 These stunts are out in full force for tonight in MLB DFS. We got Jacob DeGrom, Brandon Woodruff, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Lucas Geolito. The list goes on and on. Really good pitchers available for tonight in MLB DFS. All we got to do is decide which guys want to prioritize, which value plays a hitter we can turn to to jam them in and get you set for a fun Friday of MLB DFS. Welcome on into the FanDuel Fantasy Q&A. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Here to answer your questions for the next 25 minutes and get you set for tonight's MLB DFS. Slate Lock is at 7.05. It is a 13-game slate with a lot of good options across the board. As always, we are taking your questions live on air no matter where you're watching. You're watching YouTube, Twitch, Facebook or Twitter. Get those questions in for today's slate. We can talk pitchers, stacks, one-offs, MLB DFS process, whatever is on your mind. Get those questions in right now, YouTube chat, Twitch chat, Facebook comments, wherever you're watching. We'll take your questions live on air here for today. But also make sure you are subscribed on your platform of choice because we are doing this each and every weekday at 4 p.m. and at 3.30 as well on Tuesdays. For the PGA Q&A we have the U.S. Open next week, so a big one there. So make sure you are subscribed on your platform of choice and if you're watching on YouTube, hit the like button because that does help us out quite a bit. Let's take a look at the pitching options. For today we've got to Grom. We've got Woodruff, Scherzer, Geolito, Kershaw. And our task is to rank those guys. To me, if we can use Max Scherzer, I want to rank him number one facing the Giants. Good offense, but they will strike out a 27% strikeout rate versus righties. Second highest mark on this slate. Scherzer is at 36%. And also a reduced salary of $11,000. So to me, if we get Scherzer available to us, I'm going to take it. Problem is, I'm not sure we will. There is rain in the forecast here. It looks like it may be letting up at some point. I want to check what Kevin Roth of Rodegrinder says around 5.30 or so when he does his updated weather look for today. If he says we're good to go, Scherzer will be my number one option for today at Pitcher. Number two would be Jacob DeGrom. He is $12,000 for today facing the Padres. Tough matchup, but I do think that he's still worth it because he's Jacob DeGrom. So to me, I'm going to be in on DeGrom number two. I would go Kershaw three facing the Rangers. Good matchup at home. He's very similar to me to Woodruff, but Kershaw is $2,000 less. So I'll take Kershaw there. Woodruff then Geolito. Actually, we'll go Geolito Woodruff. Geolito facing a high strikeout team. Duplicate matchup, which is why I'm not super sold putting him above Woodruff, but I still think that he is the number three for me or number four for me for today. Let's start things off here. Taking questions from Facebook. Starting off with Joseph. Joseph is saying, all I got to say, how about Zach Wheeler? Zach Wheeler was awesome yesterday. He was the first to hit him on the early only slate facing the Braves tough matchup. But hey, you know, it's Zach Wheeler. He's great. I'm looking forward to having Zach Wheeler back in the main slate in the very near future. Let's start things off over on YouTube now by talking to Michael. Michael is asking, how would you upgrade or downgrade a Houston stack versus Ober versus Shoemaker? So what he's referencing there is that initially Matt Shoemaker is going to start this game for today for the twins. It's now Bailey Ober. I think it's a downgrade for Houston. I think better picture than Shoemaker. Shoemaker, super low strikeout rate this year Ober. What I have here, I believe is the bat projections. They project him for a 23% strikeout rate and a 5% walk rate. Those are good numbers. The problem is, and the reason I'd still be willing to stack Houston is that I think he's probably going to have some batted ball issues. So you could still stack Houston. The problem I run into is that Houston is super high salary. They're hitters here. You'll see that among the guys I actively want to use, Kyle Tucker is the only one with a salary below $3600. So that's tough to get to. When you go into Grom, Scherzer, even Kershaw, it's kind of tough. So I am okay deprioritizing the asterisks from where I was at earlier this morning. I think that it is a downgrade for them with Ober versus Shoemaker. They still don't play. If you got salary to get to them, they do work. Again, I think that Ober may struggle with balls and play, but it is a downgrade from what we had earlier today. Good question from you there, Michael. Let's talk to W. W. Fresh. What is the chalk for today? To find this, we can go over to the number of fire heathen because in general, you're going to see a heavy overlap between popularity and implied totals. So to Grom, obviously a pitcher will be the chalk. This to me says Scherzer might go a bit overlooked relative to where he should be. And also it does help that the rain may scare some people off. So that really helps me the Scherzer to Grom be the chalk because he's to Grom. So I bet the Kershaw carries a lot of popularity as well. Moving over to hitters, Astros still have a high implied total that is down from what it was. I