 Even though we have 14 games on tonight's slate for MLB DFS It is still kind of a tough slate for stacking where there are a lot of pitchers who are facing teams with big implied team totals But you can see paths to failure there And there's paths of failure for every offensive stack because there's this thing as a a surefire stack but I think there are more tonight there are more paths of failure and that allows me to maybe Deviate from what the bookmakers are saying we should do for tonight be a bit different and hopefully try to identify teams That do have upside without the burden of massive roster rates So we'll dig in we'll try to identify some good stacks and hopefully put ourselves on a good path to ending out the week on a Profitable no welcome on into the solo shop. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim Sonnis I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm here to break down Friday's 14 game main slate with lock set for 705 p.m. Eastern for today and despite there being 14 games for tonight No weather to note a couple games are a bit warmer if you want to note that for sure Which is relevant for offenses specifically Atlanta is pretty hot high temperatures in Kansas City for the Royals in the a's as well if you want to stack to Not so fun offenses high temperatures for the twins and the Orioles or the the twins in the Rockies in Minneapolis as well And finally high temperatures in a st. Louis for the Cardinals and the Cubs, but again We've got these good temperatures, but not a lot of good spots for stacking So it just kind of feeds into the overall theme for tonight We're stacking is tough and you might want to be a bit different with how you play things We'll break down the pitching preview and get to those stacks in just one second But first a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast eat of course Friday's always a big day here on the DFS fee we have the USC Podcasts the Austin Swain getting a set for that I've got NASCAR for a national coming up later on should be a pretty fun race there So if you want to get USC NASCAR PGA and MLB podcasts posted right when they go up make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcast Just search for the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed hit subscribe if you like what you hear Leave us a rating and review as well. Hey sports fans There is no better time than today to sign up for fandal fantasy new users who have yet to make a deposit for fandal fantasy Can deposit a day to receive two free entries? All you have to do is deposit a minimum of ten dollars into your fandal DFS account And you will be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers This is a limited time offer So be sure to deposit now and play for free at the fandal calm or fan or download the fandal fantasy app today Eligibility restricts the supply go to fandal calm or download the fandal app for more details Pitching preview for this Friday main slate Justin Verlander is the highest salary picture on fandal checking in at $10,500 all by Alec Manila at 10 for we got Aaron Nola at 10 3 Luis Severino facing Verlander in a fun matchup at 10,000 Nick Pavetta is 98 Julio Arias is 95 Michael Lorenzen checks in at 93 with Michael Kopeck In 91 Ian Anderson 9000 facing Arias and then Meryl Kelly Cole Irvin Cal Cuantrell Jeffrey Springs Chris Flaxen and Mackenzie Gore are the others at $8,000 or higher Now you could definitely justify Going to that Yankees Astros game and putting either Verlander or Severino at the top I think because they're both great pitchers. They can't overcome really top matchups I'm gonna play things maybe a bit safer potentially and go towards an easier match And that's an Aaron Nola against the Padres. So not an easy matchup It's just less tet tretcher is but it's enough to make Nola my top pitcher of the night The Padres have a 104 WRC plus against righties in their current active roster They have a 145 ice only 22% strikeout rate They're about average pretty much across the board and that's doable for an opposing pitcher and Nola is Red hot right now. He has gone eight plus innings in three of his past five starts He's let up either one or zero earned runs in all three of those starts as well And one of those was against the Braves on the road really tough spot there now for the full season adding on the early season Stuff with this stuff. Nola has a 2.79 skill interactive ERA is ERA is now in the low three So the results swinging that way as well And that 2.79 skill interactive ERA is the second best mark for each pitcher and their most relevant sample behind Just Severino the 29% strike area for Nola also second behind Severino He isn't walking a lot of guys is bad at ball data is phenomenal That's why I feel okay using him even in you know, it is kind of a tight spot It's better than Astros or Yankees, but it's still not great I used to be wary of Nola when he was on the road He had big splits home versus road