 If you're just a fan of good baseball, tonight is going to be a fun one in MLB DFS because we get Max Scherzer going up against the New York Mets and it are against the New York Yankees and it doesn't get a whole lot better than that because I mean, it's Max freaking Scherzer. It's the New York freaking Yankees and last night's game was pretty fun despite not having this headline or of a name in Max Scherzer and that's fun for from a baseball fan perspective the DFS perspective, it's tough because I love Max Scherzer, I want to use him always but can I use him against the Yankees? Even with John-Carlo Stanton being on the IL? I kind of think I can personally. I'm going to try to make that pitch to you outline why I like Scherzer for tonight, let you know what I'm seeing with him, who you could turn to as alternatives and top stacks for the Slates. So let's dive on in and get you set for Monday night Slate. Welcome on into the solo shop that's right here on the FanDual Podcast Network and numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com. Here to break down tonight's five game main slate with lock set for 640 PM Eastern for today again, 640 PM Eastern is when the main slate will lock for tonight. So make sure you have your lineups in earlier than usual as a result of that with the early lock for the Slate. I will also say I'm not breaking down the early only Slates on the podcast but it is pretty good. So we'd recommend checking that out if you're listening early enough over on FanDual, pretty good early only Slates. Not talking about it but it is a good one if you want to play that. There is a chance of rain in the main slate in Cincinnati for the Reds and the Marlins. They should be good to go but check back on that later. Luckily that is the first game of the Slate. No other games start later than 710. So kind of like an Express Slate which I'll take for sure. So it should be a pretty fun one. Check back on Sensei for the weather but I think they should be good to go for today. We'll break down Scher versus the Yankees and much more in just one second. The first day reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast Feed, our PGA DFS preview of this week's event is already posted with myself and Brandon Gadoula breaking down the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Interesting field for sure. Does lend itself to a particular kind of roster construction. We broke that down. Guys we like and much more. Find that by searching for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast Feed wherever you get your podcasts. Fandall's World Fantasy Baseball Championship for 2022 is just around the corner in September and there are still chances to get yourself qualified. This year's live final will be in Chicago in September. Live final features $2 million in total prizes with half a million dollars going to first place to get yourself entered in a qualifier. Go to Fandall.com or download the Fandall Fantasy app eligibility of strict supply. Not many better places in September than Chicago. Also that's week one of NFL where before then the live final I believe is Friday. Week one is Sunday. Illinois does have legal betting if it's not available in your state. So extra incentive to get yourself qualified for the WFBC. Pitching preview for this Wednesday main slate. Max Scherzer, Shocker is the highest salary pitcher on Fandall checking in at $11,500 but some pretty fun alternatives. Luis Castillo is 10-6 with Kevin Gosman at 10-4. Cal Quantrill and Braxton Garrett are the others at $8,000 or higher. So Max Scherzer versus the Yankees, tough assignment. We could take the easier route because Castillo and Gosman do have easier matchups for tonight but I think I'd rather bet on talent here and go with Scherzer. It's because the gap between Scherzer and the field is pretty large. The most relevant sample on Scherzer is his past nine starts. He's been throwing more sliders than he was before in that span and in those nine starts his skill interactive ERA is 2.40. Nobody on this slate is within 1.15 of that. The strikeout rate is 34%. Nobody's within 6.5 percentage points of that mark. He also leads the slate in walk rates. He leads in a hard hit rate allowed. So he is far and away the best pitcher on this slate even with full respect. Luis Castillo, full respect to Kevin Gosman. It's Max Scherzer, man. Now the matchup is tough. You need to take Jean-Carlo Stanton off the active roster. The Yankees still have a 119 WRC plus against righties with a 21% strikeout rate. It's tough. It does help that it's not as tough of a park as Yankee Stadium in terms of home runs given Scherzer is a fly ball pitcher. City field is much rougher for offense and it's not as warm tonight as it was last week in New York. I've got