believe it was like 6.2 at one point today, but that's come down with Ober starting. It hasn't changed there, but it has changed with Ober starting in place of Shoemaker. Cincinnati against Freeland. I think it's a solid stack, not my favorite stack, but definitely one I like. Then Cleveland against Dunn. I would expect all those teams to be pretty popular. So if we're looking at teams, I like more the Consensus, the Dodgers, definitely check that. Facing Mike Foltenevich and the Milwaukee Brewers against Chase DeYoung. Two teams I think I'm going to like more than others do. So to me, I would say those are the teams I am turning to for today if we're trying to deviate from what the public will be doing. Let's go back to Facebook and talk to Nick. Nick is asking thoughts on Ross stripling against Boston. I am going to hold off and not use it as a picture, but also not stack against him. I'm assuming you were asking about this from a stacking perspective. Stripling, this is over his five outings with more forcing fastballs. He has a 26% in strikeout rate, 3.46 skill interactive ERA, low walk rate. He's been pretty good. He had a big game, I think, against Atlanta a couple weeks ago that really jacked up his strikeout rate. I wouldn't totally cross Boston off, but they're going to be pretty low on my list because, I mean, they're worthwhile because he lets apart contact, lets him fly balls. They're a very powerful team. So you could consider Boston. I would not use stripling though because they are so good because there's some shakiness in this profile and because we have other options we can turn to at picture for today. So no stripling for me and the Red Sox an okay stack, but not one I'm actively seeking out. Let's talk to Kyle over on YouTube. Favorite one off utility play at $2,700 or lower. Thanks. Let's go over here to utility and check things out. For me, my one offs tend to be just like teams I'm not stacking in that specific lineup. Like if I have, let's say I'm stacking the Astros in general, but I'm not stacking the Astros in that lineup, I will stack my one off will probably be from that team in order to get additional exposure and limit the number of pitchers I am targeting. Let's look at here some one offs at utility. I'm in Rosario as a guy, I scroll past but I think that he is an option given Cleveland in a good spot. He is someone who has been playing pretty well recently. Josh Bell would also work, talked about D's Clifani and why it'd be okay targeting him yesterday. That does still apply. It's not like super high on my list. I think that Schwerber is 25 or so probably. Prefer Schwerber over Josh Bell, but he would at least be on the list there as well. Scrolling down here for some other options potentially, yeah, I think that Schwerber works. So Schwerber, Bell, and then we're looking at the Dodgers if you're spending down. Will Smith should not be $2,600. That is way too low for a guy as good as he is. I think that is a tremendous number. Honestly, among the guys we've looked at so far, I'm probably going to rank Will Smith the highest. So let's say Will Smith as being the number one for today. I do like Tyler Stevenson and Bobby Bradley. Bradley hitting fifth for today. Really good power numbers in the minors. Good matchup for today as well. So I do like Bradley a pretty decent amount. Let's talk to Aaron. Just run Houston four through seven and don't look twice. Again, it's going to be tough to get there from a salary perspective and they do get downgraded to me with the change to Ober versus Shoemaker. I also said Gouriel or Walsh, only a $300 difference in style. I'm assuming this is Jared Walsh. I would probably wind up going Walsh. I mean, I'm okay with Gouriel, but I just like Walsh the hitter more. Based on Meryl Kelly. I have not stacked against Kelly recently. The ground ball or the fly ball rate has come down from recently. So good on him made some recent changes that have been better for him, but Jared Walsh I just think is a really talented baseball player and I value his numbers here versus righties. So I can show you what I'm talking about here. He has a 278 ISO, a good hard hit rate, not a lot of strikeouts. So to me, if I can get to Jared Walsh, also really good part for today in Arizona. So to me, Jared Walsh very much worth the $300 in salary it takes to get there versus Yuli Gouriel. Let's talk to Diffuse over on YouTube between the Rosarios, Eddie and Ahmed and Cesar Hernandez. Who do you look to complete a full Cleveland stack of Jose Ramirez, Bobby Bradley and Josh Naylor. I do like Ramirez, Bradley and Naylor. So I like that start there for you Diffuse. Let's pull up the Cleveland numbers and versus righties this year. I'm pretty sure I'm going to settle on Ahmed Rosario, but let's double check this to make sure I'm not spewing some nonsense. Let's sort here by played appearances versus righties. Okay, Cesar Hernandez 110 ISO, no stolen bases, gross. Eddie Rosario 118 ISO, five stolen bases. Okay, that helps a lot of fly balls. That's nice. And then Ahmed Rosario 113 ISO, five steals. So it's between the Rosarios for sure. I would probably lean. I guess I'd lean towards Eddie. I guess I didn't realize how active Eddie Rosario has been on the bases so far this year. So I'll go Eddie over Ahmed, but it's pretty close. I would say if you have