 I think we've got a pretty wide open slate for tonight in MLB DFS where there are a decent number of pitchers you could talk yourself being into as being the top armor the night there is a value play I truly don't mind so a pretty wide open slate and that's a good thing because it allows you to differentiate without being dumb it allows you to follow wherever your process leads you and I think feel pretty good about that almost regardless we're going to break down where my process leads me for today which guys I think could be good despite potentially not being the most popular plays in the slate and get you ready for a Friday night in MLB DFS welcome on into the solo shop that's right here on the Fandall podcast network and number fire dot com my name is Jim Saunas I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire here to break down Friday's 13 game main slate with locks up for 705 p.m. Eastern for today the loan of weather note on the slate outside of smoke which I can't really track personally so hopefully no smoke issues for today but there is a chance of rain in Baltimore for the Orioles and the Royals I have interest in that game from a pitching perspective weirdly given those two teams involved but I think they should be good to go at least based on the initial read so I would check back on that game later on make sure the forecast has not changed they're good to play that game if they are we'll be talking about that game in the pitching section in just one second the first day reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast be wherever you get your podcast you can find us on Apple podcast Spotify Stitcher Google podcasts you name it you can find us there while you're there if you like what you hear leave us a five star rating as well both on Apple podcast and on Spotify we appreciate you as always have you ever started a player in your fantasy football lineup who scores three points while someone on your bench puts up 20 well with Fandals NFL best ball drafts you don't have to worry about that draft your team and each week the highest scoring lineup from your roster will be used as you battle for first place all season long leaks can be free to play or for money and range from 30 to 12 players the NFL season will be here before you know it's ahead to Fandals today and get in on the action age and location restrictions apply pitching preview for this Friday main slate we have got a again pretty fun pitching pool for today begins at the top with Christian Javier of the salary of $10,800 followed by Luis Castillo at 10 6 Garrett Cole facing the Red Sox at 10 5 Marcus Strowman out in San Francisco at 10 2 Shohio Taney facing Castillo at 10,000 Dylan Cease against Marlins 98 Tyler Wells to 97 justified I think sunny gray at 96 you Darvish at course field 95 with Logan Allen at 93 A Repair as facing the White Sox 92 then we have Anthony DeSclifani Ben Lively you say Kikuchi Adrian Houser Jordan Montgomery Tyler McGill and Josiah Gray and also Daniel Lynch as the guys at $8,000 or higher for tonight so as mentioned a lot of ways you could play the slave for today and I think the most interesting salary there is Shohio Taney because $10,000 for him on Fandal is not bad at all he's facing the Mariners and that's not the best matchup but I still want to be on him tonight. Ohtani has had some hiccups recently which may be why that salary is reduced he let a fivered runs his last time out against Houston and I used him there so that was not super enjoyable but still he did go six innings and get six strikeouts there was nothing of massive concern inside his profile. We have seen Ohtani alter his approach a bit he's been throwing more sinkers and fewer sliders as past five starts and my DFS perspective that's not a swap you want because sinkers are bad for strikeouts and sliders are good. It's still been pretty solid for Ohtani in this time he has a 3.46 skill interactive ERA strikeout rate is 28% with allowing just a 31% hard hit rate so those numbers are all still good even if they're not quite prime Ohtani and the angels do let Ohtani go super deep in games so even with more sinkers and a lowered strikeout rate Ohtani is still average 7.4 strikeouts per game in this span I haven't projected for 7.7 tonight because the Mariners are a team that is willing to strikeout so Ohtani to me is the top pitcher the night and the guy I do feel good about despite some concerns around his recent pitch mix. Number two pitcher behind Ohtani may be a bit of a surprise but it is a guy who is pitching fantastic right now and that guy is Tyler Wells I think he's well worth his salary 97 and a guy I want to be on for tonight. Wells is facing the Royals and that's a higher strikeout matchup than they used to be they have a 24% strikeout rate against righties and that's a boost for Wells for sure but I also just generally like what Wells is doing right now he said publicly he's been making a more concerted effort to get strikeouts and over his past six starts we've seen him use fewer curveballs and the curveball is actually a pretty low whiff pitch for him according to baseball's Vaughn it's actually the lowest whiff rate for him of any pitch outside of his cutter so fewer curveballs is a good swap for Wells to make in terms of strikeouts that combined with his new strikeout centric mindset has led to a spike not surprisingly in the six start sample Tyler Wells has a 32% strikeout rate with a 3.17 skill interactive ERA he has had seven plus