 We've got 13 games tonight in daily fantasy baseball, which means in theory we should have a lot of good pitchers at our disposal. Twenty six total guys in the slate. You would think that like five or so will grade out pretty well. We're going to have an entire section of things to watch about guys. I am avoiding due to pitch count. It's a lot of the guys with high salaries we would normally want to turn to. So it is actually a tough slate. There is one guy I want to build around for today, but it's still pretty thin. That means we've got to try to find ways to make that picture fit in, see if there are any alternatives, decide how hard we go with that guy. It's a 13 game slate, but it is still a pretty tough one. So let's dive on in and get you set. Welcome on into the solo shop. That's right here on the Fan Dual Podcast Network in Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire.com. Here to break down that 13 game slate with locks ever 705 for tonight. There is just one weather note for today. And thankfully it's not rain. It's not wind. We have wind in New York. That's the Mets and the Yankees. Those winds are in from left at 10 miles per hour. So I would downgrade the two offense there. Obviously not the best park for hitting to begin with, but now the wind's blowing in downgrade the Mets and the Yankees a bit as a result of that. We'll talk about the pitching here in just one second. But first, a quick reminder. We are live once again later on today. Our snake draft. The first one of the year by myself, Brandon Godula and JJ Zacharyson. We're going to do a three person snake draft for week one of the NFL season. If you watched that last year, we're running it back this year once again. Doing that snake draft every Friday at 4pm. If you tune in for the MLB show, do not worry. That'll still be at 4.30 for today. We'll take some questions after the snake draft about the NFL slate as well. So if you got questions about NFL, MLB, whatever it may be, just want to watch this draft. Tune in 4pm today and check out that. We also do have our heat check week one DFS preview podcast posted with myself and Brandon Godula breaking down the week one main slate. You can find that by searching for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts while you're there. Leave a rating review, hit subscribe. Make sure you swing back on Monday for our recap podcast as well. Our betting podcast covering the spread already up as well for week number one. Broke down Cowboys Bucks, but also talked about a couple other games this week and some college games with Dr. Eric Eager, Pro Football Focus. Finally, NASCAR podcast coming up later on today, 10.30 on YouTube and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed after that. Hey soccer fans, this season, FanDuel and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one-of-a-kind soccer contest. Introducing Captain Morgan's Soccer Pick'em, a weekly fantasy contest that is entirely free to play. The contest is simple, all you have to do is make quick predictions for Saturday games this soccer season. You will 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 FanDuel and enter the Captain Morgan Soccer Pick'em today. It must be 21 plus to participate for more details with FanDuel.com or download the FanDuel 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 Friday main slate. Robbie Ray is $11,200. Think you know who my top pitcher will be based on that? Not a big surprise there. Carlos Rodan is 10-8 if he starts. Not confirmed yet that he will go. Romero Valdez is 10-5. Shohei Otani is 10,000. Tyler Malley, not a bad matchup. He's $9,900. Julio Arias is 96. Facing Joe Musgrove and Joe Musgrove checks in at $9,400. Trevor Rodgers is 92. Herman Marquez is $9,100. Then Tanner Hough, Jordan Montgomery, Michael Wacca, Adrian Hauser, Madison Bumgarner, and Marco Gonzalez are the others at $8,000 or higher. And again, I think Robbie Ray is the top guy for tonight. And whoever is number two, whatever you decide the number two option is, they're probably not going to be close to Ray. He's facing the Orioles, and it's not about the matchup. I think the Orioles are a good team, and they're not a team I actively want to target. I like the Orioles weirdly. They're not a team I really want to go at. They have a 107 WRC plus against lefties, and they've got enough power to make you nervous if you are Robbie Ray. They also just saw him two starts ago. So it's not an ideal spot. He's just so much better than everybody else on this slate. And he's been good all year. But if the past sticks start specifically, we'd have seen velocity go down for Robbie Ray, which could be a concern. And usually it often is, but it hasn't been. In fact, Ray's been weirdly better with the velocity being down. He has a 38% strikeout rate in those six starts, 2.49, skill-interactive ERA, 5% walk rate. He used to have issues with walks and hard contact. The walks are gone. Those have been gone all year. The hard contact has been a bit more in check recently, too. His hard hit rate in these starts with Les Velo is 32%. So I'm not saying he's fixed it. That I definitely don't think that's a case. But if we're going to look at a small sample, I'd rather he be good in the small sample than bad. At least there is that. In that game against the Orioles, Ray had 10 