 Mother Nature apparently got very sick of me discussing the Houston Astros on this podcast because I was fully prepared to talk about Frimer Valdez as being my second-ranked pitcher for tonight and having the Astros as the top stack and Mother Nature Apparently a big solo shot listener had had enough of the Astros talk for this week because It's gonna rain a lot in Detroit for today So I am gonna lop off the Astros and both the pitching in the stacks under the assumption that game Probably does not go so if you are sick of the Astros or just don't like hearing about them because of the stuff that happened a Couple years ago You're free to go this podcast will be Astro free outside of the occasional mentions of where I would put guys if they were to Play so you are welcome via Mother Nature welcome on into the solo shot That's right here on the fan dual 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 Friday's 13 game main slight with lock set for 707 p.m. Eastern for tonight So again two extra minutes to make our lineups look a whole heck of a lot worse The big weather note for today is that rain in Detroit for the Tigers and the Astros as mentioned from her Valdez Would be my number two pitcher if not for this and the Astros have been up my number one stack if not for the rain But I feel like that games probably not gonna go based on the Forecast via dark sky weather maybe that changes by the time we get to our 4 p.m. Stream we can go full analysis on them But didn't want to waste your time for today So I will not be talking about the Astros or the Tigers in the pitching and stacks section There is a chance of rain in Cincinnati for the Reds and the Braves should be good to go Same thing for Chicago between the White Sox and the Mariners so keep an eye on Cincinnati in Chicago for some rain But as of right now, I'm guessing things are good to go So we can analyze all these games in depth outside of the Astros and the Tigers Hopefully by the time we get to our 4 p.m. Stream today We'll have good news on the weather for Tigers Astros that is at 4 p.m. Eastern on the Fandall YouTube Twitch Facebook and Twitter pages. So make sure you swing on by then Get your questions in ask whatever is on your mind with regards to MOB DFS and it doesn't have to be just this late It can be Specific to process anything else more than happy to discuss all that 4 p.m. Eastern time today on the Fandall YouTube Twitch Facebook and Twitter pages make sure you subscribe there and also make sure to subscribe to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed Fantasy Friday is on tap. We got the solo shot. Of course Austin Swain's UFC Vegas 30 preview is already posted breaking down this Saturday's card It's a 13 fight card So swing by and check that out and then a NASCAR double header a Pocono breakdown of that coming up 1030 on the Fandall YouTube page and up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed after that So Fantasy Friday in full swing for today here on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed If you like what you hear make sure you leave us a rating and review Hey soccer fans this season Fandall and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one-of-a-kind soccer contest Introducing Captain Morgan soccer pick them a weekly fantasy contest That's entirely free to play the contest is simple All you have 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 Fandall and enter the Captain Morgan soccer pick them today Must be 21 plus to participate for more details This is a fandall.com or download the fandall 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 Carlos Rodan is the highest salary pitcher on the slate over on Fandall. Well worth it He's 11 to from her Valdez if that game plays is 10 7 you say kikuchi facing the White Sox He's $9,500 shaman Naya facing a righty heavy Giants line of his 94 We have Pablo Pez Chris Patek and Mike Minor as the other guys at $8,000 or higher now when I was going through My process yesterday and trying to decide who I would talk up for today I didn't have to finish out filling out my sheet I did not know who is starting each game yet when I put down Carlos Rodan as the number one pitcher for today Because it is impossible to poke holes in his his outlook for tonight So Rodan to me far and away the number one pitcher on this slate He has strikeouts. He has skills and a quality matchup. It's just fantastic across the board The most relevant sample on Rodan is his past six starts He's been using more sliders in that stretch and he had good upside before he was pitching really well He obviously didn't know hitter, but he's been even better in this time He has a 2.34 skill interactive ERA across those six starts with a 39% Strikeout rate and you might say hey that six starts sample includes three starts before June Maybe we're getting a sold a false bill of goods here But Rodan's strikeout rate has been at least 30% in all three this June starts So if he was using sticky stuff it has not hurt him in a massive way to not have it and One of those starts is against the Astros another was against the Blue Jays So when you factor that in he's been stupid good the matchup tonight not nearly as tough He's facing the Mariners who have a 28% strikeout right against lefties with an 88 WRC plus They will hit for some power at times so they could get a solo home run off of him But the strikeouts should more than make