 Just six games on tonight's late for daily fantasy baseball, but I still think both for pitchers and for hitters There is upside to be had there are at least four guys I would say a pitcher with a decent path to seven eight nine strikeouts There are a couple stacks I feel pretty good about so a limited slate in terms of the number of games But still one where you can talk yourself into big games from a couple of these options So we'll break down which players which pitchers hitters have that upside which guys should build around and my favorite options for today In MLB DFS welcome on into the solo shop That's right here on the fan to a podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim Sonnis I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire here to break down this six game main slate for Wednesday With lock set for 635 p.m. Eastern so again 635 p.m. Eastern is locked for today if you are like me a procrastinator Make sure you account for that within your schedule for tonight across those six games only one game with temperatures under 60 degrees That is shockingly in San Francisco for the Dodgers and Giants. It's always low. So earlier this year when temperatures on the East Coast were lower San Francisco is not as big of a detriment for offense because the relative temperature was pretty good It is no longer the case. So we are back to Treating San Francisco as being a black hole for offense once again So downgrade bats for the Giants and the Dodgers as a result of the low temperatures there We'll dive in to the pitching preview and more in just one second The first day reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts RPG a DFS breakdown of the RBC heritage is now up We broke down a pretty good field for this week talked about our favorite studs roster construction and much more You can find that right now Over on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast hit subscribe 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 Fandall Just visit Fandall right now and place a $5 bet and you'll get an instant 150 bucks and bonus bets win or lose There's no better place to bet all the playoff action than America's number one sportsbook Just go to Fandall and sign up to get a hundred fifty dollars in bonus bets when you bet your first five bucks Fandall official sports betting partner of the NBA gambling problem call 1-800 gambler hope is here gambling helpline ma.org or call 800 3 2 7 50 50 for 24 7 support in Massachusetts call 1 8 7 7 8 open wire text open Y in New York must be 21 plus and president Select states Fandall is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with the Kansas Star Casino LLC bonus issued is not with some of bonus bets that expire seven days after a seat Restrictions apply see full terms at sportsbook.fandall.com in Arizona call 1 800 next step or text next step to 5 3 3 4 2 in Connecticut 1 8 8 8 7 8 9 7777 offers the cc pg.org slash chat in Indiana 1 810 9 with it in Wyoming in Kansas 1 810 5 2 2 4700 or in Kansas KS gambling health calm, Louisiana is 1 8 7 7 7 7 7 0 stop in Maryland MD gambling health org in West Virginia go to 1 800 gambler net Pitching preview for this Wednesday main site. We've got Kevin Gosman at the top of the field He comes in at 11,100 dollars Spencer Striders at 10 9 Clay and Kershaw 10,000 We have Nathan e Evolvi Alex Cobb Brad Keller and Hunter Green as the others at $8,000 or higher Both Spencer Strider and Kevin Gosman are in really good matchups for today So I think you could justify ranking either guy at the top of your list I'm gonna favor Strider by a bit though personally I want to explain that why first then we'll go in on gosman later on Striders at home facing the reds that matchup is not as great as gosmans, but it's still very good The reds have an 89 WRC plus against righties on their current active roster since the start of last year With a 138 ISO and a 25 percent strikeout rate that strikeout rate is big for upside And strider has plenty of that even without the help of a good opposing matchup The forcing fastball uses for slider is down or for strider is down a smidge this year Which is a trend he started to do a bit last year as well down the stretch So if we expand the sample to the past 11 starts for strider with fewer forcing fastballs He has a 2.31 skill interactive eray with a 40 percent strikeout rate really good numbers Now he is still horribly inefficient with his pitches where he's averaging 4.34 pitches per plate appearance The average there for context is closer to 3.9 or so and the reds Do you actually see a lot of pitches for plate appearance too? So that's a downside my projections know that they still though have strider down for 9.7 projected strikeouts here That is easily tops on the slate by almost two full strikeouts So There are good options, but strider stands well above them. He can't get himself into trouble But he's worth that trouble for me Strider has nine strikeouts in both games so far this year despite facing a couple lower strikeout teams I think he could go nuts here So the Spencer strider despite having a lot of really good options on the slate is still going to be My top option for today in mlbtfs Now between the two gossman does have the higher floor Because he's a better real world pitcher. I think maybe that's I don't know maybe not But I in my opinion he's a better real world pitcher and the strikeouts will be there Just not as many strikeouts as strider gossman Also a bit rocky so far this year velocity has been lower so far almost two miles per hour lower So definitely not nothing. He does still have a 28 strikeout rate with nowhere in run So clearly a decrease in his velocity hasn't hurt him too much as of yet But in those two starts the swinging strike rate for gossman 10.8 percent. It was 15.5 percent last year It is important to note the teams he has faced though because gossman has faced the cardinals and the royals both on the road Cardinals tremendous offense even against righties the royals about average in terms of strikeouts The tiger's the best matchup by far. He has had this year a 26 strikeout rate versus righties 77 wrc plus in a 125 iso So if I were judging this just by matchup, I would go gossman. He's better in that regard But striders matchup isn't bad and I adore what he does from a strikeout perspective So I am on strider first if you want to go gossman higher. I think that's defensible It is not my position personally But it is defensible at least so for me it's strider one gossman two clayton kershaw three And I think those are good guys to focus on kershaw above all the value