 week four is about to be underway with the 2021 NFL season. I'm sure I'm probably not the first to say this, but it's kind of weird that it's already week four. It feels like not that long ago, we were just getting started with the NFL season, but we're under week four already. We've got to match up between some, some big cats, uh, between the Jack Wars and the Bengals. Although I guess technically the Panthers are probably the big cats of the NFL right now. Um, but either way, we've got some, some, some, uh, cat angles we can go with, uh, for tonight's Thursday night game. Uh, the total here, according to Fandall Sportsbook, 46 and a half. That's pretty viable, but the spread kind of big at seven and a half in favor of the Bengals who are, uh, at home. So welcome on into the Fandall NFL Q and A for this week. I'm your host, Brandon Godulla. I'm the managing editor over at numberfire.com. You can find all my content, uh, over there. Um, bunch of simulation based stuff, uh, pace and pass rates, adjusted matchups, things like that. Um, I'll go over some of that and to, and talk about how that pertains to tonight's game. Be sure to check out the heat check fantasy podcast for this week that was out this morning. Uh, Jim Sonison, I go over the main slate. Uh, and of course you probably all know Jim from his MLB work. Um, he'll be coming on at 430 for those MLB questions. You will want to wait for those MLB questions because you do not want me to answer those. But if you have NFL questions for tonight or for the weekend, but more specifically tonight, I'll get those in. I'll hit up the comment section on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Twitch. If you have a single game slate, uh, questions for tonight, I see some, uh, rolling in, uh, keep them coming and I'll get to those in just a second. Uh, but I want to kind of go over the, the sort of overview of how I'm viewing this game again. 46 and a half point total, pretty strong for a Thursday night game, but that big spread is something that we have to watch out for. So, um, when I run over to number fires, uh, games and lineups page here, the 46 point total, but with the spread kind of gives us an expectation of about 27 to 20 that kind of game. Now my simulations have the under as a pretty solid bet. Um, so if you're playing the angle of the under for your single game slates, it's going to change things. We're going to fewer touchdowns. It's going to put a more of an emphasis on yardage, uh, which is one thing that you should think about always telling yourself some sort of story for how you anticipate this game going. Now, obviously the default for most people is going to be that the Bengals play from ahead that the Bengals win. Number fire has them about 71% likely to go to three and one on the season, uh, pushing the Jaguars to own four, but we have a minimal wins here at four miles per hour. That's not anything to be concerned about, uh, in terms of how that will affect passing. Usually it's about 15 miles an hour where we should even start to consider, uh, bumping off there. Um, no precipitation, pretty solid temperature at 70 degrees. So pretty nice, uh, overall game environment for a Thursday night game. Uh, I'm going to jump over to my spreadsheets here. Um, I have my Sims up, but I'm going to go over. I'm going to start with the matchups here. See more and more questions rolling in. So keep those coming and I'm about to get to those. I just like to break down, uh, the, some of the matchups here, um, and some things like pace and pass rate really set the stage for my expectations and that'll help me answer the questions a little bit more fully. Um, I want to start off by looking at, uh, passing, rushing, receiving efficiency based on defenses. We can see here that Cincinnati's defense rates seventh across the board and some key metrics against quarterbacks, a seventh in passing that expected points per dropback allowed to quarterbacks. That's number fires expected points model. Um, they're also 40, uh, allowing a 42% success rate to quarterbacks. It's also seventh. And then in terms of adjusted fantasy points per dropback, which is just not on a team basis, but on a player level basis, um, seventh as well. So, uh, tougher match up here for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars in terms of passing, um, and the inverse is true for Joe Burrow against the Jaguars defense, uh, basically a bottom level defense right now for the Jaguars through three games. Um, kind of a similar thing here with the run defenses. Um, Cincinnati rating out really well against the run thus far. Jacksonville kind of middling, um, with their run defense. And then speaking of middling, uh, all of these team or all of these different units basically kind of right between like seventh and 17th here in terms of adjusted fantasy points per target allowed, uh, two different positions. Um, and then one thing that I'm really looking at that for tonight's game is kind of play volume. We've seen Cincinnati slow things down there, 23rd in pace whenever their pre-snap win probability was between 20 and 80%. It's basically ruling out garbage time. Jacksonville playing faster whenever their games have not been garbage time, um, which isn't always the case for them. Uh, but Cincinnati right here, this, this thing right, this number here has me a little bit concerned for the game, uh, with them ranking 24th in pass rate, uh, in sort of neutral game scripts. That is problematic. We could expect play volume to be lower, uh, points potentially then to be lower, more runs and we don't have T Higgins tonight. Uh, so we could see a lot of emphasis on Joe Mixon. And then one final thing, just to kind of get, uh, some context for how I'm viewing things, looking at some historical optimal lineup analysis. Um, I pulled games between with a total between 44 and a half and 48 and a half and some spreads between five and a half and 10 points. Um, we see in this split that quarterbacks are more likely to become the optimal MVP with a big deemphasis on running backs, which kind of sounds damning for Joe Mixon, but keep in mind that this is kind of saying one of the two running backs, most likely the underdog, just not that relevant, not that likely to finish as the MVP. So I'm not that worried about Joe Mixon, but we do see a bump for wide receivers, which is not worthy because we have a, I would at least say four receivers, two