a strong inclination towards one over the other if one fits better positionally, then I would be okay going with them, but they are pretty close. So probably, probably Eddie for me just for the fly ball right that he does provide. Let's talk to Rob on Facebook. What about a blue J-Stack versus Richards? He looked horrible last game versus the Yankees. I think that they're kind of similar to what we talked about the Red Sox where you can definitely do it. There are a couple things that push me a bit lower. The first one is a temperature in Boston for today, just 65 degrees. That is pretty low relative to the rest of the slate. So that's a downgrade for hitters in this game. But also Richards is a ground ball pitcher. He has allowed a 30% fly ball right so far this year. That's a low number. If our choosing between stacking against Richards or stacking against Tripling, so stacking the J's versus stacking the Red Sox, I'd rather stack the J's. I feel better using hitters facing Richards than I do hitters facing Tripling, but to me, they're both kind of like secondary plays where I'm like, if I don't get there, that's fine. So the blue J is fine. The reason I'm not super enthused is the temperature and the low fly ball rate allowed, but they're okay. That's what I would say there. Let's talk to DeFuge. The Astros lefties in the likes of Jordan Alvarez and Kyle Pucker get a downgrade as well. So I don't tend to view things in that way. I view it in the sense of I downgrade stack, which downgrades everyone, because the way this works is because with baseball, there's no clock. If I downgrade one player on the team, increase the out potential for that player, it downgrades everyone, because every time Jose Altube gets a hit, that means that there is additional volume available, additional RBI opportunities available for Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, et cetera. So if I downgrade Jose Altube, I'm inherently downgrading everyone else. So yes, they also do get a downgrade, because I'm downgrading the team as a whole. So you can use Alvarez and Tucker. I do still think that they're very in play, because again, I'd expect Ober to have some issues with the battered balls he allows based on this fly ball rate, based on the very small sample of hard hit rate against him. I could see him struggling with balls in play. So Alvarez and Tucker are very viable. I just would downgrade them to answer your question, because it's not about them. It's about the stack as a whole, and the stack as a whole does get a slight ding down as a result of the way things great out here for the team as a whole. Let's talk to Michael over on Facebook. What about the Milwaukee Brewers pitching staff? Really good. If you were someone who was in on the Brewers from a from a division winning perspective prior to the year, you're very happy to see how they've done. Freddie Peralta, not totally odd yesterday. I'm curious what he would have done up into the rain delay, but when you got Woodruff and Burns, which sounds like Woodward and Burns, I listen to a podcast on Watergate, so I'm totally like in the Washington Post mold here mode here. When you got those two guys and then Peralta is your three, things are pretty sweet. I actually don't mind the Brewers today from a stacking perspective as well. That's not what you asked Michael, but I do like them quite a bit from a stacking perspective for today. They are facing off with Chase DeYoung. Chase DeYoung, I should say, and DeYoung probably going to be a guy with some issues with that at Balls. He does get some strikeouts. This is across four starts in the big leagues since it started last year, a 25% strikeout rate, but a lot of flyballs. The Brewers playing better as of late. They've got some value there to help make it easier to get to Scherzer, Kershaw, DeGrom and all those guys. I like the Brewers offense today, but the Brewers pitching staff always very good. Let's talk to Jerry over on Facebook rate these stacks, Houston, Tampa Bay, Boston, Cincinnati, and how do you feel about Yarbrough? I will not get to Yarbrough for today, doesn't get enough strikeouts. Really annoying and the Orioles also a low strikeout team versus lefties. So to me, no interest in Yarbrough personally. As far as the stacks, Houston, Tampa Bay, Boston and Sinsi, I would say probably still Houston won there if you can get to them. You can get to the salaries. They're still going to be a solid stack. They're just not as good and not as good relative to their salary as they were before. So Houston's still number one of those Jerry and they're solid. I would say Cincinnati's number two facing Kyle Freeland, who is going to be someone who lets up a lot of balls and play. Across three starts this year, 11% strikeout rate compared to a 13% walk rate. He does get ground balls, but I overall do think this is a good job for them since Cincinnati number two, but also a really solid number two option. So I'm very okay going with the reds. Boston is facing stripling medium levels of interest there. So at Tampa Bay, the one I missed is facing Keegan Aiken. I think Aiken's decent does let up some rough ball and play numbers. But with the amount the raised strikeout versus the lefties I think you've got better options. So to me if I'm ranking those Jerry, I would go Houston one, Cincinnati