strikeouts in five consecutive starts and he had nine last time out we've also seen Wells get a hundred plus pitches in two consecutive starts and this all aligns with the results too because those have been pretty solid which means I think he'll keep this approach going as long as those results stay good I am super high on Wells I am not sure if people will be as keen to buy into him especially on a slate where we have Otani Castillo Javier McColl all those names that pushes me towards taking the risk on Wells at 97 it's a risk because it's a small sample but I think it's worth it so to me it's Otani one Tyler Wells two and the hope for me is that people are not super into Wells given how much that salary has risen as of late the value play is actually in that exact same game if you want to spend down I like Daniel Lynch at $8,000 as my hair value for tonight this means he's facing the Orioles and I don't want to do that because they are a very tough team for a lefty to face 115 at WRC plus there but Lynch is look good coming back from a shoulder injury in two starts he has a 13% swinging strike rate he made four starts in triple A on his rehab stints his strikeout rate down there was 19.2% and this is really a return to previous form for Lynch because in the minors he always got whiffs and converted them into strikeouts he has not translated that to the majors as of yet but this year Lynch has changed the way he's throwing a slider it's either if you look at fangrass or pitch info it's a cutter baseball savannah it's still a slider but it's a harder slider so it's a distinct pitch from what he's throwing last year Velo is higher and that pitch is getting ground balls his big issue before was hard contact and I'm curious if this retooled slider will help Lynch mitigate the hard contact it has helped so far but it is also just a sample of 60 pitches but in those first two starts off the IL Lynch has six and seven strikeouts respectively both those were admittedly great matchups for a lefty and this is not bad against the Orioles so there is a lot of risk here but for $8,000 on a course field slate I'm okay taking on some risk so I like Lynch I'll give him a spin for tonight so to me the top pitchers in the stud tier Otani won a 10,000 Wells 2 at 97 and then the top value in that same game is Daniel Lynch again check back on the weather at Baltimore to make sure they are good to go there part of the incentive to spend down a bit for tonight is because we do have a course field game and it's the Padres there Padres facing Austin Gomber Gomber is struggling the Padres have hit lefty as well so I do think it's a good thing to be high all the Padres are tonight not a super bold claim given they're at a course field but still think it is worth reiterating they good we want them Gomber's ERA this year is 6.99 across the full season his expected ERA is 7.24 he's been throwing his curveball hider or harder for his past eight stars and that hasn't made a big difference his skill interactive ERA is 5.16 in that time with a 47 hard hit rates and just a 15 percent strikeout rate so even with the results at times being better for Gomber it's still looking pretty fruitful to stack against him the Padres have a 114 at WRC plus against lefties with a 190 ISO and now they good a good match up by course field I think we should just take the path of least resistance and stack them here so the Padres to me a very fine stack the confliction conflict the whatever the conflict that I have with stacking the Padres is I'm still a bit skeptical of Gary Sanchez what he's been doing he's been fantastic so far in the majors but he was not doing this in triple A for the four different triple A teams he played for he has twice as many homers in the big leagues as he did in triple A across all stops his salary is 32 that does help a lot where it means that Fandle also is not bought in yet so the salary is still pretty reasonable Sanchez likely did bad at a pretty good spot in the order so I'm skeptical but cleanup batter or guy baton fifth at course field for 32 who is hit well in the majors in the small sample you could do worse so although I'm skeptical probably will still be there for tonight out of necessity in order to make these Padres stacks a bit easier to get to from a sour perspective outside of course field the Brewers are facing the Oakland ace starting a series against them which means they are the next team to get to face that very very giving bullpen Luis Medina will start for the ace tonight and I think both aspects the Medina aspect and the bullpen aspect should put us in the Brewers for stacking Medina a rough go of it so far ERA is 8.19 is expected ERA is 6.51 and that number is high largely because his hard hit rate is 43 percent the numbers in triple A were not ideal either from Medina so I think the Brewers should be able to get to him and then there's the bullpen we've talked a lot about the bullpen here on the show but the active roster skill interactive ERA the bullpen is 4.77 which means the Brewers can score points all game long that's not true for all stacks on each slate so I think there's a lot to like in that regard I think the Brewers are a prime stack and if it weren't of course field slate I think they'd be probably number one so feeling really good about the Brewers for today and they're also getting healthier between willy adams coming back and Luis Arias coming back but also Christian Yelich slowly perking back up his iso against righties