from each side who could be in the MVP conversation on Fandall. Now, the MVPs generally come, it's about a 60, 40 split from the favorite to the underdog, but when an underdog is the MVP, it's typically coming from that wide receiver position. Makes sense. Planned from behind, uh, racking up some volume, running backs, probably getting less work, quarterbacks maybe not being, um, super efficient, uh, racking up numerous touchdowns. So that's one thing that I like to keep in mind for games like this and then, uh, kicker frequency in the optimal, a little bit higher, um, in this split, but about the same. Um, and that does mean that about 37, so about 35, 40% of the time, we would expect one of the kickers to make the optimal lineup. That's not zero, but it's also not 80. So that's kind of where you should be with kickers for tonight. All right. Now I'm going to dig into some of these questions because I think I set the stage for what I'm looking for. Um, and we'll see what we get here. Question from DJ on Facebook, Marvin Jones or Tyler Boyd. For me, that is going to be pretty easily, uh, Marvin Jones. Um, I don't know what the simulations say. I haven't, don't have these memorized here. Um, I'll just filter this to wide receivers. So, uh, the median Fandall points across 1000, I did a thousand simulations. These are based in number fires, projections. Um, Tyler Boyd stands out a little bit more from that perspective. Um, but despite this gap of 1.6 points between Boyd and Marvin Jones, I have the MVP score almost the same. And the reason for that is that Marvin Jones has a much better, uh, chance of getting a high adod in this game, more air yards per game or more, more air yards in this game. And air yards, I know some people don't like air yards, but air yards actually show a lot of variance and what we can expect from a range of outcomes for receivers. So the baseline here, um, if I was just kind of saying one or the other better chance to reach 12 Fandall points, it's going to be Tyler Boyd. If I'm looking at it from an MVP standpoint, a differentiation standpoint, for me, it's going to be Marvin Jones for tonight. Uh, question from Andrew, should I play either QB in DFS tonight? Let's go to the QBs. Actually, I'll, I'll pop out here to the overall, um, because we see the quarterbacks rating out top three in terms of their MVP chances. It's to be expected again, quarterbacks are much more likely to finish as the MVP, um, just in general, um, compared to other positions, we've, we saw that change a lot last year with more Russian quarterbacks, but it's just an easier case to have, quarterback, rack up points. Um, and that's what the simulations say. Now I will say we should anticipate that Joe Burrow or Joe Nixon, just the chalk at MVP tonight. So, if you're looking to differentiate, Trevor Lawrence would be the easiest way to go, um, between quarterbacks. That's fairly obvious. Again, pretty difficult matchup. Um, top seven past defense for, uh, the Bengals. So that's one of the drawbacks with going, uh, with Trevor Lawrence, but again, we get that leverage and the odds that he finishes as the slate MVP, you know, 18%, that's not bad by any means. And it is very hard to kind of sell yourself on an underdog quarterback with an applied team total below 20 points. So that's a leverage spot. That's a leverage opportunity. So if the question is, should you play either Joe Burrow is the safe one? Um, I'm okay avoiding Trevor Lawrence, uh, overall, but honestly, he's going to be one of the, one of the easiest leverage spots for an MVP to differentiate if you're not gonna go with the wide receiver in that slot. Um, question from DJ Bengals or Jaguars defense? Well, uh, don't play defenses in single game slates, but um, if you're talking season long, then definitely Cincinnati. Another question. Oh, um, Kyle question from Kyle, any player props you really like? What are your projections look like for Robinson and Chase? So in terms of player props, I did scan a good bit. I kind of built out this quick props simulator. In case I got some questions, but Tyler Boyd. No, I had Tyler Boyd as sorry, um, receiving props for, I think it was Marvin Jones I liked here based on number fire. So I'm going to run this 65 and a half for Marvin Jones. Um, so actually not a whole lot of value there. Um, I would say actually Trevor Lawrence, uh, to go over, I think his touchdown prop is one and a half. And then he was, uh, sorry, I'm not just digging into this. I don't look at player props too much until closer to kick off some kind of more than that DFS mindset. But I'll run this quickly. Trevor Lawrence, uh, one and a half and then the over being plus 124. So let me see what we get here. That's what type is in asking touchdowns of one and a half. And then I think it was the over that looked pretty good. Yeah. So the overs looking pretty good for him, um, with his baseline, especially at those odds, uh, being plus 124 says that's one of the ones that stood out to me in terms of player props. So I would honestly just check out number fire. Um, we've got, uh, tons of projections, uh, player level stuff go through there and see where you kind of make things work. Um, but I do remember that that Lawrence is touchdown prop. I know it seems kind of strange not to love him for DFS, but like the over, um, it's just mostly there, uh, with the odds for him. Um, and then as far as Robinson and Chase go, it's very easy to love DeMar Chase, uh, as that sort of high leverage, uh, wide receiver in what should be positive script. I know that they're favorites, but you want efficiency from your passing offenses. And that's why you should prefer in general, uh, favored wide receivers because they're going to move the ball better. They're going to have more touchdown chances. James Robinson, though, not someone I think will build into my player pool just because he is a rose underdog running back in a kind of tough matchup. Um, now we could see them lean on him to kind of protect Trevor Lawrence, but honestly, his path to leading this slate in fantasy point seems pretty narrow. He's going to need probably multiple touchdowns with minimal touchdowns elsewhere. Um, just because the matchup isn't like lending itself to a lot of yardage upside. So Robinson, I think while he would be kind of sneaky as an MVP, I think he's closer to being a full fade for me. I just hope that he doesn't find the end