two, Boston three, and then Tampa Bay number four. Michael, the Brewer's lineup is out. Okay, so Luis Orias is batting leadoff. Love that. Dan Vogelbach second, Christian Yelich, Avicio Garcia, Omar Narváez. Okay, this is what I was hoping for for today. I think it's a really good lineup for us from a stacking perspective. So let's pretend here for a second we cannot use DeGrom or we cannot use Scherzer and we're forced to use DeGrom instead. I think that this lineup with the way it's constructed should actually make that pretty easy. I won't have the Brewer's lineup filled in here yet because I refreshed too long ago, but we can use Michael to look at the way things shake out here. I'm going to like Orias because he's a really solid player batting leadoff. I've been high on him for a while now and I'm glad that he's finally getting a chance to shine. And again, Dynasty shares very happy about all this. So we'll put him there. Probably going to want Jace Peterson. He had good power numbers in a small sample in AAA. Let's see which flexibility I get if I go Peterson as an outfielder here. That works pretty well. Probably going to want Narváez and Vogelbach. If I do that 33-25 left for my second stack alongside with DeGrom and none of those batters are guys I would be uncomfortable using. I think you can defend using all those players. So personally, I am okay with this as a stack. If you don't want to go Peterson totally understands you could upgrade to Abyssal Garcia instead. And if we do that, we are at 3100 left. That's also doable, especially given the low salaries that the Dodgers provide us most likely, depending what the lineup looks like. You're looking like Pollock or something there, McKinstry, hopefully at second base. That works out pretty well. So passing up Yelich, which is always kind of scary, but I'm still okay with it personally. Looking pretty good with the Brewer's stack for today. Mateo, do you think the Reds game plays tonight? I do. I was looking at Kevin Roth's initial forecast this morning. He didn't seem super concerned about it. The one game that was decently concerning was the Nationals versus the Giants. If you're planning on playing Scherzer or stacking the Nationals make sure you are around the clock hours. In the 6 o'clock p.m. Eastern hour to check back on the weather there, see how things are looking and see if we can get that game in for today. I think that's the one that's kind of in danger. The Reds one does have some weather like it does have some rain, but I bet that they are good to go for today. So if you want to stack the Reds, which I'm very okay with, I think you should be fine to do so. Also, Tyler Malley is a potential value play not super enthused and I don't need to get there. But among the guys who are probably getting a $9,000, he probably is my number one guy for tonight. Let's go back to Jerry and talk about home run props for tonight. Okay, so Jerry is asking what are your favorite hitters for home runs? I'm giving a Vado home run call. What do you think? Okay, so Joey Vado is facing Freeland. It's a lefty on lefty, but Joey Vado's fun. So I think if I were going with the Red, I'd probably lean towards Castellanos for the Batoon advantage, but not going to talk because he's really fun. Other home run calls for today. Okay, this is fun. This is my favorite part of the day. I want to make sure I'm getting good weather. I want to make sure I'm getting someone facing a pitcher who lets up a lot of impactful contact with that in mind. I think that JD Martinez could work against Roth Stripling could get behind that. Other options potentially going at Bobby Bradley if you want someone more so off the radar, Cleveland against Justin Dunn. Dunn doesn't let up a ton of balls in play but does let up impactful contact. Probably looking at the Dodgers here I would guess it's going to lead us to Max Munsey. Haven't quite seen enough from Bellinger to like, necessarily say like I have a ton of confidence in him right now. He had a couple of decently hit balls yesterday if I know you had a blooper, but you know, probably will round into form. So if we're looking at the Dodgers probably Munsey and then Will Smith. So if I'm going to narrow things down to just three for you, Jerry, let's go with I'm going to go JD Martinez against Roth Stripling. I'm going to go with Max Munsey against Mike Fultonevich and I'm going to go who was the other one. I guess Bobby Bradley was the fun one. So make Bobby Bradley the fun one. Will Smith could be kind of fun too. Those are the ones I would turn to for today. Aaron, Barron's projected to start today over Will Smith. Yeah, because generally Barron's is the personal catcher for Clayton Kershaw. So I talked to Will Smith earlier. Total brain fart on my part forgot the Kershaw's pitching. So if you're filling out lineups now I would not fill them out I would not fill them out with the thought in mind that Will Smith will play. I'll probably sit today because it is Kershaw. Totally forgot about that. You are right. I had the brain fart there. It likely will be Austin Barnes. Alvin do you like the raise? Not particularly they're facing Aiken again who does let up some impactful contact but issue I have here is that they strike out a ton against lefties it's also a bad park for heading for today because a lot of games