the past month is 186 which is better than it was his fly ball rate back up to 30 percent that's still lower than he'd like it to be quite a bit lower but better than it was and of course he will steal bases too I have not been super high on Yelich for a couple years now but it's getting better definitely getting better and especially now with how prevalent stolen bases are that does up his appeal too so I'm higher on Yelich now than I was before he is the highest salary guy in the stack and get Rowdy Thales for $2,900 which is super attractive so I think the Brewers do make a lot of sense not super hard to get to from a salary perspective so even with Rowdy Thales struggling right now I want to be on the Brewers personally against the A's and Luis Medina for our third stack we're gonna go to Atlanta Atlanta the Braves facing Josiah Gray who's at awesome results recently but there are some issues under the hood and I think that those allow us to stack the Braves here across his past eight starts Gray has gone back to his forcing fastball a bit more his ERA in the time is 2.78 and an eight start sample ERA is not stable yet but it's starting to get closer to where it's like okay we can't fully ignore that he hasn't let it more than four earned runs in any game so he's had great results decently large sample but the peripherals are still a bit rough and the matchups have been pretty easy in that time across that span Gray has a 5.14 skill interactive ERA his strikeout rate is 20% with a 12% walk rate he's letting up a 41% hard hit rates and he had been getting a lot better in that regard but that has slipped and that's despite plus matches because across his past four starts he has faced the Marlins the Tigers and the Royals there was a tougher start there too but those are three plus matchups so I'm curious what his peripherals would look like if he had been facing tougher teams so I'm okay betting on regression here and stacking the Braves even though Gray has had awesome results as of late and in this stack I'm okay using either righties or lefties Gray's strikeout rate is lower against righties but the ground ball rate is also higher there so lefties have not hit him well so far especially not hitting for power but I think those numbers will improve as we expand this sample so I'm not going to worry too much about where they're at right now I think both handednesses are in play when stacking against Gray with the Braves for tonight so top stacks of the day going to be the Padres at Coorsfield the Brewers against the A's and the Braves in Atlanta things to watch on this plate Dylan Cease gets a fantastic matchup at home he's facing the Marlins and I love that matchup and would love to be here but I still don't think Cease is fully back yet even in plus matchups he's had issues he's a consideration tonight due to the matchup but I'm not fully fully in on him yet I kind of want to see a bit more on Cease before I treat him as being last year's Dylan Cease once again Yusuke Kukuchi is facing the Twins he's still letting up a lot of hard contact and a lot of fly balls and I think that puts one-offs very much in play the Twins are a bit banged up which is why they're not a full stack but if Jorge Polanco can play he got banged up yesterday if he can go he hits lefties well Carlos Correa hit a bomb this week so maybe he's getting back Royce Lewis struggling so far this is all why I haven't gotten to a full stack here but I think Lewis Correa Polanco guys like that can at least be considerations for one-offs for tonight finding the Mets are facing Rich Hill who is letting up a lot of hard contact and a lot of fly balls recently so I think that puts the Mets in play for one-offs or for potentially a full stack the overall numbers for Hill have been fine but that hard contact is tough to turn down so the Mets to me a stacking consideration or a spot to turn for one-offs filling out your lineups let's finish up here the Dinger calls for today I don't think I've gotten to use Fernando Tatis Jr as a home run call yet but he's at Coors 11 bombs already so far so we'll go Tatis as a boring home run call because I feel like it for the fun one will go a lot more fun and this one is fun because I'm excited he's back in the majors John Singleton is back at the Brewers or I guess up with the Brewers now and I've always felt kind of bad for him given the trajectory after you got that huge contract in Houston I'm glad he got his money but I'm glad to see him back in the majors probably gonna bat in the bottom third of the order but salary is $2,200 he hit the ball pretty well in triple A so let's go John Singleton as they welcome back to the big leagues kind of thing home run calls for today for Nando Tatis and John Singleton with the Brewers that's all we got here for today on the main slate for Friday night if you want some thoughts on strikeout props for today we're gonna pitching Ninja Rob Friedman over on covering the spread get that by searching for covering the spread wherever you get your podcast and as with the solo shot you can also get covering the spread over on the Fandall YouTube page 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 Fandall podcast network at Fandall podcast want to thank you all for tuning in for today good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups we'll talk to you once again on Monday to break down that slate have a fantastic weekend this has been the solo shot right here on the Fandall podcast network