zone. Um, and at the yard, I just kind of stifled and that again, I'm playing this one where the Bengals are playing out ahead. I know that's the chalky way to go, but it's kind of hard to sell myself on a narrative where Jacksonville is playing from ahead and just kind of leaning on, uh, James Robinson for tonight. Question from Austin, full PPR Marvin Jones or a Chuba Hubbard flex position. I mean, I love Marv, but Hubbard played about 56% of the snaps if memory serves had a really good role. Uh, I think the the only way you can really regret, um, playing Chuba Hubbard is if Royce Freeman steps in and steals some goal line work. But honestly, even in a PPR format, I think it's it's Hubbard. I do love Marvin Jones. There's a lot to like with his workload, but for me, I'm going to go Hubbard between the two. Andrew says that's what I was thinking as well. Just seems like more point opportunities at other positions. Um, yeah, absolutely. Uh, Larry says not confident in starting JuJu this week due to rib injury. Who should I start instead? I have Pittman, Agilore, Emmanuel Sanders, or try my luck with Schuster. I would say in this situation, I like, I like Manny a lot. His workload's really good, but that that game has some question marks, um, for the bills, uh, namely this here, the spread. I know I want, I know I want, um, home wide receivers, uh, in positive game script, but once it reaches double digits, we shouldn't expect that there's a lot of passing. Um, but Michael Pittman has since week two, he had like a weird week one, but they've leaned on him a ton in the past two weeks. Um, I wrote this up in my start set article on Numberfire. Um, he has something crazy, like a 33% target share and like a 50% area share the past two weeks and nobody else has those thresholds. Um, don't quote me on the exact numbers, but his workload the past two weeks has been really good. So, I would feel fine, uh, with Michael Pittman for week four. Uh, question from Eli, how can you tell when a player salary is too high? Um, so in a single game slate, uh, salaries don't get that prohibitively high, especially on tonight's slate. Um, what I like to do is look at, again, just kind of a baseline projection and you can go over to Numberfire. This is all free. Um, and the like the easiest baseline thing you can do is look at Fandall points, um, per 1000 in salary and just kind of look by value. Um, and the guys who just project as a baseline, um, below like a one, even on a single game slate, you kind of think a bit too high. So, someone like Audentate, I think we'll get some buzz because he did run 50% of the routes last week. I think he had just the one target though. Um, that's going to be too high for me even at 6000. Now, you can sprinkle him in, but like the simplest thing you can do is look at, uh, straight up value. Um, so that's one thing that that, uh, I would recommend building into your process is a sheer baseline value expectation. Um, but as far as projecting ceiling, um, even if you don't literally project things out, look at and kind of envision and everyone can do this, everyone who plays fantasy can do this. Think about what someone's actual high end upside is. Um, Tyler Boyd, you might like him. He might be the, he's the fourth best value in this game. Uh, the second best non quarterback value. Tyler Boyd does not profile as someone who gets, uh, a lot of downfield work or a lot of red zone work historically. So Tyler Boyd, um, not going to be, if I had to pick one wide receiver out of the top four, so DJ, Shark, Marvin Jones, Jamar, Chase and Tyler Boyd. Um, the one who I wouldn't say can get me like 125 yards in multiple touchdowns. It's going to be Boyd. Um, and from that angle, uh, it's not really worth the 10,000 as much as, um, DJ Shark at 10, five has a much higher a dot historically, uh, that path to bigger upside. So, um, one thing is value and one is, uh, the other is kind of going through and looking at the high end upside of what a player can do, um, and try to go from there and see if, if you think that it's worth, uh, if basically the salary can burn you, um, for what, uh, the salary is. Uh, question from Pickle Rick, uh, at the Flex, Marvin Jones or Hollywood Brown, no PPR. Um, that's a pretty, that's a pretty tight one. I was in on Hollywood last week. Uh, all the drops kind of burned me. I wouldn't mind just sticking with Marvin Jones, though, um, in this game. He's got a, he's got a really good role, lots of downfield work, not the biggest in on that Baltimore game for this week. So, I would be okay with Marvin Jones, uh, but that's kind of a coin flip and that's one that's close enough where I'd say if you have a strong preference, probably can't go wrong, uh, but I would go, uh, with Marvin Jones, um, for tonight. Uh, question from Salvatore, are you interested in the Fandall Milley bonus play? Um, yeah, always. Um, anything, um, that, I would say one of the biggest things that you can do, kind of, in terms of, uh, what you're looking for from, like, a long-term profitability standpoint is, like, play things like our listener league. There's no rake of, uh, anything that you can kind of get leverage on. Just, just, uh, anything, um, works out. Anything that you can do just to kind of bump things up, like, take advantage of that. I think it's one thing that I, I kind of can overlook too, um, long-term. So I think I'm caught up here, uh, with questions. Um, I'm gonna go back over to my simulations and just kind of look once more at the, the numbers here. One play I don't really like is LaVisca Chanel, even at 8,500. He's got a really low ADOT. I think it's below five for this season. Um, that's not something that I really want, uh, to have exposure to in a single game slate. Again, going back to that question about, um, sorry, uh, Salvatore, I mean, finding the lowest, lowest salary player to score a touchdown. Oh, okay. Um, lowest salary player to score a touchdown might actually be honestly, odd and Tate, um, at 6,000. Um, again, 50% route rate, but he's, he can definitely make things happen. Um, sorry, I misunderstood, I misunderstood the question. Um, odd and Tate, it's 6,000. Honestly, I just said I don't like LaVisca Chanel. I could seem scoring a touchdown, but the, the sheer and upside, not particularly, uh, what I'm looking for, but to score, I would say makes sense for this week. Question from DJ, uh, Nick Westbrook, Ikeane or Sammy