 Tonight's Daily Fantasy Baseball slate is a doozy because we've got both Jacob de Grom and Shohei Otani pitching for tonight across Major League Baseball. And that is a delight as a baseball fan, as a human being, a bit confusing, conflicting as an MLB DFS player because we had to choose between those two guys. We cannot have both within the same lineup for Daily Fantasy Baseball. So unless you want to split things right down the middle, you're playing lots of lineups, you got to choose between these two guys. De Grom versus Otani, it's tough. It is never fun to pick one over the other. We're going to break that down. Let you know where I am leaning between those two guys. Let you know why that's the case and where else I am turning to for MLB DFS on Tuesday. Welcome on into the solo shop. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire here to break down Tuesday's 10 a game main slate with lock set for 7 0 7 p.m. Eastern for today. Once again, the 6 p.m. Games not on the main slate for today. It is just those from 7 0 7 p.m. Eastern on weather for today. The winds are out to right at nine miles per hour at Wrigley Field for the Cubs in the Padres. I don't take we go bananas for nine miles per hour, but would bump up the bats for both the Cubs and the Padres a bit as a result of that wind. The low and outlier temperatures for today are in Phoenix Brewers and Diamondbacks 91 degrees there. Then it is 54 degrees in San Francisco for the Giants and the Dodgers. I would downgrade bats in San Francisco and upgrade them in Phoenix though not as much as before because temperatures out East are higher than they were before. So keep that in mind for sure. It's still better than usual, but it's more close to what a neutral park factor for Phoenix would be because it is warmer elsewhere. We'll dive in to DeGrom versus Otani and talk about the rest of the slate here in just one second. But first, a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast coming up later on today. Our PGA podcast for the RBC Heritage. It is not the Masters, but still an elevated field this week. Scottie Schaeffer and John Rom there to headline things will break down that with Brandi Gadulla later on today. So get that by subscribing to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear leave us a five star rating as well. The NBA playoffs are here and you can turn crossovers into cash with FanDuel just invite or just visit FanDuel right now and place a $5 bet and you'll get an instant 150 bucks in bonus bets win or lose. 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Followed by Jacob DeGrama 10-6 we got Alec Minoa at $9900 Corbin Burns in 97 Pablo Lopez hot start so far is 96 Dustin May is 95 got Kyle Wright at 91 with Lance Lynn Merrill Kelly David Peterson Alex Wooden Hayden Wisnesky and Miles Mikolas as the others at $8000 or higher now obviously the two guys battling for the top pitching slot tonight are Jacob DeGram and show hey oh Tony and I love both so what I want to do is lay out the case for both these guys and then I will let you know how I'm handling them for tonight DeGram is facing the Royals and we did see him come back to life last week bouncing back from that rough debut six innings 11 strikeouts in a 25% swinging strike rate gets another good match up here with an 84 WRC plus against righties of the Royals lineup again against on their current active roster since righties since the start of last year and a 134 ISO DeGram returning to form last week puts faith in the longer term numbers for DeGram we have 13 starts on DeGram since the beginning of last year and in that time a 1.61 skill interactive ERA with a 43% strikeout rates his heart hit rate allowed just 32% so no real weaknesses into Grom's game when he's really healthy he has let up some runs in his first two starts but that's not a huge worry to me because the bad about data is good he's getting with so there are a lot of things into Grom's favor and I am treating him as the full DeGram first night it's similar for Otani and you add on the fact for him at the volume for him is discussing because Otani last time out when 112 pitches it was only six innings but he's ready to rock he is fully stretched out and Otani look good couple too many walks not the best swinging strike rates and some hard contact but just one and run on three hits across six innings so he was not peak Otani but he was still in a pretty good spot there he's facing the Nationals tonight 87 WRC plus against righties with a 132 ISO they're not the biggest strikeout team but they also don't draw walks so that's good for Otani if the control is slightly off from where it usually is so between these two Otani has a pitch count to Grom has the widths both have a good matchup so which guy should we favor I'm going to go to Grom personally because even with a lower pitch count projection the Otani I have to Grom projected for 10.7 strikeouts that is actually the highest mark since I started doing strikeout projections at the beginning of last year now that doesn't include weekends and stuff like that I'm not projecting every single picture just looking at main slates and stuff like that but the sample of total projected picture pitchers is around like 1700 or so actually above 1800 now so across all 1800 projections no one's been higher than Jacob to Grom for today. Otani is still very high at 8.5 one but that's still two behind the Grom so I love both but