up for that I think that the gap between Rodan and the rest of the slate here is fairly massive He also goes deep in games. He's gone 103 plus pitches in three straight starts. So I Generally try to provide like a counterpoint as to why a pitcher may not work out. I Can't find a great one for Rodan. That's not saying. Oh, he's a lock. That's not true in baseball There's no such thing as a lock, but I would say my level of confidence in him is One of the higher levels of confidence. I've had in a starter so far this year Carlos Rodan tremendous and I'm expecting big things from him for tonight So to me far and away the number one pitcher on this slate now a friend of Valdez I do like him and if not for the rain, he'd be second So again, I don't want to waste your time talking about a game that's likely to get rained out But if Valdez's game does look like it'll play He'll be my number two guy for tonight but if we take away Valdez number two for me is Chris Paddock at $8,500 and it's kind of similar to Joe Ross yesterday where I haven't used Paddock this year And so it feels a bit weird to be here But I think there are reasons to do so Paddock is $8,500. It's the convergence of a couple of things The first one is obvious. It's the matchup He's facing Arizona then they have an 80 WRC plus versus righties, which is the worst mark on the slate They have a 130 ISO and a 25% strikeout rate So if you're looking at the pool of pitchers who can realistically do well against them It's a lot of guys and Paddock, I think is in that pool because of what he's been doing recently He has been a guy who got off to a rough start earlier on But he has made some changes started to add in a curveball and that gives Paddock a third Legit pitch in addition to his foreseeing fastball and his change up He throws that curveball in his most recent sample just 12% of the time So that's not like a a massive massive focus But it's enough to keep people off balance and it seems like it's working in these seven starts with that curveball usage increasing Paddock has a 3.21 skill interactive eRA with a 29% Strikeout rate and a 4% walk rate. He used that to get 11 strikeouts last time out Nine the time before that that 11 strikeout game came in Cincinnati very good team versus righties The Diamondbacks not so good So if we're looking for downsides with Paddock, it is length He doesn't tend to go longer than 90 to 95 pitches and I would not expect that to change So that's annoying and it does put a lid on the enthusiasm, but hey, it's $8,500 It's a pretty good step down from from Rodin But I think that if we get Valdez, I feel okay putting Paddock number three for tonight at $8,500 I've seen enough recently from him to feel like he's made tangible changes good matchup at home Good park for pitching. I think that makes a lot of sense, but Paddock number three for tonight Our fourth pitcher is a scary one because this guy is facing Kyle Schwabber tonight That is not fun Kyle Schwabber is a machine right now So I understand if you don't want to go here But I do like Pablo Lopez against the Nationals and most of it's because Lopez is a very good pitcher He is similar to Paddock where he's been he's got to go change up already But it's been sprinkling in more curveballs recently over the past seven starts with more curveballs Lopez has a 3.28 skill interactive ERA with a 26 percent strikeout rate and a 4 percent walk rate So honestly like if you look at those numbers, they're almost identical to what Paddock does But he doesn't have as good of a matchup. So that's why Paddock is higher despite the fact They're very similar one advantage Lopez does have is that his batted ball suppression numbers are very nice He has allowed a 32 percent hard hit rate in this time his fly ball rate is 33 percent and if you are going to try to find a Way to neutralize Kyle Schwabber you got to find a way to suppress hard contact Another one is you got to be good against lefties and Lopez's strikeout rate does go down against them But he also allows just a 31 percent fly ball rates That's kept his overall results against lefties pretty steady despite the reduced number of strikeouts So yeah, it stinks to use a guy facing who is current someone who is currently playing like Lights out absolutely lights out baseball like clock Kyle Schwabber But Lopez has good that at ball suppression skills. He's in a good park and he can get strikeout That's enough for me to put him forth in the list behind Rodan Valdez if he plays and then Paddock for tonight With that said, let's move to our stacks and again disclaimer The Astros would be number one for tonight. I've not for the rain based on Willy Peralta So I would want to go there But if we get the all clear the Astros of the top stack, but like with Valdez not gonna wait your time So let's talk about other options here outside of the Astros under the assumption that game does get rained out Matt Harvey is starting for tonight and I Feel kind of bad for the way the schedule broke for him because Harvey just faced Toronto last week He now faces them for a second consecutive start this time up in Buffalo So it's rough It's been a rough year for Harvey keeps getting worse because he has faced the blue Jays once again But I think we have to stack them again here and see if they can duplicate this success they had last time in that game the Jays scored four runs across four and one third innings