Watkins? I would go with Sammy Watkins in that situation, but that's got to be a pretty deep league. Um, so Kudos for playing in a league like that. Hopefully it's not just the, the status of, maybe it's the Dynasty League, um, but Sammy Watkins, I would say, would be my pick there, even though, uh, there could be a lot of opportunity from a volume standpoint for Westbrook Ikeane, um, without, uh, without A.G. Brown, most likely, or it's seeming like, um, and possibly without Julio, I would go with Sammy Watkins there. Um, how do I pick, uh, Pickle Rick asks, how do I feel about Brandon Cooks? Do you think he's going to continue with this production? Um, so Brandon Cooks, um, I mean, I'll, I'll pull that up here. Uh, Brandon Cooks has an amazing workload right now. Um, and at a certain point, you can't really avoid, uh, just going with guys who get a ton of work. I'm going to start this by target market share, um, because Brandon Cooks is second, um, behind Devonte Adams and target share on the season. 56.7% air yard share. I know that he's got to do it with poor quarterback play, but it's really hard to avoid that kind of volume and talk yourself out of it. So, you know, you want that efficiency that I've been talking about, but you also just, at a certain point, you can't fade volume. So, I think that Cooks, and I love Chris Conley more than probably anybody in the world, but there's not a whole lot behind Brandon Cooks, uh, who can really eat into his workload. So, I'm, I would say Brandon Cooks, someone that you could try to trade for. I don't know what his trade value would be. That always depends on kind of what people are viewing his long term, but everything Brandon Cooks has been doing, um, you know, the 16.7 half PPR points per game, kind of actually online with his expectation based on the underlying data, uh, from what Brandon Cooks has done. So, again, not, not the hugest, like, Davis Mills fan, but with that workload, really difficult, um, not to like that. Um, so I think I'm all, uh, caught up here, um, gonna dig back in once more to the Sims just to make sure I'm not overlooking anybody. I would say, uh, some plays that I would kind of roll out as MVPs from a lack of high-end upside would be Tyler Boyd, uh, LaVisca Chinalt, uh, and James Robinson for tonight. I'm probably not going to put Trevor Lawrence there, um, but I would probably say that Joe Mixon is the best bet, even though the Sims don't say that. I would say he's the best bet to be my, uh, most, most popular, uh, pick for MVP, uh, and then Jim Archase and Marvin Jones are going to be where I'm going secondarily, uh, for tonight. All right, I'm going to bring on Jim. Uh, we're going to transition over into the, uh, MLB portion of the show and maybe Jim has a take here on whoa. Sorry, my camera's off. I didn't, I didn't check this beforehand. Clearly I'm very prepared. Professional, professional broadcaster over here. Hello. Uh, so Salvatore is asking about the, uh, the Sunday million bonus play, which is, um, for the main slate. So Salvatore, you want a low salary tight end because their salaries are lower than wide receivers and there are more relevant super low salary tight end. I think Dawson Knox won it last week. So Salvatore, Will Disley, gonna gonna win someone $100,000 on Sunday because Gerald Everett is on the COVID, uh, list right now. Will Disley has run the second most routes for the Seahawks among tight ends. So Will Disley, Salvatore, I just, you know, I just, I think it's got to happen. You had Chester Rogers last week. Yeah, I think you were talking about that with Dawson Knox being the guy, right? Um, but I think it's gonna be Will Disley this week. Brandon, uh, your Sims, I assume, give Will Disley 78% odds of scoring this week, correct? If not, I don't have that. Also, I don't know why that question confused me so much. I couldn't, I don't know. Um, I would say Will, Will Disley makes some sense. Uh, honestly though, I would check out number fires projections and no, no, no, no. Why would you need projections when you can have gut and intuition and, um, you know, Will Disley conviction? Because there's a, there's a, Do numbers win $100,000, Brandon? No, heart does. Come on. Well, there's an answer out there for, for who's the best value at a low salary. I know, but I got to find that answer. We have the answer. I gave you the answer. It's, it's Will Disley. Sorry, you don't want it. 4400. That's, that's pretty enticing though. I'm just saying. Chris Hogan's 4700. I don't care. Salvatore, your guy this week is Will Disley, guaranteed. Brandon, uh, are you excited for Thursday Night Football now? Yeah, I am. Um, I, I think it's a big Marvin Jones night. I think he's going to be kind of my, my leverage play at MVP. I think more important though is that Ian Anderson is going to shove tonight. And I feel like we need to account for that. So are you going to put some Ian Anderson in here tonight for some Emily DFS? Can I talk you into it? Uh, I, you can try for the next half hour, but okay, okay. Um, so my, my goal now is to get Brandon to play Ian Anderson first night. Brandon, good luck with single game, except in the contest we're in together. Uh, and I will talk to you once again tomorrow for the snake draft. Sounds good. Alrighty, that was Brandon Gadoula. Check him out on Twitter at Gadoula 13. Let's get into tonight's MLB DFS main slate right now is, uh, it's a pretty decent slate. I think that we can go at this slate and feel pretty good about it because I think that there are logical ways to play things for today. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com here to take your questions on air for the next 25 minutes to get you set for Thursday nights MLB DFS slate. As always, no matter where you are watching, you can get your questions in via YouTube, Twitch, Facebook or Twitter, and we'll take them live here on the air to get you set for tonight. Let's pull up the numbers over here on the heat map. Whoa, sick. Love to see it. Got signed out there. So I'll sign back in, uh, and get those numbers back up over here. But either way, I think that tonight my optimal pitcher is going to be Ian Anderson. Anderson is a good pitcher. He was struggling quite a bit when he first came off the injured list because it didn't seem like he felt confident in his curveball. So he wasn't using his curveball and the past three starts. Andrew has gone back to that pitch and it's worked pretty well. As you can see here where the past three starts for Ian Anderson. He has a 2.96 skill interactive VRA with a 35 percent strikeout rates, 35 percent hard hit rates. His pitch count is back up 99 and 97 pitches over those past two starts. And I feel good about it. Facing the Phillies, it's a game where the Braids can lock up the NL East. So I think that they're going to do pretty well here. I think Anderson is the optimal way. All the reason I like Anderson is because that salary is super low. $8,800 and that gives you a lot of flexibility to load up on the Los Angeles Dodgers who I like a lot for today. So to me, Ian Anderson is the top pitcher for today. Let's get over here to some questions. A comment from DJ saying Matt Nagy has surrendered play calling duties for the Bears. So the lasers, the laser show back in Chicago. I think that there was some beat writer speculation about that today where Nagy might give up play calling duties. So this is for the best. Poor Matt. It worked out well last year when they had laser call some plays down the stretch. That was when Trebisky had his nice stretch. Granted, it was against some really, really, really bad defenses. But hey, you know, we'll see if that can work and see if we can get something out of the Bears offense. I'd love to get David Montgomery going. I've got Justin Fields in the couple of Superflex leagues. So would like the Bears offense perk back up. And I'm pretty sure DJ, I can't remember if you're a Jets or a Bears fan. I know you're, I think you're a Cubs fan, but either way, we'll see if that can perk up the Bears offense. DJ says, sorry, Kyle says, interested in using pavetta tonight. Should I be talked out of that? Would like to load up on some bats. I looked into him. I'll say Kyle, I did consider going to pavetta because the matchup is good. It's a high motivation spot because the Red Sox trying to lock up that, that, that wildcard spots. So those things great out. Well, I don't mind the match against the Orioles. I couldn't quite get there from a length perspective. He had a short stint on the aisle. And since coming back, that has gone 79, 68, 90 pitches. That's not super deep. And also I feel like if the Red Sox are going to try to go all in, all out and win this game, that could lead to a shorter leash for pavetta leaning on the bullpen because it is a pretty high leverage spot. So that's my concern to pavetta. I did look into him though, Kyle. I thought that he was at least interesting and I'm not totally ruling him out. I'm not going to use him myself, but I wouldn't talk you out of using him. Your process goes there. So you asked should I be talked out of that? I would say no, not talked out of it. He's not a guy I'll use personally for the reasons discussed before with the concerns around pitch count and the fact that they could just, you know, yank him at the first line of trouble. But he's at least a consideration, Kyle. So I'm not totally out there and I did look into him earlier on. Salvatore says didn't expect that kind of back surgery last night. Yeah, I didn't get to watch the game, but I have like a notification thing whenever someone's at the home run. And I was like, Oh, Nanny Machado went deep. Oh, what was it? Jake Cronenworth or someone someone else went deep like pretty soon after that. I was like, huh, seems not great, man. I was like counting on some insurance or lineups to do pretty well. And they obviously did not. So not fun there. The Dodgers mean the offense did work at least and hopefully they will do that again. We can get some Dodgers offense once again for tonight to make up for that. I do like the Dodgers as a stack quite a bit. So hopefully they can bring the offense similar to what they did in the second half of last night's game. DJ says Jets and Cubs are a team. So thankfully DJ, not a bear's fan. He can avoid it all out. Let's say you can avoid all out to spare, but then remember that the Jets are there too. So, oh well, DJ, did we in that game with the lineup I sent you yesterday? Pollock had two of them runs for me. Yeah, I think he made sense against Ryan Weathers. Weathers was better in the bullpen, but has struggled as a starter. I should have been more on the Dodgers personally than I was because I should have looked at what Weathers did when he was in the rotation and realized that things probably wouldn't go well when he moved back in the rotation. Didn't think that as much as I should have. So, a bit of a whiff of my part there, but thankfully DJ, I will not miss out on the Dodgers for tonight because I think that they are the number one stack for today. Vince Velasquez facing the Dodgers. Velasquez still pretty much the same dude he was back when he was in Philadelphia, where the struggles led to his being released. In his past seven starts, the more sliders. So, this does include some time with the Phillies and some with the Padres. He has a 5.65 skill interactive ERA, 19% strikeout rate, 12% walk rate, and the key thing is here. This batted ball data, a 51% hard hit rate allowed, and a 52% fly ball rate. For me personally, when I'm trying to find home runs, trying to find upsides, trying to find guys who can let up some impactful contact, I'm looking for pitchers who let up both a 40% hard hit rate and a 41% fly ball rate. Well, Velasquez is a 50% football. So that to me makes the Dodgers be the top stack of the night and a team I want to go really harder. Now, Salvatore is asking, what are we talking taking as a top GTV pitcher and stacks? For me, Salvatore, I think the Dodgers are pretty clearly the number one stack. And as a result of that, I got to find a lower sorry pitcher to lean on. And that does lead me to going with Anderson for today. Obviously, Anderson is probably not going to be like super contrarian. Like, you know, we're not going to catch people sleeping there. We're not going to catch people sleeping on the Dodgers. But I think in situations like this, where we are later in the year and we don't have a lot of options we can trust across the board, I'm okay being a bit more chalky and avoiding the quote unquote bad plays because there will be people who use players who are who are bad plays because of their situations. So to me, I am okay being a bit more chalky this time of year, you know, using the popular plays because I just think that there are fewer good plays to be had. So although Anderson and