 We have got a full 15 games on the main slate for tonight in daily fantasy baseball, which means as always when we have so many games available, scores are going to be high. You need some juice to take down a tournament for tonight in daily fantasy baseball, which means we're looking for upside both at pitcher and in our stack trying to maximize strikeouts, trying to maximize home runs, et cetera, et cetera to give ourselves the possibility of taking down a tournament. We're going to go through three pitching options. I think have that juice, some stacks like quite a bit and some one offs who could potentially go deep for tonight. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com here to break down Friday's 15 game main slate with lock set for 705 for tonight. And somehow, despite there being 15 games, there are no weather notes for today. We are good to go, play things straight up, use the plays you want to use, and hopefully those ones can vault you towards the top of the leaderboard. Before I take a look at the pitching preview for today, hey college football fans, the highly anticipated week three slated games is set to take place this Saturday and fan dual and Facebook are teaming up to make sure you get the most out of your weekend. Introducing the take on anything contest presented by Facebook, a completely free to play daily fantasy contest centered around Saturday's 14 game college football slate. The contest is simple. All you have to do is build your best seven player lineup and follow along as the games are played to compete for a share of the $25,000 prize pool, including $5,000 your first place matchups like Alabama, Florida, Auburn, Penn State, Michigan State, Miami on the schedule. There's bound to be some fireworks throughout the day on Saturday. Kickoff is right around the corner. So download the Fanduil app to get in on the action today. Eligibility districts apply for more details to the Fanduil.com or download the Fanduil fantasy app. Also a quick reminder, we do have our snake draft coming up later on today. That's at 4 p.m. on the Fanduil YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages breaking down the week two main slate snake draft between myself, JJ Zacharias and Brandon Cadulla, JJ, one week one of the snake drafts. So need to get some revenge here on week number two. We'll talk about that and also take your questions live on there. The MLB DFS Q&A will follow right after at 4.30. Also for the week two NFL DFS slate, our preview podcast already posted with myself, Brandon Cadulla, breaking down our favorite game stacks and favorite plays each position. Also some general process talk for those of you who may be new to NFL DFS. Find that by searching for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Pitching preview for this Friday main slate, Zach Wheeler is the highest salary pitch from Fanduil at $10,700. That's actually not too bad given how good he is. Chris Sayle coming off the COVID IL is $10,000. Walker Bueller is $9,900. Logan Webb is $95. Herman Marquez is $9,200. Luis Castillo facing Bueller is $9,000. We have Hunjin Ryu, Dylan Cease, Adrian Hauser, Zach Plisac, Luis Patino, Madison Bumgarner, Ian Anderson, and Brady Singer as the others at $8,000 are higher. So a lot of second tier guys for tonight. I think the top tier pretty rock star level. There is one guy in that second tier. I do like quite a bit, but for me, it comes down to a guy I haven't gotten to talk a lot about because he hasn't been on the main slate or he's been in tougher matchups. And I think we're going to take advantage of this guy being available in a matchup I don't mind and put him at the top of our list. That is Logan Webb and he has been incredible for a while now and he's weirdly similar to Zach Wheeler. So it's kind of fun to have them both in the main slate. He has amazing bad at ball data. Webb does, but he adds a strikeout component as well. And I think that again, Webb is my number one guy for tonight against the Braves. Webb is doing something I'm usually not a fan of. He is throwing more sinkers. He's been doing that for his past 10 starts and more sinkers tends to lead to a dip in strikeouts. That hasn't happened with Webb. His strikeout rate across those 10 starts is 27%. He's letting up just a 5% walk rate and he's letting up just a 21% fly ball rate. When you combine those strikeout numbers with that great bad at ball beta, you have both a high floor and an amazing ceiling. Webb has shown that he has a 2.10 ERA in this time. He had 10 strikeouts in one of those games. He had nine in one, eight in another, but he just goes deep deep in games. Again, this is a 10-star sample for Webb and he has gone six plus innings every single one of those starts. That is despite throwing 85 or fewer pitches in two straight starts. And that could be a concern, but it's not for me because the giants are fighting for playoff positioning. They're going to let their ace cook. And I would say that he's the ace of the staff right now. And it's