strikeouts, more seven innings, allowed two earn runs. I'm not sure anybody else in this lake can get you 10 strikeouts. I don't know if that's the case. Like if I could bet, will anyone other than Robbie Ray get 10 strikeouts tonight, I'd be pretty intrigued by that. Number, I think that Ray is confidently the top option of the night. So to me, Robbie Ray needs to be number one by a significant margin. If you're going single entry, you will be butting the bullet on a high roster with Robbie Ray, but I don't really care. I think he's still the top guy for tonight. Single entry, go Ray, cash games, go Ray, and then just figure it out from there. For number two, I'm not a big fan of Julio Arias' matchup. Pretty similar to Ray, where don't really want to go at the matchup, just like the situation. Arias is facing the Padres. I'm not scared of them in terms of like, oh, they're going to put up like 30 runs. They just don't strike out a ton. I still think that Arias is number two behind Ray. Most of that's just based on talent. Arias has been featuring his curve ball more over his past eight starts, and it has worked out pretty well. The play discipline numbers are very good. He has a 27% strikeout rate with a 5% walk rate, which means he's letting up minimal base runners, but his bad at ball numbers are sick. He is specifically letting up a hard hit or a hard hit ball, 95 plus miles per hour on the exit velocity, just 24% of the time. League average is about 40%. He's at almost half that. Eight starts is not a small sample to look at bad at ball data. That's a pretty good sample, and Arias has been sick. If you combine the bad at ball data with his strikeouts, it's going to lead to awesome results, and it has, because his ERA this time is 1.42%. Arias has not let up more than 200 runs in any start in that time. When he faced the Padres three starts ago, he held them to one hit over five innings. They also struck out just four times, so again, that's why it's not perfect, but he's good, and honestly, where we can't find a lot of guys to strike out upside, I'll take that at a certain point. I am going to rank him a decent amount below Ray, but he's definitely second on this list. So to me, it's tears. It's Robbie Ray, gap, gap, gap, Arias, gap, to down to the rest of the options for today. I do think that Tyler Malley is interesting. Mark has a worry about pitch count a little bit, just because there's nothing to play for there. I think that Malley would probably be number three for me. Question mark? I don't know. Either way, I think that it's pretty clear to me. Ray is one, Arias is two, for tonight. And my player pool will be exclusively guys in a separate range. Guys $9,000 or higher, because nobody below $9,000 really stands out to me as being a great option. If you were to force me to recommend a value play, I would go with Eli Morgan. Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not going to use Morgan tonight. I want to make that very clear, but I realize some of you really want value plays. And he's the best one to me. Try not to let you down here. So again, I'm not going to use him. He would be my recommendation. I stacked against Morgan a lot when he first came up, but he's a different pitcher now. His loss, he has been up for his past eight starts. And in those eight starts, his strike at rate is 24%. That's not a bad number. He's had some individual good games. He held the Red Sox scoreless for five and two-thirds last week. He had seven strikeouts there. He had six shutout innings against the twins with eight strikeouts. He had nine strikeouts against the Jays. And the Jays and the Red Sox are both really good teams. So he's doing it there is pretty impressive. He's facing the Brewers tonight and they gain a DH, which I do think matters for them. They have a 24% strike area versus righties though, which is an above average mark. It's not as high as it was for them previously, but it's still above average. And it is a bump up for opposing pitchers. So again, I'm not going to use him. I want to make that fully clear. But I think there is a path to him doing well. If you insist on rolling out of value, like if you just want to load up on the Jays and go crazy there, Morgan would be the guy. But again, I just doesn't really feel what I want for tonight. I think the Rias is probably the lowest I might go. Maybe Marquez can be a guy at $9 to $100, but like I meant to talk myself into it is the way I'm thinking about things for tonight. And we'll talk about why I'm not on some of the other guys in things to watch, specifically revolving around a lot of low pitch counts. Now, it may be tough to stack the Toronto Blue Jays while using Ray at Pitcher. And that's tough, but I do think it's at least worth looking into. Even if it means you settle for a three-player stack and have to use a couple of value plays in there. But the Jays are facing Chris Ellis. Ellis is said to make his third start with Baltimore and his second start against the Jays. And he did really well in the first one. He allowed just one run over four and two-thirds innings. So he's already held them in check once. And his other start recently, which was against the Yankees, was also solid. But the AAA numbers for Ellis left plenty to be desired. He had a 6.32 ERA with the Ray's AAA team, 23% strikeout rates, 