the Dodgers are not going to be like super under the radar, I do so think that they are the right way to play things in terms of a tournament lineup for tonight. So to me, I want Anderson to picture what the Dodgers one stack for the second stack, I can go either Mets or Red Sox. I know the Red Sox are very high salaries, maybe tough to get them in there and get like Muncie get that et cetera, et cetera. So I'm okay not getting the Red Sox, but I do think the Mets a good alternative in terms of stacking for today. DJ, how do you feel about your boy Joe Ryan tonight as well as Corey Kluver? I'm glad that Joe Ryan associated with me. I'll take that as a as a twins fan. I will take that for sure. I like what he will do while he is on the mound, DJ. My worry is how long he'll be on the mound because obviously the twins have nothing to play for. So not a lot of incentive to push Ryan here and they have not pushed him so far. He has gone 89, 85, 67 and 89 or 86 pitches in his four starts in that game against your Cubs. He was pitching really well as you know, but then they didn't put him back out there for the sixth inning. He left him out there after five. So although he had like a 107% strikeout rate in that game, he still didn't top 50 fan dual points. And that's the concern. We need length. We need guys who will go super deep into games. And Ryan's probably not going to be that guy. I would not totally cross him off because he is a very talented pitcher like his matchup for tonight. And those things do matter. His salary is also low, but like I feel a lot better about Anderson going deeper in the game. I feel better at Robbie Ray going deep in the game, trying to win that side young, trying to get the Blue Jays and the playoffs. So that to me is enough for I will be okay. I don't think I'll get to Joe Ryan. I'm not again, I'm not totally against it because he's very good and the matchup is good. But if I if I don't get there just because I don't have enough lines to get there tonight, that's okay too. Because I think that I have reasons for not being there. I hope he does well. It's fun to watch from pitch. It's definitely less upsetting than what the most, what most of the twin season has been. But for DFS perspective, the pitch count low enough to be a legitimate concern for me. Let's bump over here and see if we have some lineups out. I see Matt was asking about the Mets. Let's see if the Mets lineup is out here quick. Um Did I not hit refresh? Or is this page is not refreshing? Is it broken? Might be broken. Oh well. Mets lineup is out. Okay. So we have Conforto batting third. I want Conforto in there. Matt has Conforto in there. So we're good to go there. You got VR, Baez and Nimo. VR batting seventh. But he's been playing pretty well in the second half. So I do like VR despite the fact that he's a little bit lower in the order. Baez hitting the ball really well. So I'm okay with that. And then Nimo. Let's check out Nimo's numbers as ready as DJ. I realize I forgot Kluber my bad. I'll get back to that in a second. Um, but let's go down to here and let's see what we got out of Nimo. I'm always a little bit skeptical of Nimo because he's not like the biggest upside guy against righties this year. Nimo has a 147 ISO, a little bit lower than I'd like. So let's see Nimo's salary over here and compare that to some other Mets guys see if we can try to get a little tiny bit more juice out of there. Nimo is 3,000. Lindor $3,500. So it is actually a decent amount up to get there. I don't mind McNeil. I know I've been off McNeil this entire year, but hitting for a bit more power recently, at least enough to the point where I'm like, okay, I can at least consider him. Couple dingers, you know, better than it was before. Let's check out Nimo. See if there's been a power spike for him recently. I like those first three or the other three. Conforto, Baez, VR. Like them for sure. Nimo, okay. Let's go. I think that's actually probably right, Matt. Like if you need the Savians and can't get up to Lindor or can't get up to Alonso, I would say that's probably a good one to go with. So Matt, I am on board of all, all four of those guys. DJ is asking about Corey Kluber. Kluber facing the Jays. Don't like it. Not a big strikeout for him since he came back across five starts. So the batch is really tough, DJ. So I would be okay for getting Kluber for tonight. Michael, or sorry, Salvatore. Scott Casmier is $5,500 projected for 25 Fandall points. I don't think he should be projected for that many points because he went 71 pitches eight days ago. So his pitch counts probably not going to be super long. If that's a number fire projection, let me go over here. See, I think that we want to lower the pitch count and I can measure them and see. Yeah, 25 Fandall points. Okay, I'll probably message them and see if we can lower the pitch count on Scott Casmier because I think that's a little too high for me. My tastes just because I don't know how long he'll go. Again, 71 pitches is most recent outing. That was five days ago or sorry, eight days ago. Do you need the miners? See if there's any more length there. Six innings, I guess he did go longer. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's going to go longer than I think he will. I think there's a lot of risk there. I'm not going to go there Salvatore. I think that I need more points. 25 points is a pretty low number even if it is at a super low salary. But I just, yeah, I don't think he'll go that long and I need more points. So no Scott Casmier for me. Personally, if you want like a lower salary guy, I'd go Rich Hill. Hill is facing the Marlins, could match up there. He did go 97 last time out despite the fact that the Mets have been eliminated for a bit now. So I would go Rich Hill if you want like a lower salary guy. Police can get you probably 40 to 50 points. I think that Rich Hill could get in that range whereas I don't think Casmier can. Michael, do you like a Cleveland stack with Yuchang with Ramirez for value plus Reyes and Jose Ramirez? I would not object to a single player in that stack, Michael. I think they're all great. Like actively like all of them. I think that's great. Let's see if I can refresh this here. Aha. Finally. Can refresh. No lineup yet. But I would say all those guys are pretty solid. I am okay with Amid Rosario in that lineup for Cleveland. So check out the other salaries here for the Cleveland