a tough matchup. I think you do want Webb out there as long as you can have him. The Braves, they're a tough offense. They will strikeout though. They have a 24% strikeout rate versus righties. It's a great part for pitching. So typically, I'd lean Zach Wheeler over Logan Webb because if you've listened long enough, you know I greatly appreciate how good Zach Wheeler is, but Webb is at home, give the dream spot, a little bit lower salary. I am okay putting him at the top of my list. So Logan Webb, my number one pitcher for tonight in daily fantasy baseball. Wheeler is still second though. It's also fun because no matter what tweaks Wheeler makes, he's still really good. Most recently, Wheeler's been cutting back on his sliders. He said seven starts with less usage there. And that can be a red flag. A lot of times when I see a guy cut back on his slider used your curveball usage, it sometimes means they're trying to avoid wear or maybe they're not fully healthy. And if that's the case with Wheeler, you would not know because in those seven starts, he has a 3.23 skill interactive ERA. His strikeout rate is 29%. He is still letting up hard contact. Just 28% of the time again, league average around around 35%. So sorry, 39%. And Wheeler has shown no dip in this time. He said double digit strikeouts twice here. He had nine and one, eight and two of the others. He did let up some runs in those games, but with how good the peripherals are, specifically the bad of ball data, it's not a big concern for me. He is facing the Mets tonight, which is their revenge game for Zach Wheeler. First of all, that matters above all else. We saw this matchup back on August 8th and Wheeler threw a two hit shutout with 11 strikeouts. The Mets have 94 WRC plus against righty. They 25% strikeout rate. So if Wheeler were at home, I put him above web. With this game being in New York, I will favor web by a hair. Both these guys are great. And I'm very down to go here and I want to load up on them for sure. But to me, it's going to be web one, Wheeler two. As far as the lower salary picture, it's going to be a guy who has a lot of upside, but has some flaws. And that's Dylan Cease. And the flaws for Cease are he walks too many guys. He lives in a dangerous bad of ball region. And for me, that means I have to use him only in specific matchups. But I think he gets one of those specific matchups for today. So I like Cease a lot at $6,000. He's facing the Rangers. We want Cease facing low power teams that don't draw a lot of walks. And the Rangers check both those boxes. The walk rate against righties is 7%. That's the lowest on the slate. Their ISO versus righties is 145. So there aren't a lot of matchups better than this one for Cease. Maybe like the Marlins, but it's a pretty short list in terms of trying to identify matchups better than this one for Cease. That allows us to focus more on the outside for Cease, which is sweet. He has basically filtered his change up out of his repertoire. And in the nine starts of that being true, he has a 3.46 skill interactive ER rate despite all the walks, despite all the fly balls. But it's that low because he has a 35% strikeout rate in nine starts. Cease has hit double digit strikeouts three times. He had nine in another. Now Cease slid up some runs. He led up seven last time out, but that was against Boston. That's a very different matchup than the Rangers are. So if we are picky, if we are selective, we pick and choose our spots with Cease, we should be able to find success. Basically, just avoid him against the tough teams, utilize him against the softer teams. All three of his big strikeout games came against softer opponents. So I think that allows us to use them here, getting an easier matchup here. And I will use Cease despite loving both Wheeler and Web. Sometimes we'll talk about the value play and not going to be as into it, but I do think here it's very okay to be high on Dylan's Cease for today. And if we're talking like single entry, I think there is some consideration to Cease in that format too. So to me, he is very worthy of being in your player pool for today. So to me, it's one, one Web, two Wheeler, three Cease, but all three of those guys at least considerations for me when it comes to single entry lineups. Let's move down to the stacks. We don't have to be as salary conscious because Web's $9,500 Wheeler's not too bad either and then Cease is pretty good. So we can afford to go at some pretty powerful teams. One of those is the Red Sox. And I do like them a lot here versus Keegan Aiken. And the Red Sox, I would say honestly relative to my expectations for them have been underwhelming against lefties. Their ISO is 159, which is, it's very middling. I think they could boost that tonight against Aiken. Aiken has a profile we want to stack against. He has made seven starts since he rejoined the rotation for Baltimore and his skill interactive ERA in the time is 5.28. It gets that high in part due to a high walk rate, which does mean he lets up