plays for me None of the value plays are perfect because they're value plays for a reason But if we're looking for a guy who can hang with the upside of strider and gossman the home and good matchups And kershaw and a high strikeout matchup too. I think the only guy who does that is hunter green and We talked about the value plays yesterday where I was like, I'm not sure if I'll get to maryl kelly is a value play I will probably try to get to hunter green in a couple lineups here because he has a very clear path to a good ceiling He's facing the braves, which is a big part of why I'm not super high on him. They are very good offense What a 105 wrc plus in a 183 iso. They played very well last night. No michael harris, obviously, but Still a good offense despite that Power is the weakness for green. So It's it's tough in general and it gets even worse in a matchup like this with the braves But as we saw with andre heaney on monday night High strikeout guys with bad abolishers can have big showings big individual games It's more so the consistency of the long-term stuff and green can do that too He has not gone longer than four and two-thirds innings yet in a game But 13 strikeouts across eight innings He has walked too many guys jacks up his pitch count But the brace is a team not a super high walk team We're up to an 11 start sample on green with his fastball usage back up to where it was at the beginning of last year And he has a 34 strikeout rate in that time that strikeout rate ranked second behind strider in each guy's most relevant sample When you put that into a projection model, it has green strikeout projection at 7.91 Which is actually a hair higher than gaussman tonight So I prefer strider and gaussman for sure because all the extra stuff counts as well But green has a path to a ceiling and not every value play has that so To me if i'm deviating from the studs that means i'm playing in a tournament playing in a tournament I need upside and i think that green has the best upside among the the value plays If you use him go into it knowing that he could get you negative points But it's a worthwhile tradeoff to me at times limited exposure Because the the upside there is very very good So strider is the top guy for me followed by gaussman Followed by kershaw and then I would rank green as the one value plan willing to consider for tonight We found upside with the pitchers I think we can find upside with the stacks as well that begins in baltimore with the uh with the orioles good weather for hitting today in baltimore and the orioles facing ken walde chuck and Really rough start for walde chuck so far 14 earn runs and eight and two thirds innings It did come in two very difficult matchups versus the angels and the rays, but I think we can be here once again with the orioles the orioles have a 91 w rc plus against lefties since the start of last year so It's a it's a pretty good matchup from walde chuck. They're definitely not the angels. They're not the rays Not hideous, but they're also not a positive and they're probably a negative versus lefties Walde chuck is up to nine starts in his career The peripherals on him are better than his results, but even some of the peripherals have some points of concern Specifically walde chuck lets up a lot of fly balls. He's led up a 44 fly ball rating this time His 37 percent hard hit rate is fine But it does mean he's living kind of on an edge living a bit dangerously The strike out rate decently low for walde chuck at 21 and it all leads to a 4.30 skill interactive eray His expected eray is even higher than that We did see walde chuck get more strikeouts in triple a which means he may tap into that skill eventually But he's not there yet Again, good hitting weather in baltimore. It's the warmest on the slate And that makes baltimore my favorite stack of the night for today We've also seen the orioles against plenty of lefties recently So we probably know what to expect and i'm expecting to see austin haze in the leadoff spot here He moved up there one or two games ago against the lefty and haze has looked really good another home run last night Tons of barrels so far this year really good power numbers lots of fly balls So it's a small sample and i don't want to go too crazy, but he is fun I'm buying into what austin haze is doing. I think he's a really fun option for daily fantasy for today And a focal point within the orioles stacks the one guy downgrade a bit The switch hitters against the lefty is adly ruchman. He does have worse power numbers against lefties Just not quite as as juicy yet So slight downgrade ruchman with the being a lefty out there, but do like haze Sontan dare i think is better than what his numbers have said so far this year So we'll be there as well Now walde chuck has struggles in tough matchups You can say it's somewhere thinking about edwardo rodriguez and rodriguez Rough numbers both in tough matchups The problem with rodriguez is that he gets another tough matchup for tonight And I think we should stack the jays against him Across rodriguez's first two starts. He has a 4.46 expected era His actual era is 6.30. So there's been some some bad luck in there But for rodriguez a lot of fly balls not many with suggest a 7.7 percent swinging strike rate He did do a decent job of keeping hard contact and check last year and you're still doing that to an extent But the increased fly ball rate is making that a necessity More than it was a a a positive last year A positive necessity are very different things is a necessity this year with all the fly balls The velocity for rodriguez is good this year that it is up. So that's a positive but Guys for whatever reason just aren't chasing his pitches outside the zone Which puts them in bad counts puts them in bad spots and teams are taking advantage of that The jays have a 104 wrc plus against lefties on the current active roster since the start of last year They've had some key losses. Uh, the losing tail score, Hernandez, Lourdes, Gourriel, guys like that, but They are still at least above average in wrc plus versus lefties I think there is enough there to make them viable on a slate where There aren't a ton of stacks I really want to get to so the toronto blue jays to me belong second in our stacking list behind the baltimore Orioles One guy within the blue jays here who gets a boost up in our at least my new mentality for 2023 With our my increased emphasis on speed is whit merafield because the iso for wit has been slipping for a long time Which meant that even against lefties last year. I was not super into merafield But he did steal twice