guys. I don't mind Miles Straw because he gets some steals. Not the worst power dude in the world either. But I would say like if we're just looking for salary savings, Ramirez is great. I do like Chong. I think Chong is like a focal point in terms of stacking this team. They don't have men there. I think he should be in there. They're facing a lefty though. So Chong should be playing tonight. So I would say, honestly, Michael, that might be the optimal Cleveland stack for tonight. So I like quite a bit. Matt, asking about a Dodger stack. Max Muncie, Trey Turner, Ajiapalic, Corey Seager. No objections, man. I think that actually I really like the idea of getting all three of Muncie, Turner and Seager. And they're not because they're great. They are. They are great. But because there's a lot of positional overlap there, I'm assuming Muncie's still a second base. Let me pull up the Dodgers here really quickly. Muncie, yeah, still a second base. So basically the reason I like that is because Muncie and Turner are both second base eligible. Turner and Seager are both shortstop eligible. So if you're trying to differentiate within a Dodger stack, getting all three of those guys who have positional overlap is going to make your line have been more different. So Matt, I would actively say I want to seek out having those three guys together. Obviously they're good players, but also because I don't think those three will be paired together super often. So I think that you should be actively seeking always do that, whether it's what Matt did putting Muncie at first base or sticking one of them to catch slash utility. Because I do like Will Smith a lot. He's $3,300. I would love to get him in there as well. If I can if I can get there, I would say, but actively pairing those three guys together, specifically Seager, Turner and Muncie. That's the way I'd want to play things for today. Aaron says, Hey Jim, let's keep the streak going. Yeah. How about a good week so far? Monday was awesome, despite it being a really bad slate. Tuesday was great too. So let's see how things go for tonight and hope things going well for you as well, Aaron. Kyle, do you like Donaldson as a one off to go with the Red Sox and Dodger stack? Twins are facing Terrick Scoobal. Scoobal will not go very long in this game. He has gone 50, 49, 41, 45 pitches. However, he's been pitching really well recently. If may peripherals perspective at least. So I'm not super into the Twins. They'll get a lot of exposure to middle relievers for the Tigers tonight. That's always a good thing, but I don't really want to go there too much. It's not totally off base because it will be a lot of the Tigers bullpen, but I'm not actively seeking them out. So he's fine. Like if you need a one off at third base, but not my preferred choice for today. Kyle is a smart to fade both quarter X nights and say aren't likely to break out. If you're talking for like the single game slate, most often I feel like there's going to be one quarterback in there, but it should be a unique build. Like maybe you go with like a Bengals thing where you go with Nixon, go with their, their kicker and stuff like that. Brandon Cadula does have like the projection stuff, the simulation stuff up on numberfire.com. Check that out and see what he has there. His thoughts are much better than mine because I've not had time to research the single game slate yet. Just focusing on MLB, but I would check that out by going to number fire. Okay. DJ says, watch the weather in that Cleveland versus Kansas City game. We pull up, I didn't have the thing pull up my tab over here. Let's go over here on the computer and check out what Kevin Roth said this morning. He says, yes, some nasty thunderstorms afternoon in Cleveland and Kansas City, winding down throughout the evening. Best guess here is a late start in play. Need to monitor it to confirm it's in playable shape with patients they should be able to play. So it sounds like he thinks they'll play, but it is at least checking back on that later. So again, Kevin Roth and Rotogrenner's Kevin Roth WX on Twitter. He does an update on the weather around five 30 or so each day. I would check back what he says, but it's a good flag, DJ, to mention that we should check the weather on that one. Rene, any love for the giants? Longoria, Bryant and Slater. Giants are facing Madison Bumgarner. So yes, I think that they are rock solid. The one guy not as into a Slater because he is risky in terms of leading for a pinch hitter. So he may start and batted a good spot in the order, but I worry about how long he'll be in that game once the lefty is no longer in there. So I like Longoria. I like Bryant. Both those guys are due to a play against both righties and lefties. I like Wilmer Flores a lot because Lover Sauer has shown power and with Tommy Lestella not at full health, I would assume we get to see him in there for the full game. Lestella didn't play last night or didn't start last night. So I feel like I feel good about Flores staying in for the entire game. So guys I feel good about for today on the Giants would include Flores, Longoria. I feel good about Posey. Feel good about Bryant. Let's check out Crawford in Nistremski because I listed out four guys there. So we were up to our four for the stack, but maybe you need, you can't get to Bryant, can't get to Sauer's like that. Check out the numbers for the lefties in this Giants team who should be in there to start for today. Okay. So Crawford 162 ISO versus lefties, a 41% fly ball rates. It still puts the ball in the air a lot, which is good. Not the best results, but it does put the ball in the air. Lestremski are really struggling with lefties, so maybe won't even play. But I would say, you know, Longoria, we feel great about Posey, Bryant, and Flores. All guys I am okay being high on for today. Crawford would be a preferred option among the lefties on the Giants. But in general when I am very okay with the Giants for tonight. Have not talked about Robbie Ray yet. I do think that Robbie Ray is in play for tournaments here. Really, really, really tough matchup. Like I do not want to use lefties facing the Yankees because the Yankees can co-rush lefties. But it is a high motivation spot that Blue Jays trying to work their way into the playoffs. So obviously there's a lot on the line here. Robbie Ray, very talented pitcher with a 34% strikeout rate and has passed 12 