Scherzer projected for 8.3 strikeouts. Nobody else is higher than 6.85. So I'm gonna use Scherzer here despite the matchup. I understand if you don't because the Yankees still very scary but that's how I'm approaching things here and that's how I think we should do so. So for single entry, cash games kind of doesn't matter. I think you could have more recent differentiating cash games than others, but Max Scherzer to me, the number one arm of this main slate. Among the alternatives, I'm gonna give Luis Castillo the smallest, smallest, smallest edge for number two on the slate behind Scherzer above Gosmin. We'll talk about Gosmin and things to watch and why I prefer Castillo. Let's talk about Castillo here because the reason I like him is because he emphatically checks a ton of boxes. I'm happy I finally get to use him for tonight. A lot of times the Reds are not in the main slate because their game started at 640. We get that for tonight. The biggest appeal in Castillo is his length. They're letting him go as deep as he wants. He went 123 pitches in one of his starts. He's gone 110 or more in four games this year. He went 108 in another. That's a huge leg up on almost everybody in the league. So I very rarely project pitchers for more than a hundred pitches but I've got Castillo at 105 tonight. And I kind of feel like I have to give him what he's done. Castillo has been effective in that length. We're up to nine starts on him with fewer sinkers in his repertoire. And he has a 3.61 skill interactive ERA in that time with a 27% strikeout rate. His bad at ball numbers are still very good too. And that's the one department where the Marlins offense does lag. They had just a 32% fly ball rate versus righties. They won 41 ISO. That allows us to worry a little bit less about this game being in a Homer friendly park. Castillo's upside is very good. He said double digit strikeouts and two of those nine starts. He had eight and two others. So that length he provides is so valuable both for floor and for upside. And it makes him my number two pitcher of the night. The one thing that could push you off of him, I will say is trade concerns because the Reds obviously discuss and cast you with other teams they want to conserve him. They could keep him short for tonight and what could be his final start for the Reds but they haven't done that yet. So not as concerned, but it's worth noting that is at least within the range of outcomes could push you on Gosmin. Again, we'll talk about him later on. First though, it's not going to value play. I'm not sure Braxton Garrett can sustain the hot start that he's had because he's outperforming what he was doing in the minors. But the sample of him, the majors keeps expanding and he keeps on pitching well. And at some point we've kind of got to buy in. So I will give him a look tonight facing off on the other side of that game versus Castillo. So he's facing the Reds here. It's an okay matchup, a 105 WRC plus against lefties but a 23% strikeout rate on the current active roster for the Reds versus lefties. That's good for the upside for Castillo. He showed he can take advantage of good situations because he faced the Pirates each of his past two starts. He had 11 strikeouts in the first game and seven in the second. And he also had seven versus the Rockies earlier on this year. Those are good numbers when he gets good matchups and he's got that in a way for tonight. We're up to nine starts now on Garrett in the majors. He has a 3.50 skill interactive ERA with a 24% strikeout rate. He's letting up just a 35% hard hit rates. And when you combine all those numbers for a value play, I'm okay with taking it. Projection systems are still a bit lower on Garrett not fully convinced that what he's done in the majors is legit, which is part of why I'm hesitant to like go all in here. And I believe the projection systems broadly are pretty correct. So given the numbers in the minors, I think it's okay to be a bit skeptical but nine starts is not a small sample anymore. Strikeout stabilized pretty quickly as long as it's just for turnies. I'm okay taking bites. I'd rank him tops among the value plays. Not sure if I'll get there because I kind of just want to do a lot of Scherzer for tonight, but Garrett's worthwhile. He's worthy as a value play for tonight. So would not talk you out of him by any means. Let's go now to stacks. And with Scherzer being 11-6, we do have to focus a bit on some value plays but luckily we just kind of stumble into it with the way the slate breaks down. That starts off with the raise facing Tyler Wells. We sat against Tyler Wells with the Yankees last week. That's obviously one thing. The Yankees are a very good offense. Stacking against him with the raise is another, but I still think we