against lefties last year. He's done so once already this year He has a 172 iso versus lefties since the beginning of last year So merafield has not been in my player pool very often recently But I'm okay with him and more okay with him now than I was with speed being a bigger emphasis for me So uh whit merafield moving up a bit to me And I think he does deserve at least some consideration for our rosters Finally for our third stack, we'll go with the uh texas ranger facing brad keller And keller's had a fascinating start to this year where he's basically changed his entire repertoire So he is a new pitcher and it comes with a 2.6 1 e array as well So that part is working seems like he's making some good changes here The underlying data isn't as good though, which is why the rangers are in play for stakis Specifically the underlying data i'm talking about is the expected e array for keller, which is 5.07 That number is high because he has led up a ton of hard contact 52 of the balls in play against him have had an exit below of 95 miles per hour higher And it does come with a lot of it on the ground, but The barrel rate against is 7.4 percent. That's not a big number. It's below average But it is higher than what it was last year for keller and last year he finished with a 5.09 e array So keller is interesting where he might be good this year. He might have a suffocating ground ball rate But it's too soon to tell and with the amount of hard contact that he's led up There is plenty of room for us to be interested in sacking against him So I am in on the rangers even with keller basically being a different guy Than the one who struggled last year One thing to note is that both last year and early this year keller Has struggled more with righties than with lefties reverse platoon splits here So that's not ideal for some of the guys here in this in the stack, but kory seager is banged up So uh, if he doesn't play it's not as big of a downside in this situation Does help mark ascending and otherly scarcia both of those guys are willing to run too Josh young gets a boost up because of keller's low strikeout ways He struggled with strikeouts and he's another guy who might be willing to try to swipe the bag So I'd favor the righties here if seager does not play It's not a massive downgrade for me with regards to rangers stacks. So I think there are a good option here I would rank them pretty decently below both the orioles in the blue jays But the rangers to me are our number three stack of the night Let's dive into things to watch talk about taj bradley making his debut for the arrays Which could make the red sox viable for stacking here But I don't expect bradley to go deep in this game looking at his first two starts in triple I he went 51 and 55 pitches across those two games and you look at the bullpen behind bradley They are very very good. So that does limit the appeal In boston a bit. I'm still fine with them But they are far from a priority. So I think I'm probably just going to be pretty neutral on this where I'm not super high on the red sox We'll not use bradley because I expect the pitch kind to be super low But I think it is worth noting there one of the team that's facing a guy who has struggled with some hard contact is the royals royals facing athinny avaldi He does have better velocity this year than what he had last year But if you look back to last year in the start, so he's had more cutters He's had more cutters this year as well in that time seven start sample 46 hard hit rate allowed with a 37 fly ball rate So the contact profile there for avaldi is not really what you want it to be I'm not super into the royals 84 w rc plus against radis pretty low power numbers But if there are individuals you like on that team, I do think they are at least in play for today Based on E of all these issues that he's had with car hard contact recently Finally, I did want to talk chris sale super briefly facing the rays today I think that's enough where we can be pretty out on him in terms of dfs but You know last time out did get a decent number of strikeouts in his two starts now a 3.83 skill interactive eray 31 strikeout rate a lot of walks So I could see considering the rays here, but personally I think we saw enough in sale on that one where a bit lower on it the rays do crush lefties 130 w rc plus against lefties But I think personally it's a stay away from me So the rays offense scorching hot to start this year very good against lefties sales surface numbers not ideal But I think there's enough there where I will probably treat that one pretty neutral So both the rays and the red socks to me Considerations for stacks but not super high within that list Let's finish up here with some home run calls for today the boring one I talked about in water on reggae's letting up more fly balls Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Is crushing so far this year 14 percent barrel rate. His expected woeba is 496 His actual woeba is 447. So also very high 5.7 strikeout rates 58 hard hit rates He's bananas in his heart his fly ball rate is also the highest it's been in his career as well So I know it's been a good start for Vlad But I feel like the home runs are gonna start coming and when they do they might come in bunches So Maybe a double dong call for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. For tonight. I think it's the least on the table So Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The boring home run call for today the fun one He wasn't a fun one last year because he had 33 home runs But Anthony Santander has struggled so far this year has historically been very good against lefties. He's a switch hitter Um The the hard contact and the barrel number is not bad. So I think that he's going to get back on track here pretty soon So home run calls for today. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Anthony Santander And I will say Austin Hayes's home run prop numbers Not too bad either if you want to go within or who has at the ball well so far this year That is all that we got here for today on the solo shop But we'll be back with you once again tomorrow to break down the fan dual main slate So make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed Wherever you get your podcast and again our pga podcast is now up over on the number fire dfs feed 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 fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast I 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 tomorrow to break down thursday slate This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network