 We have ourselves a very unique situation for tonight in daily fantasy baseball where the main slate is just six games Which means for our typical template of DFS show where we have three pitchers three stacks three things to watch We kind of can't fill all the slots So instead we actually have a fun chance to go Pitcher by pitcher and break down my thoughts on every single guy on this slate Let you know whether I want to use them as a pitcher whether I want to stack against them Whether I want to do neither maybe both break down my thoughts on each guy So I do that for today break down each pitcher on tonight's slate for daily fantasy baseball to get you ready to submit your line-ups over On fan dual calm 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 the managing editor of digital media for a fan dual research here to break down Thursday's main slate With a three-game slate with lock set for 705 p.m. Eastern There's a chance of rain tonight in New York for the Mets and the Nationals Doesn't look to be too bad winds are out to write at 14 miles per hour So I would bump up bats in that one It is 102 degrees in St. Louis for the Cardinals and the Cubs big bump up to bats there as a result of The hot weather that will impact the way view the stacks for today We'll dive into what that all means here in just one second at first We got some exciting news over at number fire beginning now You can find all the number fire content from the analysts You know over at our new home called fendal research fendal research is on the fendal domain Meaning you can now do your research for on the same site where you place bets and submit daily fantasy line-ups And don't worry all the number fire tools are still in place over at number fire comms Your daily process can remain the same for now as they thank you for your years of loyalty We'll be running free rolls over on fendal research now through the end of NFL season Check out this week's free play for the women's World Cup actually that is already over next week's free play check it out Over at fendal research will post up on that next week Congrats all you who were in the free play last night Hopefully things went well for you in the 1-1 draw for the United States against Netherlands free play again next week That sounds like maybe some priests and NFL So check that out over at fendal comm slash research to get the exclusive link Pitcher by pitcher breakdown for today in daily fantasy We got Cody Senga leading things off with a salary of ten thousand six hundred dollars followed by Justin Steela ten thousand Tanner BB or Tanner by the is at ninety six hundred dollars with Dylan C said ninety four Josiah Gray is eighty six with Miles Michael is checking in at seventy eight hundred dollars The way I figure we go for this for today is to go pitcher by pitcher and breakdown in order of how much I like them As a pitcher for the pitching slot over on fendal, which is why we'll start things off with Cody Senga Senga is at home against the Nationals. It's a great matchup Even if it's not a high strikeout matchup the Nationals don't strike out a lot against righties 19% strikeout right there, but they also don't walk which means Pitch counts against them should be pretty efficient Senga is already been improving with that I was talking about him last week with Rob Freeman pitching Ninja on covering the spread He said that Senga told him that it took a while to get used to the size of the baseball Imagerly baseball, but once he got used to it He was able to throw his all-speed stuff better and that's reflected in the data Across the past seven starts Senga has cut back on his foreseen fastball usage He has a 31% strikeout rate in that time. That is the best number on the slate Importantly the walk rate is also down to 8% and that's been something he's been working on all year again A lot of walks early on much better recently and it's led to a 3.42 skill interactive ERA in this time and the bad of all data has gotten good as well So even in the low strikeout matchup I have Senga projected for 7.2 strikeouts. That is the best mark on this slate So I'll put him second or put him first as well So to me code is saying get number one as a top pitching option for tonight I'm gonna put Dylan C second both. He and Justin Steele have tougher matchups But I like sees his situation overall more He is at home against the Guardians cooler weather for this game than what Steele is dealing with that's one thing As we discussed earlier in the week the Guardians offense is trending up and they still never strikeout So we don't really want to use pitchers who are facing them But Cease is just a better fit for DFS because he gets more strikeouts He's had an up and down year so far, but it has been much better recently Cease has an ERA at 3.00 since the start of June He has 70 strikeouts and 51 innings If you expand that and look for what I would need to be his most relevant sample That's the 15 stars. We've been throwing more forcing fast balls got the confidence back in that fastball In that 15 start sample. He has a 29% strikeout rate His skill interactive ERA is still kind of high at 3.81 mostly because of walks and fly balls And that's why I'd rank Senga higher in terms of pitching options for today But Cease can still get strikeouts even in a tough matchup I've got a projected for 6.3 strikeouts which ranked second behind just Senga And that's good enough for me to put in there as well I would say that because of Cease's batted ball issues You could also consider stacking against him. I probably get there with Senga just because the opponent's not that great The batted ball data is pretty good. I think you could consider stacking against Cease I would not consider stacking against Steel who's gonna be the third right pitcher I'm not sure if I'll get him a pitcher either, but I also don't want to stack against him He's facing the Cardinals who are a good offense against lefties, but Steel has been very good this year He's letting up just a 33% hard hit rate with a 32% fly ball rate And as a result, Steel's expected the array is 3.27 So that kind of kills stacking against him He doesn't get a ton of strikeouts though and then makes it tougher to hang with Senga and Cease So you could defend using Steel for sure