are outdoors this one is not as the weather has gotten warmer that means the park factor for Tampa Bay gets downgraded a bit. So I would say I would say that they do wind up being kind of low on my list like Alvin if your process leads you to stacking the raise don't go counter that because there are reasons to like it with Keegan Aiken given the kind of quality of contact he allows but for me personally where I'm trying to get a lot of balls and play not going to get that from the raise against lefty and I think there are better options considering park factor and considering other things for this one trying to think of this as anything else we have not yet discussed as far as stacks and stuff for today we did mention briefly the Dodgers I was on a time with Will Smith before and forgetting that he probably will not play for today but I think other options on that Dodgers team let's assume that Will Smith does not go because you know it is Kershaw out there there should still be some value plays within this lineup for today so let's pull them up I'm probably thinking it'll be AJ Pollock we'll see if McKinstry plays I'm not sure if he will but Pollock should be in there at $2,400 I will take that McKinstry potentially playing Gavin Lux $2,500 ok I like that let's do that here second base might be worse but I guess with Muncie it's not as bad Taylor I don't tend to get to as often just because he's not like a super powerful guy versus righties so Matt Beatty might play I'm not as in him as McKinstry so hopefully McKinstry plays that would definitely help you know if we get him then $3,200 left in a DeGraw lineup that means I could probably get to Betts or Muncie one or the other yeah that's not too bad so I would check out the value options within the Dodgers if we were to rank out the value options in the Dodgers I would say Pollock is one despite the fact he's a rightie actually Lux one, Pollock two McKinstry three Beatty four if Will Smith plays he's number one but again I probably would not would not assume that he is there Alvin any changes to your stack rankings from this morning the big change for me was downgrading the Astros as a result of Bailey Ober starting over Matt Shoemaker I still think they're a good stack I am just less willing to bend over backwards to get them Ober starting as opposed to Shoemaker they're still fine like if you really love Tyler Malley for today and using a lower salary picture then feel free to stack the Astros I still think they're a good option it's just harder for me to prioritize them when their salaries are super high when the pitching salaries are super high so they did get downgraded which naturally pushes up some other teams so the Dodgers stayed the same gonna probably want it moving up the Reds moving up Cleveland a bit those are probably the main ones and the Brewers as being beneficiaries just because the Astros got moved down for me Diffuse, I personally like Kyle Seeger as a one-off at third base what do you think? So Seeger is facing Savalli Savalli I tend to be lower on him than other so that's actually not a terrible situation I would not talk you out of it because Savalli is a good pitcher so I'm not going to get there myself but also he's not like a shutdown guy so I think that's fine I think there are probably better options but it's not a terrible one by any means Aaron Pittsburgh lineup is confirmed they're facing Woodruff okay so I guess we can refresh this and see what Woodruff is facing not sure if they could do a lineup that would like make me scared of Woodruff at all but we'll check it just to be safe yeah that's fine I definitely think that Woodruff grades out just as well finally let's wrap up here with Jerry kind of favor low or low I guess okay so it's low or low because it's talking about Keegan Akin okay so Jerry likes low to hit a home run against Akin lefty on lefty good call or bad call I think Brandon Laos numbers against lefties are not very good we pull that up though to confirm we don't want to care about the results we want to look at the peripherals so look at the fly ball rate look at the strikeout rate see what he's doing versus lefties so far this year Brandon Laos has a 40% strikeout rate the fly ball rate is fine but not a lot of hard contact I would avoid Brandon Laos personally just don't think that the lefty-on-lefty matchup is good enough for me there that is all the time that we have for today here on the Fandil fantasy Q and A good questions all around though appreciate the interaction appreciate all of you tuning in not just today but also for the entire week make sure you are subscribed to the Fandil YouTube, Twitch, Facebook or Twitter page no matter where you watch get those subscriptions in and get those questions in each weekday here at 4pm eastern YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter and if you're watching on the Fandil YouTube page hit the like button because that does help us out quite a bit if you have additional questions for me I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis J-I-M-S-A-M-N-E-S big thank you to Calvin Theobald our video producer for running the video side of things here today thank you Cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineup for tonight and we'll talk to you once again on Monday this has been the Fandil Fantasy Q and A