 Last night rain kind of spoiled the fun because we lost Marcus from a due to a postponement shame be bright I believe early due to a delay and it was a bummer because we lost two legitimately very good pitchers to You know circumstances outside of their own control. I am happy to tell you that for today We have no such concerns for MLB DFS because there are six games and not a single one has a weather notes We're gonna get to play things straight here pick our favorite plays and dive on in and play whoever we think we should For tonight, I think we got a pretty good idea of who should do well So let's dive on in and get you said for Thursday slate of MLB DFS welcome on into the solo shot That's right here on the fan duo podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm here to break down Thursday's six game main slate with lots lock set for six 40 p.m. Eastern for tonight again six 40 p.m. Eastern is the time for a lock for tonight Make sure you've got your line. It's in by then To play for this evening. Let's gonna play an alternative to slate as well But six 40 p.m. Eastern lock for the main slate like I said, no weather to note It's glorious. We get to play the best plays and I think we got some good ones We'll talk about those in just a bit but first a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the number fire Daily fantasy podcast seed wherever you get your podcast tomorrow. It's not just MLB. We also have UFC and NASCAR. We got a road course coming up this week, which should be a whole lot of fun So make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast seed wherever you get your podcast and if you like what you hear Leave us a rating and review as well. The MLB season is in full swing You can play body armors free to play pick-up contest with a $10,000 prize pool take a free swing at big cash prizes courtesy of body armor Just answer questions predicting the rivalry match between The Dodgers and the Giants the more questions you get right the more points you earn and the more cash You could win get your picks in before first pitch tomorrow night at 10 to 15 p.m. Eastern Here she has to win a share of $10,000 you can sign up for free at Fandall comm slash free slash contest slash body armor edge again That's Fandall comm slash free slash contest slash body armor edge Make sure to play this free pick-up contest for your chance to win a share of $10,000 Pitching preview for this Thursday main slate Garrett Cole checks in as the highest salary picture on Fandall He's 10 8 little low for what I would expect for Garrett Cole given how good he is show Hey, oh, Tony is $9900 max freed is 98 Nick Paveda 91 then we have Jordan Lyles Steven Strasburg welcome back and a JT brew Baker as the others at $8,000 or higher I think Garrett Cole is an interim his own for tonight. I think that honestly even at 10 8 He's about $700 under salaried with where he should be. He's the top option even show. Hey, oh, Tony Being on the slates. I think it's Cole in a tier of his own That's for a couple reasons the biggest one is length the Yankees are letting Cole go as long as he wants He's gone 102 or more pitches in for his past six starts. He went 97 in the two exceptions in there He's averaged 104 in that stretch Nobody on this slate is touching that length for Garrett Cole plus he's been Disgusting while going deep in these games. He has been using his slide or more across his past six starts He has a 34% strikeout rate in that time with a 2.16 skill interactive Yeah, Ray his walk rate is 3% when you combine that with how far he's going in games Good things are gonna happen. Cole has nine to plus strikeouts and five of those six starts He has 10 plus three times. So he's been absurd. He's facing the twins. They're getting healthier Just got Carlos Correa back yesterday So not as easy of a matchup as what Cole has had recently because they got a 120 WRC plus against writings I'm not sure it matters because he's a cyborg right now The twins are not a low strikeout team. It is 75 degrees in Minneapolis. So not enough hot enough to be a concern I think you lock in Cole in all formats cash games tournaments single entry I would just use Garrett Cole and go from there. He's under salaried He will probably be less popular than he should be so Garrett Cole to me regardless of contest type Is the top option for tonight? If you do want to pivot the top pivot is Shohio Tani the season long numbers for Tani great and In that perspective he is in Garrett Cole's tier But he's super inconsistent and that's why I put him a full tier below Cole. He is still number two though I didn't see anything super concerning in the numbers in his most recent start for Ohtani His velocity was fine. His pitch mix was fine He just got rocked and it was a tough spot because he was on the road against the Yankees and That's a tough situation a tough park to be in for a fly ball pitcher But now he's back at home Ohtani has a 2.6 1 skill interactivity I read this year with a 33% strike area and again if we just look at those numbers He is very much in Cole's tier especially when he's at home and Cole is on the road I just worried a bit about the inconsistency. He says in the Red Sox, they're pretty low strikeout team But Ohtani did strike them out 11 times and seven shutout innings back on May 5th That's also long enough ago over a month ago where I don't worry about familiarity issues So I do think Ohtani's a good pivot I think that he should be much lower roster than Cole tonight And he still has the ability to be the SP one of the night I just think I am more inclined to swallow the chalk on Cole and make Ohtani My second highest exposure player from multi-entry like I'm talking about like just these two exposure wise 70 30 75 25 in favor of Cole probably where I'm