like I think it was like seven percentage points one year gap and strike out Rates, but here the past four road starts for Nola Seven innings two runs against the Dodgers eight innings zero runs or one run against the Braves Eight innings zero runs against the Brewers eight innings no runs against the Nationals He had eight plus strikeouts and three of those as well So not just the results the strikeouts are there too I've got Nola projected for seven point three strikeouts for tonight Which ranks second behind just Severino and I'll be high in him here for sure. So Aaron Nola to me Deserves to be the top option on this slate Despite it not being necessarily a perfect perfect perfect spot for him for today I do think Severino belongs second on our list It's a combination of factors that put me on him here. The main thing is that he's good I mean like it's just let's keep it simple here. It's just that Louis Severino is very good He's been upping the slider usage that he's been using recently Specifically, he's been doing that for his past six starts and it's a very good pitch that slider has a 44% WIF rate According to baseball savants and the Xwoba against it is just 192 So it's no surprise Severino has gone nuts in this time He has a 34% strikeout rate a 2.70 skill interactive. Yeah, Ray the bad at ball data does leave something to be desired, but You got to hit it first and they're not doing that very often Severino's had double digit strikeouts twice in this time and both were in good matchups But he also had nine strikeouts against the blue jays on the road He let up five red runs there with two home runs and four walks So he's not bulletproof and that's why I prefer a nola But it's hard to cross off anybody who has a good shot to get to double digit strikeouts And Severino has that upside the Astros WRC plus is 115 against righties They have just a 19% strikeout rate if you're trying to use a pitcher against the Astros You'd better make sure they are a legit legit stud But I think Severino is that so I'll rank him below nola here and respect the Astros in that sense But I think he's a rock solid second for me. I just really think that upside is Hard to capture in a lot of spots So I will go with nola one Severino to now if you want to contend with the highest scores You'll get from nola Severino, maybe even verland or other guys You need strikeout juice and not a lot of value plays have that typically and Jeffrey Springs hasn't shown a lot of it yet But I do think he has it somewhere in him and I will have some shares of springs for tonight He will be the top value on this slate part of this is the matchup for Springs He's based in the pirates who have a 91 a WRC plus against lefties with a 24 percent strikeout rate They don't walk a whole lot and when you combine that high strikeout rate at the low walk rate it says to me that There's not a lot of good plate discipline there Which should help Springs be more efficient with his pitches and that could help him go deeper in the game Springs hasn't been able to do that just yet a ton in the eight starts He has made he has just two quality starts But he's had some tough tests in there He faced the Yankees the Blue Jays and the Cardinals and they're all teams that can't crush lefties It's also important to remember that Springs was getting stretched out for a part of this stretch he didn't go 90 pitches until June 7 and in the three-star sense then he has gone 92 94 and 86 so the fact that he hasn't had a blow-up game yet Makes a lot of sense, but now he's at home. He's in a plus matchup Someone with his peripherals could do damage in this spot He has a 26 percent strikeout rate in his eight starts as a starter He has a 3.44 skill interactive era. I think this is a guy who can get you seven eight nine strikeouts and if he does do that or if he's capable of that I think that he would show it in a spot like this. So I'll take some swings that I'm here I just don't think that he's shown his full upside yet So I think that if you look at the game log for Springs, it might sound a bit short So to me, he's better than what the numbers say and Springs is a guy. I do want to use on this slate Let's go now to stacks. As I mentioned, they're very tough. And there are a lot of ways you can play things here I don't feel super super firm in any of them. The one thing I do feel pretty good about though is ranking the White Sox one I'm not sure if Louise Robert will play tonight. He sat out yesterday with some leg soreness I'd prefer if he plays but even if he does not I think the White Sox are a good stack here They're facing Austin both who's making his second start of the year did pretty well in the first one He got a lot of whiffs four strikeouts and two and two-thirds innings I'd expect him to go around 60 or so pitches here and then give way to the bullpen I don't think we need to fear either both or the pen right now both has an 8.39 era all in all this year As expected era is 5.70 