11% walk rates, not a big ground ball guy. And based on those numbers in AAA, you would expect him to struggle in the majors. His peripherals aren't super strong either. He's led up a 47% hard hit rates with a 50% fly ball rates. Those numbers have not bit him yet, but they very well could soon. And they very well could have because his expected ERA per baseball is 5.38. So I think it's wise to at least try to get the Jays here. Even if it doesn't mean you're settling for their non-elite guys. Corey Dickerson, I think is a key to this, $2,600. George Springer might be able to get back in there today, but if he isn't, Dickerson can bet lead off for $2,600. His 142 ISO against Rayides is underwhelming, but he's low-sourced access to a great lineup with a tremendous matchup. It's not like a no-power guy, like Nikki Lopez went deep last night, because of course, before I talked to him on the Q&A, saying, hey, I don't want to use him, he goes deep. Why not? He's not that mold. So I can use Dickerson. Alejandro Kirk could be in there once again. I will go to him as well. I think that the Jays, you take the value you can get and then see who you can get to for the studs. And the other route for stacking the Jays is Ray is having a lower-sourced second stack. And I do think that there are three options that grade out pretty well there. We'll go through all three, two right here, and then one more things to watch. With Ray's salary being super high in the Jays so far, I think that we do need to try to do this. And one of those lower-sourced teams can be the twins. That does make me nervous, because they have been pretty bad against lefties recently. And they're facing one in Daniel Lynch today, so it's risky, but I think it's worth the risk. Lynch has struggled all year long. He is trying to combat those struggles by adding in a sinker, which makes sense, because the bad of ball data was a good reason why Lynch was struggling. We're up to seven starts since he's made this change. The sinker hasn't cut down the hard contact. He's letting up a 43% hard hit rate with a 43% fly ball rate in that time. That's pretty rough. The strikeout rate is 20%. The walk rate is 13%. I do prefer to stack against guys who walk fewer batters and let in more balls and play. But at least here, a walk can lead to a multi-run inning in a hurry. I guess it's like a consolation. And we did see that happen his most recent time out. He walked three guys and let up two home runs against the White Sox, and that combo led to six earn runs against him. He did have a cut on his finger in that start, which may have contributed, but we saw that before too, against the Blue Jays and the Yankees. So I don't think it was a one-off fluke due to the finger. Those teams are better than twins against lefties. So we just need to keep that in mind for sure. But the twins have the salary savers we need in this spot. I will take a risk on them because I do want to try to find ways to get the Jays. The value play here, we got like Brent Rooker, Rob Roth-Sneider, Ryan Jeffers. One I'd like the most is Ryan Jeffers. He is not a lock to play because he's a catcher, but he has a 233 ISO versus lefties. If you look at him, he looks like a guy who can hit some dingers. He's got some built forearms. He's got a good bat at ball profile. Doesn't strike out too much. Sorry, he does strike out a lot, which could be an issue versus Lynch, but he's got Dinger upside. He's $2,300. I hope he plays so he can use him here. So I would say Jeffers is one, probably Rooker too. He's had a lot of issues this year, but like, again, power is there. Rob Schneider is three. He's probably the best overall hitter of the three, but not the highest upside of the three. So all three of those guys are options, but Jeffers to me, the number one of that group. For the third stack, I'm going to go with the Reds. They're also like the Twins, not good against lefties. So it does annoy me, but they have some individuals who work, and I'm hoping that's enough against John Lester. Lester seems to have given up on trying to get strikeouts. Like a lot of guys will make tweaks to try to increase strikeout rate. Lester, don't care. He is going all in on a sinker. He threw that pitch 42% of the time in his most recent start. Not shockingly, his strikeout rate that's joined the Cardinals is just 12%. He is letting up some hard contact as well. The one downside of stacking against him is that Lester is getting a healthy number of ground balls. He's let up just a 26% fly ball rate in this time, and that can be a bummer. The one exception, the one game where he did not get a lot of ground balls was against the Reds, a team he will face tonight again. He faced them two starts ago. They actually had a 53% fly ball rate against Lester in that game. Now they didn't make it to hard contact, and fly balls that are not struck well are out. So Lester pitched well there, but they were lofting it. Now they get to see him again for the second time in 12 days. That may boost the hard contact stuff. So it's not a situation I like all that much, but I think it's fine enough to justify on this slate. They, so I think the Reds are number three for me. They do have three guys who are value plays who have shown at least some pop against lefties. Those guys are Kyle Farmer, Ari Sades Aquino, and Tara