thinking for tonight I think that's the most appropriate number and I could see myself using just these two There are a couple guys think are viable outside of them, but I think it's a heavy skew towards Cole with Ohtani being number two For value plays you have a couple routes you could go I could see Jordan Lyles being fine against the Royals could match up for him not a high strikeout situation though I could see Connor Pilkington. He's got a lot of whiffs facing the A's not a bad matchup But I'm gonna cheat a bit. I'm gonna put Nick Povetta at the top here for values He's 91. I typically try to go below 9,000 so cheating by a hundred dollars, but My podcast my rules. I just think that the better is a much better play Than Lyles and Pilkington's I will go with him here Povetta does scare me lets up a lot of hard contact and he lets up fly balls and the angels Despite struggling despite using nickel back to try to break out of their slump very weird They have some dangerous guys still. I just like the strikeout potential for Povetta Povetta similar to Cole is going deep in games He has gone a hundred plus pitches in three of his past four starts and he did do it against some lesser teams But he also had eight strikeouts in nine innings of one-run ball against the Astros Overall this year Povetta has a 23 percent strikeout rate The angels as a team have a 26 percent strikeout rate against writings That puts Povetta's strikeout projection at 6.5. That is a third highest on the slate behind Cole and Otani So yeah, I'm cheating by plugging Povetta here But I just feel a lot better about him than the guys below 9,000 So Povetta to me is the top value in quotes for tonight. I don't know if I'll get there I think I might stick to just Cole and Otani I'll talk about Max Fried and things to watch too, but it might be a two-pitcher night for me tonight Just because Cole and Otani really do separate from the pack as far as stacking goes It might be tough to stack the Yankees with Cole But you can get there with the help of a value stack and because again, I think Cole is under salary So I'd like to try to do that for today I will rank the Yankees number one in terms of stacking the Yankees are facing Dylan Bundy Bundy did start the year off well, but all of his old issues have crept back up primarily It's hard contact Bundy's been trying to work in a sink or more across his past six starts which is odd because He did this change after getting off to that impressive start So it's not working He has a 19% strikeout rate in this time comes with a 41% fly ball rate and a 39% hard hit rate The results have been pretty brutal in those six starts. We've seen Bundy let up five plus earned runs three times He let up four and another that's even with two starts against Detroit and one against Oakland The Yankees are much better than that. They lead the slate with a 123 WRC plus against righties on their current active roster with a 179 ISO which ranks second So it's not a good situation for Bundy They're definitely a prime target here Even if it does require us to get more creative whether it be with our second stack or within this Yankee stack to make things work And I'm definitely willing to use some of the lower salary guys here in order to make it happen Josh Donaldson is one he's $2,900 hasn't been great since he came off the IL which is concerning given it's a shoulder injury, but He has made occasional loud contact at least so he's in play Mac Carpenter and Glaber Torres if they play if they manage to squeeze themselves in the lineup here Definitely would be in on them and I'd rank them potentially above Donaldson as well So if they play plug them in I just wouldn't go into the slate assuming that they'll play and you know having everything hinge on them Because I'm there's a good chance not other than plays Same kind of thing Joey Gallo. He's not always fun, but I think he's probably necessary here potentially so Gallo Torres Donaldson Carpenter all guys I'd be willing to use if it allows me to stack the Yankees with Garrett Cole Again, the other route though is to potentially use a lower salary in second stack One team I'm willing to stack in order to make it easier to afford Garrett Cole is the Orioles They're facing Chris Boobich. He will get the start for tonight and he just came back up from AAA and He had good strikeout numbers there But the results were rough. He had a 6.59 e array across three starts in AAA with a 9.33 e array in the major so far this year I am not a fan of using e array in small samples But the expected e array in the majors for Boobich is 9.08. That's wild stuff It's a combination of a low strikeout rain a lot of walks and a lot of hard contact And it's not specific to just 2022 either Boobich had a 4.73 skill interactive e array last year as well He just had more strikeouts and a bit less hard contact Now that those two numbers have slid backwards. He's getting crushed he did throw his change up a bunch in his first start back in the majors and He did hold Houston's scoreless across five innings. So that's good But it's not a good pitch the X Woba against it is 457 according to baseball survive and The Astros made a ton of hard contact in that game It's didn't fall in they had 11 hard hit balls on 17 balls and play believe there were two barrels in there, too So I am very on board a stack in the Orioles here in order to get me access to Garrett Cole's my pitcher and get Me access to the Yankees as one of my stacks One of the guys we should consider if he plays is Tyler Nevin Just got called backup from triple A and last year Nevin had a 229 iso against lefties between triple A in the majors He hit nine of his 17 home runs against lefties. So seems like he could potentially be a lefty bashing specialist I would not be shocked