should do it for tonight. And that's with full respect to Wells for the season he's had. It's a pretty long sample. He's had great results and that matters a lot. But the underlying numbers say we can stack against him. We have a 13 start sample on Wells since his velocity stabilized. He has a 4.72 skill interactive ERA in that time with a 17% strikeout rate and a 47% fly ball rate. We can stack against that if the team is good enough, the opposing offense, good enough. And the raise kind of stretched that a bit. They're not a team I'm super itchy to stack but they're good enough is the way I'd phrase it. So I'm fine stacking them here. I wouldn't be doing that on a bigger slate, but on this one, I do think it works well enough. So the raise will be my top stack of the night. I think it's worth looking into Josh Lowe starting to look a bit more comfortable at the plate. His strikeout rate is 28% in July. The strikeout rate is 34% overall. So it's definitely been getting better. And that's a positive. His ISO is 145, you know, it's still not great, but it's good enough for us to use him, especially if he starts to run a bit more, it's something we have seen Lowe do at times in the lower levels. So he's not a priority within the stack. Lowe isn't, Lowe is, Lowe isn't, but he's at least a consideration now. So Josh Lowe, someone I wanted to use then this raise stack, but not a priority. I'd say Isaac Peretti is probably a priority. Lowe is a priority. Guys like that, Gimon Choi, close to it too. So the raise have their guys, Lowe is not there, but if you need help getting insurers are totally on board with that. Number two, we saw Nathan Ievaldi get knocked around last time out. And I don't think it was a huge surprise. I think it means we can stack the guardians against him tonight. The velocity on, on Gosmin or on, on Ievaldi in his first star back was pretty rough. This was before the all-star break. The velocity in this horsey and fastball is 94.5 miles per hour, which is the exact same as it was in his final start before the IEL. And it was the same last week too. So his splitter velocity in that time is down about three miles per hour. The sliders down two miles per hour. That's a big issue because Ievaldi is not reliant on velocity, but it does matter for him. So any slip in that department would downgrade him for sure. If we look at just the three starts with Ievaldi having reduced velocity, his strikeout rate is 20%. He's letting up a 47% hard hit rate. And only one other guy on this slate is letting up hard contact more than 39% of the time. So it's Ievaldi gap everyone else. And we did see Ievaldi struggle a bit with that before this dip in velocity too. So Ievaldi is a good pitcher. He could bounce back for tonight for sure. And that means that stacking the guardians is not super safe, but it's a five game slate. We're not gonna find a ton of safety. Ievaldi now has two starts back where the Velo's been bad. That allows me to stack Cleveland tonight. If he has the same Velo tonight as he had last week, the guardians could do really well. So I'll take that gamble here and stack the guardians. Number two behind the Rays for today. Ievaldi does weirdly have some reverse platoon splits. Righties have hit him pretty hard this year. So obviously it makes you feel better about Fromio Reyes' value play, but Amid Rosario I think is worth discussing too. He's not a value play, he's $3,300, but I think he's fun. His ISO in the month of July is up to 163. That is up from 116 overall. He has a 44% hard hit rates, which is up from 40%. So give a bump up to Reyes, but give one to Rosario too. I think he's worthy of that here and potentially better than Perception. Maybe it's just, again, speaking about me, maybe my Perception, but Amid Rosario trending up based on the power he's been showing this month and does get a bump here at the Ievaldi on the opposing side. Finally, let's go back to that Mets versus Yankees game where we get Domingo Armand making his second start tonight and he got knocked around the first one, wasn't really lighting things up and his rehab starts either. So I think we can at least consider stacking against him with the Mets here. The first start, Armand last just three innings. Keyletta five runs to the Astros, two home runs there. It's a tough offense, but the Mets also obviously are not bad. The velocity for Armand was basically the same as it was back in 2019 and in 2021, but he didn't get any whist with it. He had an 8.6% swing and strike rate. The strikeouts were not there and his rehab starts either. He didn't struggle there from a results perspective because he allowed just one earned run across, I believe it was five rehab starts, but it is concerning when you're not striking out that level of competition. Armand