because there are situations which both Senga and Cease struggle and then maybe Steel just naturally winds up being the top scoring guy on the slate But I'm just not as high on him on the other two and again, I think I'd rather stack against Cease than against Steel So of the pitchers on this slate, Steel is the guy who's most in no man's land Where I don't really want to use with a pitcher, but I also don't really want to stack against him So he's kind of wound up in purgatory hanging out by himself Forthering pitchers Tanner Bybee, he has at least some appeals of pitcher He's facing the White Sox which does help in that regard But doesn't get as many strikeouts as Cease or Senga and his bat of ball data is worse than Steel's as well So I'm more willing to seconds Bybee than use him as a pitcher We have a 12 start sample on Bybee since he started using his changeup more often He has a 38% of our hit rate allowed with a 42% of fly ball rate on a lot of slates that's not going to move the needle at all but on this slate there are a lot of guys who do suppress hard contact and As a result relative to this slate, Bybee does let up a decent amount of impactful contact The White Sox are not a good offense It's also cooler here than it is in other games in the slates and that's why Bybee's in the middle But I'm more likely to use White Sox against him than use Bybee himself The last two guys are the guys I am most looking to stack against But I'm more willing to seconds Miles Mikolas than Josiah Grant I think that might be a bit different than a lot of people for tonight I will have to go against both, but I think the Cubs are the bigger priority for stacking So let's talk about why and dig into Gray here Gray is a tinkerer facing the Mets tonight and he's always trying to find the right pitch mix And that also means changing the way he throws pitches And it seems like he did do that with his slider nine starts ago The velocity and the movement on that slider are both very different now than what they were earlier in the year If you look at that nine start sample, Gray has allowed just a 32% hard hit rate That is the best mark on the slate He has let up a 38% fly ball right as well So a big, big improvement from what he did last year and earlier on this year That's why the Mets to me are not the top stack on the slate Even though I think they will be there for most people They are still right up there though Gray is still not getting a ton of strikeouts So let's pull out a ball some play And the Mets are a powerful offense They have a 113 WRC plus against righties with a 180 ISO and a 39% fly ball rate They rank either first or second in all of those categories So that's why they're stackable Gray being good prevents them from ranking first in terms of stack for tonight Against Gray we do want to prefer lefties He lets up way more fly balls and hard contact to them than to righties So it's not going to hurt Pete Alonzo But definitely does boost up guys like Brandon Nemo, Francisco Lindor, Dan Vogelbach Makes them more interesting So get Alonzo in there, but then bump up the lefties due to the matchup with Gray To me, the top honor here belongs to the Cubs in terms of stacking Again, facing Miles Michalis, Michalis traditionally has done what Gray is doing Where he has limited hard contact But that has not been the case recently Michalis has been using his change up more often recently His strikeout rate is low in that sample at 13% with a 4% walk rate Which means he's letting up a ton of balls in play And earlier on, that wouldn't have been a problem for Michalis Because he did such a good job at suppressing hard contact That's not happening right now though Because he's letting up a 38% hard hit rate with a 39% fly ball rate in this time For this slate especially, those are below average numbers The Cubs have a 104 WRC plus against righties Went off again last night in part due to the White Sox kind of being weird for a couple innings But it's 107 degrees in St. Louis, 102 degrees in St. Louis So very very warm, that's awesome for offense And they did just see him over this weekend So they're familiar with what he's throwing right now And they hit him well there So I'm gonna go with the Cubs number one I'm gonna go with the Metz number two White Sox three for stacking And then you'd get to like stacking against Cease after that So primarily those three But then Senga top pitcher, Cease number two Steel three by B number four Dinger calls Because we do still have Dinger calls for today Despite the abbreviated slate because why not For the boring one It's not boring because of the match I think the match was actually kind of fun But the boring is because it's a boring player who's very very good That's Jose Ramirez, he's facing off with Dylan Cease And again, Cease is letting up a lot of fly balls And a lot of hard contact more than any other pitcher on this slate So if we're hunting for just Dingers Either we can go against him So Jose Ramirez is gonna be the boring homerun call for today The fun one is the guy we discussed a while ago Pre All-Star break And we were talking about how he was improving his launch angle Getting more fly balls and leading to more home runs That's Brandon Nimmo, he's kept that up Nimmo now up to 15 home runs I believe his career high is 16 And he has 7 home runs in the past month So Brandon Nimmo Figured something out and is gunning for power And you gotta love to see it So Nimmo will be the fun home run call for today Boring one, Jose Ramirez, fun one Brandon Nimmo That is all that we have here for today on The Solo Shot As always, please make sure you are subscribed To the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed Wherever you get your podcast Leave us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts Or over on Spotify And again, The Solo Shot does go up every weekday On the Fanduil YouTube page And over on Fanduil TV Plus For Amazon Fire, Apple TV, and Roku devices If you've got 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 Fanduil Podcast Network At Fanduil Podcasts And don't forget to follow Fanduil Research At Fanduil Research We'll talk to y'all once again tomorrow For a robust Friday slate Good luck tonight This has been The Solo Shot right here On the Fanduil Podcast Network