fewer balls in play. Not a huge fan of that from a DFS perspective, but Aiken also lets up a 53% fly ball rate with just a 20% strikeout rate. If the walks were lower, this match would check every box we want for stacking. The results have reflected this because Aiken has a 5.56 ERA in this time. And it's come against some tougher teams, but we saw Aiken against Boston in the stretch too when he got chased after four innings and let up four earned runs. He had just two strikeouts compared to three walks. The Red Sox had a 53% fly ball rate in that matchup. So the components or power are there even if the Red Sox have not converted yet all that much against lefties. So I think they will do that tonight. And I do think that we should be high on this Red Sox lineup in this matchup. Now the one guy we're discussing here is Bobby Dahlbeck because Dahlbeck is no longer a value play. His salary is up to $3,100 and that couldn't even give you some pause because Dahlbeck is still a flawed hitter, stuff like that, but kind of don't care. Still going to plug him in personally because, again, we're looking for guys with upside on a full slate. Obviously Hunter Renfrow has that, et cetera, et cetera, but like, so does Dahlbeck. Bobby Bigfly has the platoon advantage. He's basically like, I don't know, he's like a Joey Gallo tip guy where you want to target these types of players for DFS is the perfect profile for DFS. The floor might suck, but that's true for every single batter on the planet. So it's going to be hard for me not to be an on Dahlbeck here at $3,100. I think that even though the salary has gone up, I still want to be there. So Bobby Dahlbeck to me still a priority, despite the fact he is no longer a value play. In the second stack, we're going to lean on some of the lower salary guys to stack this team, but I do think that those lower salary guys have upside and that allows me to stack the Astros tonight. They're facing Madison Bumgarner. It just doesn't seem like Bumgarner's right at the moment. He's being blasted by teams that struggle with lefties. His past two starts have both been against the Mariners. The Mariners pretty lefty heavy team, not that great against lefties. And Bumgarner led up five runs in both those games with five total home runs across the two games. Two starts before that, Bumgarner faced the Pirates. They also hit two home runs and scored four runs against him. Now he's facing Houston who has a 124 WRC plus against lefties, which is a Yikes type situation. The peripherals for Bumgarner are rough. He's been leaning more on a change of his past nine starts. His strikeout rate is down to 18%. Fly ball rate is 45%. It's a pretty rough combination and it's even rougher when you're facing a quality team like the Astros are. I'm not sure if Bumgarner's name value will scare people away here. I could see people being pretty hip to this one given how much Bumgarner struggled recently. So I don't think they'll be under the radar despite the name value in Bumgarner, but I do still think that the Astros worth targeting here. And the good thing is it's not a good thing. It's a bummer thing. With Michael Brantley on the IL, Michael Brantley is a tremendous veteran. So it's not a good thing. He's on the IL. What it does do though is open up two spots for their lower salaried outfielders. So let's rank those guys. All three guys are rated batters. That does help. So if we... I mean, they won't all three be in there. Two of them will be. But let's say in terms of prioritization, I'd say Siri first. He is just the most talented guy here. I put Chas McCormick second. McCormick had a big fly last night. I just like his overall power profile quite a bit. But Jake Myers has shown some pop against lefties in a very, very, very small sample. So my ranking is Siri one, McCormick two, and Myers three. But I love all three of those guys. And let's say it's Siri and Myers. I'll put those two in. McCormick and Myers, I'll put those two in. Siri McCormick, I'll put them into. I think that using two of those value plays in order to get the leverage to get to Albube, to Bregman, to Real, et cetera, et cetera. I'm down with that for tonight. So I do think the Astros easy to stack for tonight and a team that I do want to stack as well. Our third stack is one leaning pretty heavily on platoon splits because Casey Myers is a guy whose outlook depends heavily on the opposing team. If they are like a righty heavy team, like the Cardinals or something like that, he's fine. Lefties give him a lot of trouble. And he's facing the race nights. And they've got a lot of lefties, even with Wander Franco being out. So I think the rays are a good stack here tonight. For the full season, Myers is letting up a 280 iso to left-handed batters. The added ball data says that's pretty legit as well. And I'm sure the Myers is aware of this because he's been tinkering. He's been throwing fewer splitters recently. That's a heavy usage pitch for him versus lefties. And I'm kind of confused about that