 Because of the way Slate's been split up so far this year, we haven't had a lot of chances to do split Slate podcasts here on the show, but today we have three games on the early only slate, three games in the main slate, and I think both slates are honestly pretty okay. So we're gonna break down both of those to get you ready for all six games across today in MLB DFS. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the Fandwall Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonna, I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire here to break down both the early only and the main slates over on Fandwall 4 today. We'll do the main slate first just in case you are listening here after 12.35 p.m. Don't wanna drudge to that and skip ahead. So we'll do the main slate first, early slate locks at 12.35. So we'll do that second in the show here. If you wanna skip ahead to the early only slate, it's early on, you wanna get close in there before lock, the time stamp for when that begins will be in the episode description, whether it be Apple Podcast, Spotify, whatever it may be, you can find it there. So early or main slate first, early only later on to get that time stamp check out. The episode description will start things off for the main slate here in just one second. But first, a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy Podcasting wherever you get your podcasts, we are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, you name it, you can find us there. And while you're there, if you like what you hear, leave us a five star rating as well. The NBA playoffs are in full swing and you can get in on the action right from first hip with Fandall. Right now all customers can get a no sweat same game parlay every weekend when you bet the NBA playoffs. 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In Connecticut, 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat. In Indiana, 1-800-9 with it. In Wyoming and Kansas, 1-800-522-4700 or in Kansas, ksgamblinghealth.com. Louisiana is 1-877-770-Stop in Maryland empty gamblinghealth.org. In West Virginia, go to 1-800-gambler.net. Let's kick things off here with the main slate. It is a three game slate with lock set for 7.05 PM Eastern for today and no weather notes on this slate. Would note that temperature is pretty different across all three games for the main slate. We have got a temperature in the 60s out in Oakland. We have got temperatures in 86 in Phoenix. So would keep that in mind. Downgrade Oakland for sure, but we're still gonna wanna be there for stacking. We'll talk about that later on. Pitchers on this main slate, Nathan Eavaldi is the highest salary guy coming in at $11,000, followed by Drew Raspus in a 10-3, Alex Cobb 87 and Domingo Ehrman is $8,000. Now, Eavaldi is in that game with the reduced temperature. That is bad for offense, good for pitching. Nathan Eavaldi is a guy I've wanted to use a couple times so far this year, but just couldn't quite pull the trigger. But now facing the A's, I think that gives us the green light to go to Eavaldi as our top guy here. It is a great matchup, as you know, because the A's have a 25% strikeout rate against righties on their current active roster this year. That's a boost for Eavaldi. Eavaldi has not been a crazy high strikeout guy this year, but he's also not been lagging in that department. He upped his splitter usage in his second start. And in the past six starts with more splitters, he has a 25% strikeout rate. It comes with a 3.33 skin interactive ERA and a 3% walk rate. His bad at ball data is decent too. So honestly, across the board, Eavaldi has been solid this year. I haven't projected for 6.7 strikeouts tonight. That is, even on a decent slate for pitching, honestly, it is still the most of the night. So I will take that and lock him in. To me, Nathan Eavaldi deserves to be high salary to the 11,000. I think that makes a lot of sense and I will be okay riding within there as a top pitcher. I think the second slot comes down to Drew Rasmussen and Domingo Hermann. Alex Cobb is fun, but doesn't get as many strikeouts. Now between Rasmussen and Hermann, if you want to get to a high salary stack and you want to go Hermann for the salary savings at $8,000, I would not blame you. I think that makes a lot of sense, totally on board. Personally, given the breakdown of this slate, I think I'll be okay going with Rasmussen, getting to his salary at 10.3, so Rasmussen does have the edge for me. And a lot of that's because of matchup. Hermann is facing the raise, a 140 WRC plus against Reides, a 239 ISO. The Yankees who will face Rasmussen, even with Aaron Judg being back, still at a 95 WRC plus and a 153 ISO. There's just not a lot of depth in that lineup right now. Rasmussen can also suppress power