if we see Nevin bat seventh or so He's $2300. I would use him if he's in there because $2300 can go a long way to getting back up to guys like Stanton judge Rizzo etc etc in your other stack So Nevin's a guy to consider probably the prime guy I would go to among the lower salaried Orioles above rushman stuff like that So see if Nevin's in there and if he is I feel good about using him in this spot For a third stack Cleveland's offense has definitely cooled off They are no longer stroking it like they were to start this year But I do like their matchup tonight, and I'm going to go at them in this spot They're facing James Capralion who is in a pretty rough spot right now He's let up four plus earned runs in three straight starts and one was against Boston, which makes sense But the others were against Texas and Seattle He also let up four runs to the Guardians back on May 1st The peripheral say we should expect this to continue because Capralion has a 5.16 skill interactive VR ran seven starts. He has a low strikeout rate. Let's have a lot of fly balls the one thing keeping him from Kind of going completely off the rails is our hit rate It is 37% for the full season, but it was 42% last year And it's been creeping up this year as the Sanpa has expanded as well We haven't seen Cleveland in many plus matchups recently They do get one here. So I I could think could see a spot where they bounce back to their early season form based on Finally getting a good matchup where they can actually take advantage So the the Guardians to me a high quality stack and again can help you a bit and getting to the Yankees Their second stack Oscar Gonzalez is $2400 Great triple-a numbers batting in the middle of that order. I think he he's a fantastic part of the stack Josh nailers 31 impressive bounce back for him this year after that injury that he had previously 250 iso against righties across 93 plate appearances I'm willing to use miles straw for the stolen base upside Just another good route to help you splurge elsewhere. So Cleveland I think number two for me among value stacks behind the Orioles prefer the Orioles then the Guardians and then you know Using guys like Donaldson Torres carpenter, etc. etc on the Yankees to make it work So I think you can do it today. 10-8 is not bad for Cole. I would like to at least Give it a swing to see if I can jam in Cole plus Yankees and I think that I can't let's go to things to watch I do like Max Reed. He is a great pitcher. He's in a great matchup He's not the highest strikeout guy He is a 22% strikeout rate this year. The pirates are at 24% against lefties, which does give him a boost. I Would rank freed straight up above Pavetta The $700 between them does go a long way But I might still go for you to a pavetta I don't know. I think it's these four are the ones in my consideration set here is just those four Otani Cole Freed and Pavetta and I might just stick to the top two So freeze an option for sure if you really like him go ahead no objections here But the lower strikeout rate is why he's not as high on my list here And here's this even Strasburg will look like for tonight Definitely not on my radar for DFS. I do think he stretched out He went about 80 something pitches and his final rehab start. I've got him projected for 90 tonight But just an 8.4% swing and strike rate in his one triple a start It was higher in the two stints he had in double a but both those were very short outings We haven't seen Strasburg blow up since 2019. So I want to watch him I've always had a soft spot for Strasburg. He's super fun to watch But not there for DFS right now. So I want to see what he does just a wait and see for me on Strasburg Right now. I'm not exposed not opposed to some exposure to the Nationals here They're facing Trevor Rogers who is really struggling this year for some reason. I loved him last year He's very good, but hasn't had it recently 5.28 expected ERA There are many guys in the Nationals lineup I want to use against the lefty, but I think they're in play at least so Consider the Nationals, but definitely would put them a tier below the Orioles and Guardians in terms of value To help you get to the other high salary guys on the slate Let's finish up here with some digger calls for this Thursday slate the boring one I'll go Anthony Rizzo facing off against Bundy who traditionally has had issues with lefties It's not a great park for left-handed power at Target Field But Rizzo good power numbers this year puts the ball in the air a ton So go Anthony Rizzo as my Homer pick for today The fun one will go Tyler Nevin mentioned him before with the Orioles. I'd expect him to probably bat 7 8 somewhere in there. I don't think they faced a lefty since he came back up in triple a so not really sure where hope that it's But it's possible. He does wind up adding higher in the order But he's a guy who had some power last year in triple a had a good fly ball rate in triple a hasn't been as Powerful so far this year and the fly ball rate hasn't been as high, but I think there's some power in there So we'll go with Anthony Rizzo and Tyler Nevin as the home run picks for today That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot as I mentioned though tomorrow is a big day We have MLB in the morning as always we have USC We have NASCAR getting you set for a big weekend of DFS So search for the number fire daily fantasy podcast see wherever you get your podcast if you like what you hear Leave us a rating and review as well If you have any 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 for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups for tonight We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to get you set for a fun weekend DFS This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network