because it's not like a bad pitch, but I feel like maybe he's thinking, okay, you know, I got to change something here with how the things have been going versus lefties. I'm kind of confused, but it hasn't worked either way. Myers has a 17% strikeout rating this time with a 4.92 skill interactive ERA. It could just be that the Tigers are trying to save him for 2022 like, hey, we're going to have you put that splitter away. It's a pretty high wear pitch. His pitch counts have been down as well. Either way, whatever the explanation is, it's led to some pretty serious struggles from Myers. He faces the same raise lineup over the weekend. He lasted just two innings, gave him three earned runs. He's probably not going deep tonight, but this bullpen is not one that bothers me. So I think it makes a lot of sense to load up on the raise here for tonight. And the big hope for me is that Brett Phillips plays because he's played in three of the five games since he came off the aisle and Nelson Cruz has banged up now. Phillips has a 281 ISO versus righties with tons of fly balls. So I really want to jam him in there. I would say that G-mon Choi is solid too, but I would rank him behind Phillips if both play because Choi could occasionally early for Yachty Diaz at times. So prefer Phillips over Choi, but I think both are in play for tonight in terms of salary savers as far as left-sided batters go facing Casey Mines. Thanks to watch this late, focusing on three more offenses where we can get some batters from. I do like the White Sox tonight facing Taylor Hearn. Hearn is getting stretched out as a starter. He wasn't a high strikeout guy in the bullpen. His slide ball rate is super high. I think that the reason the White Sox are not as high is because the hard hit rate that Hearn is allowed is not super high. So we can stack against him, but I think that that's the reason why I put them fourth behind the Rays, Astros, and the Red Sox, but there's still a solid stack here as well. Not opposed to stacking the Cardinals. They're facing Vince Velazquez. Velazquez once again had massive issues at the end of his tenure at the Phillies, and he's back to being a guy we can stack against here as he moves to his new team. The reason the Cardinals weren't higher is that they're not a deep team. Like if you look at their lineup versus righties, there aren't a lot of guys in that team you want to use in daily fantasy. So I will use them, but I want to be in more select spots. They're kind of more of a one-off team. Like a three-player stack with O'Neill, Orinato, Goldschmidt, that works as well, but definitely not the deepest team in terms of stacking. Finally, if you got the salary, I am down for some one-offs on the Yankees. They're facing Zach Plisac, and Plisac has started to trend up recently, been getting a bit better, but he's still letting up a 46% hard hit rates with a 42% fly. Ball right is past seven starts. That's probably not going to cut it. So this is more for one-offs and full stacks, because Plisac has been better, but this team does great out well there. So to me, the options are the top three being the Red Sox, the Astros, and the Rays. And then in consideration, are the White Sox primarily, but then the Cardinals and Yankees potentially, for some one-offs. Let's finish up with some Dinger calls for this Friday's late. Going back to Boston for the first one facing Aiken and that big fly ball rate. I got to go Hunter Renfrow. He's too good against lefties for me to not go there. I do love Bobby Big Flies, but I'm choosing one straight up for my boring call. Let's go with Hunter Renfrow. The fun one, we'll go back to the Rays. And I'm going to hope Brett Phillips plays, because if Brett Phillips plays, he'll be my homerun call. I just love the power he's shown versus righties. He puts the ball in the air. I think the matchup is great too. So if Brett Phillips plays, he is my homerun call. If not, I'll go G-mon Choi as a boring one. So the homerun calls for today are Hunter Renfrow and Brett Phillips. If Phillips does not go, give me G-mon Choi instead. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot. But plenty more coming up later on today here on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Austin Swain, be breaking down USC for this weekend for Saturday's card. I'll be talking the Bristol Night Race. That is coming up 10.30 a.m. on the Fandal YouTube page up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed after that. And again, our week two DFS preview already posted up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Find that wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, hit subscribe and leave us a rating and review as well. If you've got more questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandal Podcast Network at Fandal Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you tonight. We'll talk to you once again on Monday, having a fantastic weekend. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandal Podcast Network.