wasn't doing that. He's now facing the Mets, 119 WRC plus against Reides. It's another lowest strikeout team. I think they could get to Armand here. Again, there's risk because we know that somewhere down there there is a good pitcher inside Armand. Not sure if we're seeing that good pitcher right now though, so the Mets for me will be a quality stack and I'll happily be using Dan Vogelbach when I do those stacks because Vogelbach goes in the Pirates, not the worst team on the planet, but also not the best and now goes to a team with a 119 WRC plus. And of all Mets against Reides this year, Vogelbach has the best ISO versus Reides. So it can be annoying to use both him and Peter Lanza because it locks up catcher slash first base and utility, but I think it's worth it for sure. Vogelbach is a guy I'm willing to use even if he gives me reduced flexibility. So Vogelbach to me, pretty fun option within these Mets stacks. I'm excited to have him there because it's another powerful bat to use within this team. Might not hit super high in the order just yet, but I don't really care about that. Personally, Vogelbach will be a quality play for me assuming he does start for tonight. Let's go now to things to watch and talk about Kevin Gosman. I think he's solid for tonight, right below Castillo. Couple of reasons why I'm lower on him than Castillo is first of all, the length for Castillo just absurd, consistent and absurd. Second is that Gosman's been more volatile. He had a blip earlier on this year before the ankle injury where he was down in velocity. The velocity has bounced back. So that's not as big of a concern. He had 10 strikeouts last time out, but there's always that worry that could happen again. So that's the key difference for me is just predictability, but both guys have similar upsides. So if you think that Castillo will be much more heavily rostered, I'm okay going Gosman for sure, especially given the trade concerns around Castillo, but Castillo one, Gosman two, behind Scherzer in a vacuum for me. I would be interested in stacking the Orioles for tournaments tonight. They're facing Jurasmuson, it is his birthday. It's also Max Scherzer's birthday. So double birthday narrative in play for tonight. I like it for Scherzer, not as into it for Rasmuson here against the Orioles. Peripherals for Rasmuson have been slipping a bit of late. He has a 17% strikeout rate as past seven starts with more forcing fastballs with a 42% hard hit rates. The Orioles have some upside here. So I will stack them for sure. Orioles really solid team, I think in general, potentially again underappreciated and I think that they work here tonight. So if you want a tourney stack, I think the Orioles great out pretty well there. Finally, Boston is okay, but I would put them pretty firmly fifth in terms of stacking well behind even the Orioles for tonight. I could go higher and I could stack them because Cal Quantrell doesn't strike out a lot of guys, but also it doesn't let up a lot of fly balls, good at hard contact suppression. The Red Sox lineup is so banged up right now. So they're okay, but I'm not gonna extend myself to get to them and I might not get there instead of going to do with a more compact approach in terms of distribution of stacks for tonight, focusing on the four stacks I like more and the ones we discussed earlier on. Let's finish up here with some Dinger calls. I'm gonna go with Pete Alonzo for the boring one. I consider going Dan Vogelbach is the more fun one, but not a lock, lock, lock these in the lineup. So we'll go Pete Alonzo here. It's Pete Alonzo. I don't really need to explain too much more. So we'll go the Alonzo for the boring one. The fun one is at two nights in a row. We got, we did get Chas McCormick via Pierre saving me on Twitter with that one when I had Wilmer Flores, but back Wilmer Flores last night he went deep. So big expectations for Isaac Perretis as the fun home run pick. I'm not even sure Perretis counts given he's got pretty good number of home runs this year. He's had a really good ISO, but I don't know, I think he's fun personally. So we'll go with Pete Alonzo and Isaac Perretis as the home run picks for tonight in MLB DFS. That is all that we have here on the MLB side of things, but a reminder, we do have our PGA DFS podcast posted for the rocket mortgage classic breaking down our favorite golfers in each salary tier and much more. Find that by searching for the number five or daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. 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 FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups. Enjoy Sherser V. Yankees. We'll talk to you once again on Thursday to break down another slate of MLB DFS. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.