and I find that reassuring in terms of stacking for today and the reasoning I find that reassuring is that Harvey is a good amount better Against righties than lefties in terms of his peripherals results have been about even but the peripheral number is much better versus Righties and lefties and the Jays are a righty heavy team So it could in theory be a concern to see Harvey facing a righty heavy team, but with how well they did last week I do think that bumps up my confidence in them here Harvey's also been Sliding back recently he's been cutting back on his forcing fastball usage over his past four starts throwing more stinkers and more curveballs It's not working He has a 5.24 skill interactive era with a 15% strikeout rates and a 46% hard hit rate Harvey heads let up four plus runs and three straight games So you could say hey if it's not working I'll go back to what he was doing before but that wasn't working either because he had let up five plus runs and four straight starts Prior to this so I don't know what route Harvey takes to get out of this I'm not sure if he can get out of this But I'm gonna keep on stacking against him until he does for today, which means we are on the Jays once again for tonight Due to Harvey's platoon splits, I will bump up Kevin Biggio for tonight He's been really good overall since he came back He has a 316 ISO overall with a 13.3 percent barrel rate He has as many walks of strikeouts. So I'm obviously still good at the righties I'm just gonna bump up Biggio relative to his baseline for today as a result of Harvey's massive massive issues with lefties He's the one guy here benefits from that But I still think the righties are in play, but I do want to bump up Biggio relative to the other guys in this lineup If we're trying to get to Rodin though the Blue Jays Probably not the best stack to pump up because they don't have a lot of value So we do want to find some value and I think that the Yankees can bring us some of that Obviously not judge and stanton But I think that we have some guys here we can turn to and I like them tonight against Martin Perez Perez Has really struggled since these sticky stuff discussions started and it could just be coincidence You know, I don't want to assign blame it could just be a coincidence that he's had this down tick recently but in the three starts in since the Discussion began he has a six point four seven skill interactive era with an eleven percent strikeout rate and a 13% walk rate The hard hit rate and fly ball rate are both 37% now if you take those bad at ball numbers in a vacuum They're fine like they're about league average But when you pair them with his plate discipline numbers the low strikeout rate and the high walk rate they become an issue It's definitely a small sample, but Perez Wasn't exactly shutting people down before this he has a four point three two era for the season His skill interactive era is four point six three is expected era baseball savante is five point oh three So if you take those as your baseline and slide them back a bit We'd absolutely want to stack against him and I think there is a reason to believe that slide back is happening here So I am in on the Yankees for tonight. The Yankees do have some value geo or Shella is a lower salary guy We also have Gary Sanchez at thirty one hundred dollars not a value play, but it's not Overly restrictive because he does get a pretty big bump up against lefties his strikeout rate against them 23% or Shella has an ISO above 200 versus lefties. He is twenty eight hundred dollars You also have Luke Voight at twenty five hundred dollars He has a couple of dingers in three games since he came back and that makes him an easy pick at twenty five hundred dollars So if you want value, I would check out Voight's check out or Shella It's not just to an extent not really a value play But then also judge and Stanton you can get to them with Rodan So I would say the Yankees if you need some help getting to Rodan from a salary perspective They are a team you can turn to for tonight For our third stack, it's not the best hitting weather in San Diego I talked about Patek and how it was a plus part for pitching that is true It is just 70 degrees which puts a lid on our enthusiasm around stacking the Padres for tonight But I still think they deserve to be number three on this list and then bump down to four if the Astros do play The Padres are facing Corbin Martin. He has been back and forth between triple A in the majors He struggled both of those locations He has an 8.63 ERA in the majors 5.32 in triple A and you know You don't want to look at ERAs in such a small sample But not good when the results are that bad across 15 and two-thirds big league innings Martin has a 5.91 skill interactive ERA with almost as many walks his strikeouts He's also letting up a ton of hard contact He did get more strikeouts in triple A with a 26 percent strikeout right there, but that's triple A 26% this year not all that high there and his swinging strike rate was 11.2% So I think that we have a large enough sample on Martin across the two spots to say He's not going to be some shut down pitcher which gives me faith in stacking against him here The Padres not a team that give us a lot of value trying to get to Rodan But they're also not like a team that'll force you to break the bank And they do have one guy who can move the needle in terms of value, which is