Stevenson. With Aquino, I worry he'll leave for a pinch hitter or a defensive replacement because that does happen pretty often, but Stevenson and Farmer should play the whole game. They are $2,600 and $2,900 respectively. I'll rank both of them above Aquino. I will take some swipes at Aquino, but it's kind of like Albert Pujols last week where you're kind of hoping for an early dinger. He did get that Pujols did, and Aquino can get that too, but it does limit upside if a guy is going to leave the game after two or three played appearances. So Aquino third among the values for the Reds for today. Let's go to things to watch and talk about some of the pitchers. I was not on before, largely due to pitch counts. The guys with specifically pitch count concerns are Michael Walker, Trevor Rogers, Tanner Howe, and Carlos Rodan. Again, if Rodan starts, Walker is expected to piggyback with Chris Archer. He's looked pretty good recently, but the piggybacking is enough for me to jump out. Rogers just came back from a pretty extended leave. He went 83 pitches in his first game back. They have no reason to stretch him out. He didn't go long earlier in the year, so I'm expecting Rogers probably around 80 to 85 again. Howe hasn't gone longer than 90 all year. He's looked good recently, just hasn't gone longer than 90. And Rodan, again, not even confirmed as a starter yet. His velocity was pretty bad last time out. He's gone 67 and 77 pitches in his two starts since returning. So they're all interesting. I think they all pitch pretty well, but I can't get there with their expected workloads. And that's why I am building around Ray Unurias for tonight. It's really tough to get excited about the Marlins because they're pretty bad. They're facing Ian Anderson for tonight. And Anderson has struggled quite a bit since he came off the IL. So maybe if you need another value stack, you could take some swipes at the Miami Marlins. And Anderson's been brutal since he came off the IL. And he's a good pitcher. He just doesn't seem healthy right now. So specifically with the Marlins, I think it's the younger guys who are interesting. Lewin Diaz is $2,200. Jesus Sanchez is $2,500. Louis Brinson, if you got to get there is $2,300. And then Jazz Chisholm, I know it hasn't been as super star-ish recently as it was before he had his injuries. But he had a Dinger last night, got a stolen bass as well. So the upside is still there. So I would say that you can get a four-player stack from the Marlins. But if you want a lower-sourced young guy with some upside, I think that they do great enough pretty well there as well. If you want some more hitters on bad offenses, because why not? We got the Twins, the Reds versus the Lefties, and then the Marlins. And let's add the Mariners to the list too. They're facing Madison Bumgarner for the second straight start. Bumgarner got beat up last time out against the Mariners. And he said he couldn't grip the ball due to, he said they were too slippery. But he's probably been dealing with slippery balls for a while now. That came out weird. But he hasn't been pitching well for a bit. He has just a 17% strikeout rate. In his past day, it starts with more change-ups. His fly ball rate is 44%. So I think we can use guys against him. Mitch Hanniger is sick. I like Luis Torrens. Ty France works. Not as into Abraham Torro against Lefties as Righties. So he's the one guy who's batting as a Rightie. I'm okay being low-ron. But the Mariners work as a mini-stack or a one-off, I think, for today. Same thing with the Marlins. Marlins maybe can get a full stack in there. I'd probably be okay with that. But hopefully that's enough value to get you to Robbie Ray's or Pitcher and the Blue Jays along with him. Let's finish up with some Dinger calls for today. I know things have not been that great for Byron Buck since he came back. But he's been getting more hard contact recently. Facing Daniel Lynch, who lets up a lot of fly balls, a lot of hard contact. I got to go with the heart for today. Byron Buxton going yard tonight for the Boring Home Run Call. But the fun one, we will go to the Jays and talk about Corey Dickerson again. Not the biggest power guy, but great matchup. Love the situation here versus Ellis. Probably going to get a lot of played appearances because of the way this game sets up. So the Boring Home Run Call for today. Byron Buxton, let's go, baby. And then Corey Dickerson, the fun one to round things out. That is all that we have here for today on the Sola Shop. But once again, we have the NASCAR podcast coming up at 10.30. NFL heat check already posted, breaking down week one with myself and Brandon Gadoula. Snake Draft is at 4.00 p.m. on the Fandal YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter pages. NLB, Q&A at 4.30. So a lot of stuff here on the Fandal YouTube page and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Make sure you hit subscribe. Make sure you check out all the good stuff and leave a rating or review. If you're watching YouTube, hit that like button as well because all those help us out a ton and we truly do appreciate it so much. 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. Good luck to you tonight. We'll talk to you once again on Monday for some more baseball. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandal Podcast Network.