I will give the edge to the Grom I think between the two if you're giving me 10 lives I'm probably going 6 or 7 to Grom with the rest being Otani and I think they are the two runaway top guys in the slates we'll talk about one other guy at least in that discussion in things to watch but to me just use the fun guys I think it's one of those slates for sure I do have a strong preference for paying for picture so again use your studs if they're available to you but and I'll talk about another guy I want to consider things to watch but if you were to force me to talk about a value play here I would go with Meryl Kelly. He said home face in the Brewers it's a high strikeout matchup even if they're pretty good elsewhere in their their profile versus righties and the length on Kelly is good because he went 100 pitches in his most recent start. He hasn't looked great to open this year with a lot of hard contact a lot of fly balls too many walks but it's important to know for Kelly that both those games came against the Dodgers which means not only was he facing a very tough team but they also saw him twice in a row in the first game Kelly chase after three and two thirds innings but no runs there at least in the second one let up for runs and five and two thirds innings so he was not great neither but the second one definitely did hurt things the most we've seen Kelly using his change up in his curve ball more to open this year and those are too higher with pitches for him then the rest of his arsenal which is a good thing he has an 11.5% swinging strike rate across two starts that is up from 9.7% last year so I'm not sure if it'll lead to strikeouts eventually but it is better to get with the not get with and he has walked too many guys to start the year but I do have Kelly projected for six strikeouts 6.00 that's not a bad number for a guy with a salary at $8600 so between Lanslin David Peterson and Merrill Kelly I prefer Kelly but to me this late is really about the studs so even though I'm talking up Kelly here if I'm being fully transparent probably not going to crack my player pool for today so I want to focus on show hey oh Tony Jacob to Grom and the one other stud we'll talk about in things to watch before that though let's dig into the stacks for today and got to give some respect to Kyle Freeland he's had two awesome starts to open the year he has gone 12 and two-thirds innings he has let up zero earned runs and one of those starts is of course field the bad at ball data for Freeland is good enough to where it doesn't seem fluky it seems like he has earned those good results it's just a really tough test for him tonight and I think I'm going to stack against him despite really respecting what he's done so far the tough matchup for Freeland is with the Cardinals who have sicko numbers against lefties a 143 WRC plus made 225 ISO 42% fly ball rate you take those numbers which can crush at Nuba Stadium and put them in course field that's pretty tough so Freeland is pitching really well but the question is is it good enough to contain an offense that is this good on a launch pad like course field it might be that's very much in the range of possibilities but I don't want to avoid it due to just a couple of starts so I am going to stack the Cardinals here but it is worth noting how good Freeland has been and that this is far from a guarantee to work there is no such thing as a guarantee in in life but I think that especially in MLB DFS but especially here it's worth noting there is definite downside despite how good the Cardinals are and despite the fact is course field now the Cardinals are a team that will platoon where they have three lefties who tend to sit against lefties and Dylan Carlson started last night but he's typically guys been starting primarily against lefties and he hits high in the order the key thing with Carlson though is that he plays the entire game that's always the concern with guys in a platoon where Harold Ramirez we may start for the race but not always go in the full nine innings which means a lot less volume for us in DFS Carlson has a bit of power got some speed he's he's a guy who will probably hit second I would guess for tonight and Carlson salary is $2,800 so Dylan Carlson I would say should be a focal point within our Cardinals stature tonight based on the boxes he checks from a profile perspective outside of course field the Braves are facing Luis Cessa in Atlanta for tonight and it's not totally a done deal what Cessa will look like as a starter but the early returns tell me we can definitely stack against him so this has been fully stretched out now for about seven start dating back to last year in that time Cessa has a 3.62 era which is is very nice but the bad of all data is rough 41% hard hit rate in that time and a 42% fly ball rate he also has a 16% strikeout rate so he's letting up a lot of balls and play letting up a lot of impactful contact which is typically a pretty bad combination just hasn't been him yet it could happen here given the match up the Braves haven't been elite so far and they did put Michael Harris the second on the IL which is not fun but despite not having Harris still a 184 ISO versus righties which means they have very good upside I think we'll see Cessa's results swing the wrong way eventually based on that that a ball profile and I think that it's a good time to start stacking here now just in case that does wind up