. And the good thing is the Brewers do have a lot of guys we'd wanna use against lefties. We got Hunter Renfrew at $3,000. Great addition for spots like this. Pretty obvious guy we'd wanna use. Andrew McCutchen had a 329 ISO against lefties last year. Willie Adamus is solid. I wouldn't expect Tyrone Taylor to start but if he does I would go there as well. So again, like the Rays, a lot of guys here we can turn to so the Rays and the Brewers are top two stacks. I get it if you don't wanna go there because again the weather is really bad. So again the White Sox and Orioles and extra teams I would consider with regards to this early only slate. Dingers for the early only slate. Both of these will be in Tampa Bay because again, best hitting conditions, best matchup, facing a guy with a lot of fly balls. I'm gonna go with the Randy Rosarana as the boring one. It's boring but it is whatever. It's better against lefties in terms of his fly ball, right? So I like the Rosarana. For the fun one, mentioned him earlier, Yandy Diaz does not hit fly balls ever but he kinda did last year against lefties and it sounds like that was a conscious effort he was making to increase his fly ball rates, try to loft the ball a bit more. Maybe that carries over into this year. So the two home run calls for the early only slate for me, Randy Rosarana and Yandy Diaz. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot but as mentioned, we got a lot of stuff coming up here on the Number of Fire Daily Fantasy podcast. See today specifically we've got NHL podcast and Tom Vecchio, NBA podcast from Tom Vecchio, USC from Austin Swain. I've got NASCAR later on as well. So it is a fun Friday here on the Number of Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Go search for that, Number of Fire Daily Fantasy podcast. Hit subscribe 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 FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your DFS lineups. I'm both the early only and the main slates and we'll talk to you once again on Monday for our first full week of the solo shot for 2022. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.