because across seven starts, he has a 28% hard hit rate allowed, which is a 28% fly ball rate. Combine that with the good plate discipline numbers and Rasmussen has a 3.11 ERA. He did just face the Yankees last week, which means they're familiar with his stuff and I hate that, but in that one, Rasmussen was good, five and two thirds innings, just two hits allowed, he had six strikeouts, only three hard hit balls on 13 balls in play. That was pre-judge return, but still he did do pretty well there. I do have their mom projected for more strikeouts. He's at 6.3, whereas Rasmussen is at 5.9. So again, fully way to go Hermann if you want, but I want to lean Rasmussen due to the matchup difference between these two guys. So you have already won Rasmussen two, but if you want to go to Hermann above him, totally fine. I would understand that as well. As far as stacking goes, I still don't know who the A's will be starting for today. I don't know if they know. It will not be Mason Miller because it was elbow injury. Ken Waldechuck got pushed back to tomorrow. They said it will be a starter, but they have not said who that starter will be. I'm just not sure it matters. I think we're gonna want to stack the Rangers against them no matter what. And most of that reasoning is not because of the starters who it could be. It's the reason we've been discussing, that's a bullpen. The A's active roster has a 4.84 ERA in the bullpen, but even that might be overselling them a bit because their skill-interactive ERA is 5.26. That is the worst in the league. Only two teams are worse than 5.00 there and only seven teams are worse than 4.00. So the A's are a full 1.26 runs worse than 23 other teams in terms of skill-interactive ERA in their bullpen. They're an outlier and it's boosting opposing teams. It means we can get points against them deep into the game for DFS. And that's not always the case. A lot of times, most of the scoring comes in the first five innings. So the starter is going to be a guy not currently in the rotation. He'll be followed by this bullpen. And I think that when you combine those two things together, no matter what, the Rangers, even in colder weather, are going to be the top stack of this main slate. So the Rangers to me, I don't really care who the starter is. I'd downgrade them if Miller miraculously can go, but I don't think he will. But either way, they're going to be our top stack for the main slate. Whether the starter is a righty or a lefty, I am super intrigued by Ezekiel Duran. He hits second against the righty a couple of nights ago because someone else is sitting. But I think it's also an indication of the fact that he's been pretty good. And I think they're acknowledging that. He's probably going to bat seven to nine to five to guess, but nudging his way forward, he has a 162 ISO against righties. He has a 51% hard hit rate over all this year. And he's willing to swipe bags. So whether it's a righty or a lefty, I think Duran is in play. And a guy I am very willing to include in my Rangers stack. So Ezekiel Duran, someone I'll be looking at for tonight, his salary on FanDuel is exactly $3,000. The second stack behind the Rangers will be the Giants facing Tommy Henry. Henry not able to find his groove as of yet, which allows us, I think, to stack the Giants against him. Across three starts, Henry has a 6.29 skill interactive ERA. That number is high, mostly because of his super low strikeout rate. The bad of all data is not bad. He has a 32% hard hit rate allowed, but he lets up a lot of fly balls. And in order to get by with a low strikeout rate and a high fly ball rate, you need to be an outlier in how much hard contact you allow in order to not implode. He may keep that number low, but last year in nine starts, Henry let up a 39% hard hit rate. So I'm not sold yet. He'll be able to keep up the low hard contact rate he has allowed thus far. Even with the minimal hard contact, he still has allowed a 5.170 ERA this year. The Giants have some guys who hit lefties really well. So I think we should ride with them here, especially with the park factor boost they get in Arizona. So Rangers won despite the bad weather. I think that the Giants are two, and they get the benefit of getting exposure to the best weather on tonight's slate. Mitch Hanniger is kind of off to his slow start for the Giants, 283 Woba for him, but underlying numbers are a lot better. His hard hit rate is 53%. And that is translated to some power. He's just striking out a bit too much, but that's not as much of a concern against Henry as it would be with others. So I think Hanniger is a guy I wanna be high on on the main slate. Speaking of Hanniger, let's talk about some Dinger picks because I actually remember to do Dinger picks. Typically I forget, we