starts with more sliders. He goes deep in games. So it's risky. And that's why I prefer Anderson straight up and I would go Anderson in tournaments. But I do still think that Robbie Ray is worthy of exposure from all at the entry. Because like look at the pitches on this slate. How many of these guys can bust a 60 burger? Bieber can't because his pitch count is not long enough. None of these guys can. Joe Ryan probably can't do the length. Anderson potentially can. Don't think he'll can. I would say the list of dudes who can realistically get you 60 points is Robbie Ray, Ian Anderson, maybe Lance McCullers. Astros don't have a lot to play for, but Dusty seems to just let his dudes go deep in games. So I think the list might just be Anderson and Ray potentially. So that's why I want those guys for tournaments because they're the guys with the most realistic shots to be the highest scoring pitchers on this slate. DJ, how do I stack Houston, Atlanta, and Miami in one dodger possible with Ian Anderson pitching? I would try to keep it a bit more concentrated, DJ. So like choose two of those teams. Choosing Houston, Atlanta, or Houston, and Miami or Atlanta, and Miami, et cetera, et cetera. I would say if you're going to lop off one of those, I would lop off the Marlins, not a great team against lefties, facing Rich Hill, Hills. Been pitching okay recently. So I would lop off Miami, focus on Houston and Atlanta there. With Anderson, we got a lot of salary flexibility. So I would say we can go to the Astros first because those are going to be the guys who are going to require a lot more salary allocated. Let's see. We have for the value plays in here, Jake Myers, the one value outfield they're starting. So we'll probably get him in there. Yeah. Just Jake Myers. So let's get him first. Give ourselves a lot of flexibility. Let's get Yuli Correa, and then do we want to go with Altuve, Tucker Alvarez or Bregman. Let's go over here and check out the numbers versus lefties for Houston. Okay. Man, Jordon is good. He is such a good player. That is insane. Okay. I feel like we're going to go with Jordon. I know it's lefty on lefty. But he's also really good. Maybe I should bump out Correa and go with Bregman instead. Got 3350 left. I can actually do that. So let's do that. Let's go with Bregman there. I feel like this is a good stack of Houston for today. If you're going with Anderson, it doesn't be 3350 left. So you can get to like the really good braves in that situation. I'm not as into the braves just because like Gibson's been fine. This is since he joined the Phillies, low strikeout rate, but also a low fly ball rate. So braves not super high on my list, but I would say this is a good stack to go with with the Astros. If you decide to go with more Dodgers, you should be able to get, I know it's DJ says my boy Ciri is out. I'm sad about it, DJ. I'm sad. I wish he were in there. I do find I do like Myers. I think he's fine. But I wish Jose Ciri were in there. He has been so good to us whenever he started, but alas, another day for sure. I think this is the right you want to go with for the Astros DJ. As far as the braves go, I tend to, let's see if the lineup is out here. Okay. So against righties, I tend to bump up Duvall and bump down Soler. I mean, I'll bump up Duvall, but I bump up Duvall relative to Soler. So Eddie Rosario, probably going to be a good play there within that lineup. If we're going with this, this Astros stack, Alby's a good Freeman. Good. I would say a ranking them out. I would go salary considered Duvall, Rosario, Freeman, Alby's probably the stack I'll be looking at there for today. And Salvatore says Freddie Freeman home run. So Salvatore is on your side there, DJ. Thanks, Freddie Freeman is going deep for tonight. Matt, in my Dodgers and Mets mix, I can play Will Smith and Lindor or Nimmo and Muncie. Which parody like better? I like both a lot, Matt. I like both a lot. I kind of want to go with Will Smith. It's really hard to say no. It's really hard for me to say no to Max Muncie. But I also love Will Smith and I love Franciscan Lindor. And I think that Lindor is a decent upgrade from Nimmo. So as bad as it makes me feel in saying no to Max Muncie, I think I'm going to go with Will Smith in Franciscan Lindor. That might be stupid, Matt, but I think I want to go. See, if I were doing this, I tend to like, if I'm both the entry, I will like duplicate a lineup and just do both. So I will do one lineup with Smith and Lindor, duplicate that lineup, put in Nimmo and Muncie and do it that way. It's just, it's really hard for me to choose. But if I had to choose, which I feel like I do because like why do this if we're not going to choose, I would say give me Smith and Lindor and let's pray that our boy Will Smith continues to just mash taters all year long. Holman picks I had from this morning where Michael Conforto for the Mets and then Max Muncie. So we're on the same page there, Matt. And DJ says to consider AJ Pollock. He's super hot. He is. And he's hitting the ball well against righty. So AJ Pollock could play as well, but my boy Will Smith, let's keep on riding. ID Will Smith for a roto league where I'm trying to push for second place down the stretch. So all aboard the Will Smith Express for tonight. That is all that we have here for today on this FanDuel Live Q&A, but we are back once again tomorrow for the final and there'll be DFS Q&A the year that's at 430. We have our Snake Draft from 4 to 430 p.m. Eastern. So make sure you are subscribed to the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter pages swing by tomorrow 4 to 5 p.m. to get both our Snake Draft myself, JJ Zacharyson and Brandon Gadoula and our MLB DFS Q&A. Our final solo shot tomorrow at 9 a.m. on YouTube and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast via after that. Brandon Gadoula, we found on Twitter at Gadoula13. He was here earlier on talking about Thursday Night Football. We did our DFS preview podcast week four this morning. That is up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Find that by searching for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. If you've got questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-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 tonight with Bowl of Single Game DFS and with your MLB Slates and we'll talk to you once again tomorrow to close out the week. This has been the Fade to a Live Q&A.