Will Myers He checks in at $2,600. He has a 175 iso against righties It's not a huge mark, but you know again, we're looking for value He can swipe some bags So I would be in on Myers if he winds up being the Lanford today, which I assume he will he's $2,600 Probably not gonna try to get to Eric Hosmer at 29 Trent Grisham bumped down in the order probably gonna bat seventh for today He is $3,100 fam Kronoworth all those guys below $3,500 So I think you can stack I think you can stack any of these teams with Rodan as long as you want to make some sacrifice Which I am so maybe I'm not gonna get to Vlad. Maybe they won't get to Tatis I hope I can but I think that those teams are all worth stacking for today And hopefully you can get there with Rodan Let's finish up here things to watch Cleveland is facing a bullpen game for the twins tonight They're facing Danny Colombe. He'll likely get two ish innings to start that game And Colombe has good numbers in triple a and he's a lefty which gives Cleveland some massive issues But the guys coming after him not necessarily elite the middle relievers from Minnesota So I am okay stacking Cleveland here even with plenty of ambiguity around whom they will face I would not base your selection selections though around as if they're facing a lefty because I mean the twins might just go lefty heavy to try to exploit the fact that the that Cleveland does struggle Versus lefties, but I would not be actively seeking out guys who feast against lefties But like yeah, I know I will I would also not cross off guys like Bobby Bradley who may be a lefty It may not get the platoon advantage for his first plate appearance or so they still work out So I would say Cleveland a good place to go and don't handle them as if they are facing a lefty for tonight We could see the Braves in a good spot for tonight. They're facing Vladimir Gutierrez He's done some good things so far in the big leagues specifically he is Suppressing hard contact and that's a massive massive positive to have but the plate discipline numbers for Gutierrez are Just fine, and he lets up a ton of fly balls. So Basically the margin for error for Gutierrez is pretty small if he slips It could blow up in a big way and the Braves pretty good I think they great out well for today And especially if you need extra value from the guys in the middle part of that order I am very on board at that for tonight So the Braves middle of the order the Yankees middle of the order good places to go for value when trying to get to Rodan And again Rodan's not like outrageous. He's 11-2, but still need some guys who can help you get there for sure Finally I was on Twitter last night and Pierre asked if I could do some dinger calls at the end of the podcast One for Tom Vecchio did this when I was out. I thought Tom did great So Tom set the bar too high and I am mad at him now for doing that But you know Pierre wants that Pierre has been a longtime solo shot listener. He's been a good interaction on Twitter So why not? We'll do it going forward. We'll do some dinger calls at the end of the podcast I'll do one boring pick and one fun one the boring pick is like the chalk You know like oh, yeah, no kidding for not a tattoo to go deep tonight. Cool. Good call, Jim One will be more kind of off the wall a little more under the radar for this one. So the boring one today I'm not gonna go as boring as I could patease or Vlad, but I'll go Marcus Simeon He's facing that Harvey which should make the appeal in him be pretty obvious Simeon a lot of fly balls I think that he makes a lot of sense for the less boring one will go with a team We have not discussed yet and talk about Austin Meadows He's facing Griffin canning who has been letting up a lot of high-impact contact So I think that Meadows and the rays are at least interesting for stacks for today Because of the contact profile that canning allows the rays almost got no hit last night So like they're not in the best of form, but still a good team versus righties canning Not as high of a strikeout guys pavetta. So he's I don't want really want to be super high in them for stacking But for one offs like Meadows, maybe Brandon Lau in there wander Franco. I think that they do work for sure So we'll keep those in the podcast going forward. Thank you to Pierre for asking for it And thank you to Tom for setting setting up for failure failure by being too good at it That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot But as mentioned coming back here at 10 30 on the Fandall YouTube page It talks of NASCAR for the Pocono doubleheader going through strategy for both races and my favorite drivers in each salary tier For the Saturday race that is at 10 30 on YouTube and up on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed Immediately after that. So make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed check out the UFC podcast with Austin Swain as well it gets that for a fun weekend of DFS If you have questions for me before the 4 p.m. Stream, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis J I M S a N N ES you can also follow the Fandall podcast network at Fandall podcast big Thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your DFS lineups for tonight If I don't talk to you during the 4 p.m. Stream have a fantastic weekend. We'll talk to you once again next week This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandall podcast network