being true Cessa looking back to last year to have some weird reverse splits where righties hit him harder than lefties is a pretty small sample though so not sure we need to worry about that too much but if we look at Cessa against lefties last week in his first start no strikeouts across 10 plate appearances and just a 25% ground ball rate so I think until we get a larger sample here the way to play things is just look at the batters numbers versus righties you know their advanced numbers it's probably not a bad approach approach in general to skew that direction but I would say just keep on doing that so I think especially with the lower sample on Cessa that's the way to play things our third stack here is going to be the Mets they're facing Ryan Weathers and I said against Weathers last week which did not go well but it is a different situation this week and I'm going to give it a swing and see how it goes that start last week for Weathers was against Arizona we talked about it at the time they might just think against lefties they did score two runs and five innings so it was not nothing but it there wasn't a lot of power there's not a lot of power in that offense whereas the Mets are a much better offense 117 WRC plus against lefties they're not the most powerful team against lefties but they are a much more powerful team than Arizona Weathers had just two strikeouts in that game so he was solid but he was definitely not dominant Weathers in the spring though 20 strikeouts there across 14 and two-thirds innings he also let up five home runs so did get strikeouts but let up a lot of home runs so it'd be cool to see Weathers get back to the potential he had shown when he first came up but I want to see improvement before I assume it'll happen so I do think the Mets great out well for tonight and the Mets are a quality third stack for our consideration I would love within the Mets stacks of Sterling Marte we're to be able to play for tonight sat out last night due to a neck injury I want the speed that's the obvious appeal with Marte and we're focusing more on speed this year but also 10.7% barrel rate this year he has a 200 ISO versus lefties since the start of last year so I want Marte to play and if he does I'll be heavily on him for tonight because his profile for DFS right now is so good especially against lefties also would be an on Tommy fan if he plays because he's looked very good in a small sample so far this year let's go now to things to watch and talk about one more picture I think is worth considering if you want to pivot off of DeGrom and Otani and that guy's Pablo Lopez he's looked awesome with this new slider he has this year he has a 36% strikeout rate with a 2.98 skill interactive ERA to start sample so very small but that's really good he's facing the White Sox not a super high strikeout team but also not the most powerful team not the most dangerous team I think you could consider Lopez the pivot but DeGrom and Otani still my preferences for sure I'm not broadly in on the Cubs offense because they're pretty underwhelming but I will definitely have shares tonight given the weather Chris facing Chris Flexon lot of hard contact and a lot of fly balls for him flexing pretty gnarly reverse platoon splits last year so I'd bump up righties versus how you typically view them when they're facing a rightie here so check in the Cubs you can check out the Mariners too but a bit higher and Hayden Wisnesky than I am on Chris Flexon other two stacks to consider here are the Rockies and the Angels the Angels get Josiah Gray who has improved this year I think but still a lot of fly balls Rockies at home against Miles Nicholas I prefer the Rockies between the two it's kind of hard to turn down course field but both those teams should at least be on your list to look into after you get your share of the Cubs but then also the top three stacks tonight of the Cardinals Braves and the Mets let's finish up here with the Dinger calls for today and go back to a couple of teams we discussed in the stacking section the boring one Matt Olson facing Ceci let's up a lot of fly balls lot of hard contact that is the perfect recipe for home runs and Olson willing to supply them so Matt Olson the boring home run pick for today the fun one going back to Jordan Walker lot of power in that bats he's shown some of the power so far this year not the best loft like his fly ball right not quite as high as what I was hoping is about 31% in double a last year been pretty low so far this year but it's course he's hitting Rockets maybe one of those will connect and get some loft on it we can we can party there so the home run calls for today Matt Olson and Jordan Walker that is all that we have here for today on the solo shot but as mentioned back again later on today to break down PGA DFS for the RPC heritage get that by subscribing to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts also your reminder the solo shot is available on the fandal YouTube page if you want to watch it over there as well if you want a video version of the show just subscribe to the fandal 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 fandal podcast network at fandal podcast want to thank you all for tuning in for today good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups will talk to you once again tomorrow to break down Wednesday slate this has been the solo shot right here on the fandal podcast network.