and these numbers are very much in line with what he's had in previous seasons Both hasn't let up a ton of hard contact yet But that could come as he gets further stretched out the velocity goes down the pitch mix changes not as efficient with that stuff It's we get a lot tougher So I'm fine the White Sox here both against both and whoever follows and I think that to me if you're looking for like a firm firm slate tonight I would say the White Sox are that but the Robert question is kind of the one thing that keeps me a bit hesitant because He is a pretty impactful bat in that line if he can't play it definitely would hurt things We're seeing Jose Abreu have his Typical summer surge right now I assume this is mostly due to weather because a lot of colder games in Chicago to start the year He starts slow and then the weather heats up and we see a break you go nuts and whatever it is What are the reasoning maybe it's happening again because since the start of June a break you has a 200 iso He has more walks and strikeouts his barrel rate is thirteen point four percent The season long numbers against righties will not impress you, but I'll be super. I know I'm here I think that those numbers undersell him due to the weather which he's played the way he's hitting the ball right now I think that a break you is Back and we should buy into what he's been doing here as he typically does For the number two stack, that's where things get a little bit different. I think for me I'm gonna go with the angels they're facing Chris Lexen for the second straight start and Flexing results have settled down a bit But there's some not great and now you're making a face a very good offense to the second straight start I think we can stack against that the full season ERA for flex and is back down to four point two three Which isn't bad But his expected era is five point two eight and that's due to a lot of fly balls and a lot of hard contact And the angels did contribute to those bad numbers last time out of the 17 balls They put in play ten were hard hits so a 95 plus mile power exit velocity eight of those balls were fly balls and now You're seeing him again They were putting them in tight spots the first time and now having seen him again I feel like they might be able to convert on that hard contact a lot of factors aligned to make the angels viable for tonight I'm willing to buy into it. I think the angels are number two for me behind just the white socks Again, flexing you can feel pretty good about either the righties or the lefties I might have a slight skew towards the righties here They have a 480 slugging percentage against flexing so far this year with a 189 iso the bad of ball data from both sides is pretty even so That allows me to put more weight on the results and they say to favor the righties So I will still go with the lefties love the lefties But I'll give my crowd to bump up Taylor Ward, Max Stasi all those guys powerful righties hit righties well They should benefit with flex and being guy with some slight platoon reverse splits If you want a team that doesn't have a super high implied total may go a bit overlooked as a result and Could potentially be that team take advantage of a somewhat murky slate. I check out the blue jays They're facing Adrian Houser in Milwaukee and Houser is in a bit of a rut And I think it allows us to stack against him in the past Houser's been a big big big ground ball guy That hasn't been as true this year. He has a 46% ground ball right Which was at 59% last year and I think that Houser is trying to tap back into what he was doing previously he's been throwing more sinkers and Fewer four seamers across his past five starts which tells me he prefers how he was living previously But it's actually pushing things the wrong way because in those five starts He's led up a 36% fly ball rate with a 44% heart rate He's had minimal strikeouts and that stretch includes the start against the Reds not a great offense But they popped him for three earned runs overall in this time Houser's e-array is six point three one What a three-home runs with five earned runs the Phillies that was in Milwaukee, which he is where where he's at tonight he's facing the Jays pretty dangerous team even against a righty and Bookmakers not as high in the Jays they are implied total is four point six three which ranks ninth on this slate That probably means they're not gonna be all that popular and again If I'm not sold on all the teams with super high implied totals I feel okay being a bit different deviating and trying to find some upside elsewhere, and I think that we can't get that via This situation here and checking out the Jays the Jays to me a pretty fun stack and one if you're playing like single entry I think they're gonna be a high quality option for me there and Probably the best format for them and one of my favorite staff for single entry for tonight With how's it we can use both righties and lefties against him Which