do the split slate podcast, but Dinger picks for the main slate, fun one or boring one, Mitch Hanniger. I think he's probably pretty boring by now given that he's been a solid player for a long enough time. Mitch Hanniger facing a lefty. I think the underlying bad of ball data is fine. So we'll go Hanniger for the boring one. For the fun one, let's go Jonah Heim. I don't know if I've ever had Heim as a Dinger pick on the show before and maybe he doesn't qualify as like the fun one anymore because he's been so good this year, but his expected Woba is 409. So that's pretty sick. So maybe I should flip flop these two given how well Heim has done this year, but we'll go Mitch Hanniger and Jonah Heim as the Dinger calls regardless of which category they fall into. That is going to wrap up the main slate discussions. If you're listening to this after 1235 PM Eastern, we'll see you tomorrow. Tom Vecchio filling in for me tomorrow on the solo shot, he'll talk to you then. But if you want to play the early only slate, let's dig into that now. It is a three game slate with lock set for 1235 PM Eastern. This one does have some weather on it, specifically in Kansas City for the Royals and White Sox. This one looks a little bit at risk of getting banged because there are thunderstorms throughout the day in Kansas City. I think there's a legit risk this game does not play. We'll talk about contingency plans for that in the stacking section later on. Pitchers on this slate, only three guys with salaries above 8,000 of those guys. You Darvish at 99, Koday Senga at 96 and Bailey Ober at $9,000. You Darvish is a guy I have always adored. So we get him on a decently thin slate. I think it's pretty easy to make him as a top guy on the early only slate. I view Darvish on this slate as being in a tier of his own. He's facing the twins who are healthy right now, but the offense is still struggling. They have a 94 WRC plus against Reides with a 24% strikeout rate. They are hitting for some power, but you can have big outings against this team. Darvish looked good so far. He did struggle with control in his first start this year. He walked a couple of too many guys. In his second start, he started to scale back on the usage of his forcing fastball. And that tweak for him has worked out pretty well. In the past five starts with fewer force embers. Darvish's strikeout rate is 29%, which is easily the best number on the slate. He has a 3.46 skill interactive ERA. I have Darvish projected for 7.5 strikeouts. Nobody else in the early only slate is projected for more than 5.95. So I think you can use Darvish here and figure out the rest in there. So to me, I'm just gonna commit to you, Darvish, and make him my top play of the early only slate. Two options for the second spot are Kode Senga and Billy Ober. Ober is at home, but he's facing the Padres and that Darvish matchup, whereas Senga is on the road, he gets the Reds. I'm gonna go with the easier matchup here and go Senga, but Ober is at least in consideration for this slot. It is a good matchup for Senga. He has a 93, the Reds sorry, have a 93 WRC plus against Redes with a 125 ISO. So from that perspective, they're a good matchup. The downside here is the Reds will draw walks and Senga struggled a lot with those. Across six darts, he has led up a 16% walk rate. That has not bothered him yet because he has a 3.38 ERA, but it has the potential to bother him. I'm guessing that he's getting by because Senga gets strikeouts and ground balls that can generate double plays, can strand runners with a high strikeout rate. I think that that's probably helping strikeout 26%, ground ball rate 54%. So I'm guessing that's how he's getting around. That might not always work out that way, but it's not totally fluky that he's gotten by. I have Senga projection for 5.95 strikeouts. Ober is at 5.55, so 0.4 strikeouts between these two guys. It's a small gap, but I'm fine going Senga as my number two option on the early only slate. I think the top three guys are the three guys you'd wanna build around in terms of pitchers for the early only slate. As far as stacks go here, Ben Lively is about to join the Reds rotation. I say rotation, but that's kind of a misnomer because he is not actually starting for today, coming in behind an opener, but Ben Lively expected to be the bulk reliever for today for the Reds, and I think we can stack against him with the Mets. Lively threw 27 innings in triple A before being promoted and down there, his ERA was great. It was 2.33. The peripherals for Lively were not as glowing though. His X-Tip was 5.67. It was mostly there due to a 15% strikeout rate, but also he led up a 41% fly ball rate. Lively was better in triple A last year, but he wasn't dominant then either. I think the Mets should