is reassuring because the Jays don't really have any lefties But I'll let these do a slightly higher fly ball right against him But righties lot of line drives the ground ball rate is pretty similar on both sides And that's key because again, we don't want ground balls So we want to keep that number level and we it should be level here So even with the Jays being basically just righties. I do still think they great out pretty well here The peripherals to say the two sides should be pretty even so despite the fact righties had worse results so far this year Not a huge worry for me, and I would be okay with the Jays against Houser in this spot Let's get down to things to watch talk about one more pitcher Alex Cobb is at home in a plus spot for tonight I'm just worried about his pitch count because he made his return from the aisle last week didn't make a rehab start but through 60 in that one and That makes it his only start since May 29th I'd project Cobb around 80 pitches for tonight and that can do some damage against the Tigers But I need a bit more than that. I'll be glossing over Cobb in favor of others Despite the matchup. If you gave me a full full leash on Cobb I'd probably be pretty tempted because his strikeout numbers are pretty good this year, but we're not getting that so Okay being lower on hand in this one and the Cardinals are pretty solid stack Just not my top three. They're facing Kyle Hendricks his big issues have been with lefties this year and Aronado Goldschmidt the key guys in the Cardinals are righties for the most part So could be good for some one-offs here if you want to go with some of the actual guys will bat left-handed For tonight, I think that they could definitely be in play So Nolan Gorman fresh off that double-dong Brendan Donovan if you want to go there Dylan Carlson Tommy Edmond switch hitter if you want to go for the steals to I think all those guys work and I wouldn't be opposed to a Cardinals full stack including the righties, but we do see some pretty extreme platoon splits for Hendricks and They favor lefties and the Cardinals are Righty heavy within the most impactful bats in their lineup. I do think the twins are in play They have the highest implied total on the slate But this is kind of what I was talking about where I'm a bit lower on Some teams and what the bookmakers are saying they're facing everyone Marquez who's better than what his results say he is He is still letting up a 44% a hard-hit rate though since he started to shift towards his sinker and away from his foreseeing fastball So I get why the total is so high in this game and his results have been terrible And I do like the twins, but I just don't think I'll like them quite as much as the public for tonight So I talked about the Jays being an ideal single entry stack I think the twins are one of my least favorite ones for single entry. I would rather go with the Jays I think the Cardinals work for there Checking out the other teams mentioned to with the White Sox and the Angels Twins for multi-entry sure, but not really for single entry for me I think they might be a bit more popular than they deserve to be Let's go with some Dinger calls forward tonight. The boring one I'm gonna know Taylor Ward facing off with Chris Flaxen again letting up a lot of fly balls to Righty's a lot of hard contact I could have gone Mike Trout, but I'm pretty sure I made Mike Trout a Dinger pick earlier on this week So we'll go Taylor Ward and hope the Angels continued to be good enough good to us in the slots Righty and righty match up there for war the fun one. I'll go Jake Berger Jake Berger has been hitting the ball harder recently has been getting more extra base hits against righty's even against righty's Whether he righties or lefties hitting roughly fifth or six in the order couldn't love it And then as does or if Robert doesn't play I would prefer he does play rather have Berger hit six with Robert in there Then without him, but I something that he's a good home run pick for today Decent bad at ball numbers even against righties facing a bullpen for the Orals that will let up some hard contact So home run picks for this Friday Taylor Ward and Jake Berger That is all that we have here for today on the solo shots Oh, we have your for this week as we close things out But as always back once again next week and more good stuff coming up for you later on today here on the DFS feed the Number fire daily fantasy podcast feed UFC via Austin Swain I've got NASCAR later on hit subscribe get those podcasts right as they go up And if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well if you've got any questions for me I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis J. I am s a N NES you can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big Thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups Have a fantastic weekend. We'll talk to you once again next week This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network