be able to get to him. So Derek Law will start. I assume Ben Lively will follow. And I think that that combination with the Reds bullpen is one we can stack against for tonight. Kinda seems like Brett Beatty is starting to hit his stride. I talked two weeks ago, doing a check-in on Beatty about not quite there yet, wasn't sold on what he'd been doing so far. I'm okay changing my tune now. I'm sold. His expected Woba is up to 365. His hard hit rate is 53%. He's batting the middle of the order. It hasn't led to huge results yet, which has kept his salary reasonable at $2,800, but that's even better for us. So Brett Beatty, I was not on board before. I am now. I think it makes a lot of sense to build around him here at $2,800 within our Met stacks. Now we talked about the three pitchers I liked. We talked about one of the stacks. And the thing we have not discussed yet is that weather game with the White Sox and Royals. So by process of elimination, you know one of those two teams will be our final stack. Again, there is risk here with the rain. If the rain threat is too high or if they postpone earlier on, I'd stack the Padres next against Bailey Ober. Does let up a lot of hard contacts. They'd be a fine stack for sure. But if we get the green light to stack this game, I would actually lean towards the Royals here versus the White Sox. The Royals are facing Mike Cleventure who has 15 strikeouts in his past two starts. So he's pitching a lot better now than he was earlier on this year. But he's still letting up a lot of dangerous contact. He let up two barrels in the raise game, the first game in that sample, let up a 57% hard hit rate in that one as well. He was better against the Reds, but almost no ground balls there. So I still don't think that Cleventure is back to being a pitcher we need to fear in DFS. Even with the strikeouts that he got in those two games specifically, Cleventure let up six runs in those with three home runs allowed. For the season as ERA is now 4.84 with a 4.88 skill interactive ERA. The Royals offense got off to a terrible start this year, but they've been a lot better the past week or so, partly aided by a series with that A's bullpen. But I think they're getting better through the extent where we can feel good about them here and rank the Royals as our number two stack again, weather permitting, just a hair ahead of the White Sox. I think the White Sox are very much in the same tier as the Royals for tonight. I think it's worth touching on Edward Olivares. I tend to view him as being like a lefty basher for some reason, but even against righties this year, he has a 186 ISO with three stolen bases. So enough power and the ability and willingness to swipe a bag. Doesn't strike out a ton, which is good against Cleventure. So I think that Olivares' appeal is starting to expand where it's not just against lefties, but also we can go here at times against righties too. And I think this is a good spot for it. He's $2,800. He's showing some upsides. So Edward Olivares is a guy I am okay with against a righty on today's slate. Dinger calls for the early only slate. Yeah, four Dinger calls for today. We'll see, maybe we can hit, you know, we'll see. Dinger calls always a risk. But for the boring one, it's Pete Alonzo, you know, it's Pete Alonzo in a spot against a reds pitcher, let's have a lot of fly balls. I think that we just go Pete Alonzo there and log out. For the fun one, I'll go NJ Melendez in that Royals versus White Sox game. Too many strikeouts need to feel like great about him for DFS. But as far as like hitting the home run, he has been smacking the ball, super high barrel rate both last year and this year. Barrel rate 14.6% this year with a 57% hard hit rate. If it weren't for the strikeouts, I would be all over him against Clevenger and still will be there because I like power. But we'll go with him and Alonzo as he Dinger picks for the early only slate. That is all that we have here for today on the podcast. Mention this before, but I will not be here tomorrow or Monday. My wife is getting her, you're having her PhD graduation. So I'll be out there at that. So Tom Vecchio filling in for me tomorrow. Austin Swain filling in for me on Monday. So no video version of those two podcasts. They will still be up over on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed though. So thank you to Tom and Austin for filling in for me. And thank you to you for subscribing to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed to get those shows right as they go live. If you've got any questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS allowance for both the early only and the main slates. And we'll talk to you once again Tuesday when I am back. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.