 The scheduling gods have decided to send us into the weekend on a high note because we have Jacob DeGrom on tonight's slate For daily fantasy baseball and that is always going to be a good thing And the question as always is can we justify anybody else in MLB DFS? Because DeGrom is frankly on his own tier from a DFS perspective And we have to kind of talk ourselves into someone else being on that level So our job for today is to decide do we just use DeGrom against the New York Yankees? Or is there anybody else in that tier who could push him for that top pitching slot for tonight? Welcome on into the solo shot. 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 here to break down Friday's 11 game When locks ever 705 p.m. Eastern for today before we dive into the pitching There are a couple weather notes here and these ones are important because there is a very high chance of rain out tonight in DC for the nationals and the pirates. I don't think they're gonna play that game I wouldn't bother digging into that game very much. It seems toast So would not worry too much about nationals and pirates because I think that game will be postponed Raid is not as bad in New York for the Mets and Braves still likely a drizzle there at least I think they should be able to play through it, but I check back on that one later on So I'd basically just cross off nationals pirates and then check back on the timing for weather for the Mets and the Braves Later on do not forget to make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your Podcasts and search for number fire daily fantasy podcasts on your podcast platform of choice hit subscribe But if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well and they'll be every week day PGA every week You have see for the big events as well all in this same place And of course the solo shot also over on the fan dual YouTube page The NBA playoffs are here and you can turn crossovers into cash with fan dual Just visit fan dual right now and place a $5 bet You'll get an instant 150 bucks in 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 fadlin sign up and get a hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets when you place your first $5 bet faddle official sports betting partner of the NBA must be 21 plus and president select states Fandals offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC bonus issued is non with trouble bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt restrictions apply see terms at sportsbook dot faddle calm gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or visit faddle calm slash RG in Massachusetts. Hope is here gambling help line MA dot org Or call 800 3 2 7 50 50 for 24 7 support in New York 187 78 open wire text open Y in Arizona 1800 next step or text next step to 533 4 2 in Connecticut 188 789 7777 or visit ccpg dot org slash chat in Indiana 1809 with it in Wyoming in Kansas 1805 222 4700 or in Kansas KS gambling help calm Louisiana's 1877 770 stop in Maryland MD gambling help that Oregon West Virginia go to 1800 Gambler net pitching preview for this Friday main slates Shocker Jacob DeGrawam comes in with the highest salary on Fandal He's $11,400 followed by Luis Castillo at 11,000 from her Valdez is at 10-5 with Zac Eflin at 10,000 flats Alec Manoa 98 against Castillo Shane Bieber 96 with Max Freed at 94 Dustin May 91 Aranola facing Valdez at 9,000 then we have Lucas Geolito Wade Miley Nick Pavetta Jack Flaherty David Peterson and Rich Hill as the others at $8,000 or higher now When you hear that listed there's some guys in there who could be kind of fun You know Max Freed always good, but coming off an injury affluence pitched well so far this year, but Sour is a little high Castillo on the road against a very tough Blue Jays team So there aren't a lot of contenters here. I do think that from her Valdez is Firmly second, but I also feel pretty good in saying Jacob DeGrawam is firmly first So in the question of can anybody push DeGrawam for tonight? I think the answer right now is frankly now and he's facing the Yankees and obviously that means the appeal might not be as big as usual but Aaron judges banged up and might not be able to play here and if judge sits I think that DeGrawam goes and being in his own tier to being several tiers above everybody else The strike area for the Yankees is a bit better than Aaron to 21% so it's not Fun, it's not a high strike area, but it's also not unreasonably low and DeGrawam is pitching great It is most recent start. He went back to using a slider pretty heavily got 11 strikeouts there Before that though his slider usage had been down and I would not be shocked if it goes back down once again here So I want to take the most pessimistic view of DeGrawam and look at him in the starts since that Decreased slatter used to began well again with the copy out there that he did pick it back up at his most recent start Even in that sample his skill interactive errae is 1.79. That is a one at the front 1.79 42% strikeout rate. It is unfathomably good even when I try to concoct the worst-case scenario for DeGrawam He's still bananas. I haven't projected for just 92 pitches here because he did have a short start earlier on But that's still enough for 9.4 projected strikeouts Nobody else on this slate is within two strikeouts of that So even at with DeGrawam having a lower pitch count projection even with if we assume Aaron judge plays I think that DeGrawam is the top guy in the slates one tier above everybody else And if we get no Aaron judge here, it's DeGrawam several tiers above the field with that said Valdez I think it's firmly second. I think that he is also At least for me in a tier of his own he's facing the Phillies and they're not a bad offense got a 111 WRC plus against lefty so not a great matchup in that regard But they will strike out if 24% strikeout rates against lefties and that's a boost for Valdez who Has been boosting himself quite a bit recently the velocity for Valdez this year is up a pretty decent amount He has a 2.98 skill interactive er a 26% strikeout right and he's doing that while still maintaining his fly ball rate at 17% So still killing worms across the board that means that Valdez is a great real world pitcher And he's getting more strikeouts now as well, which makes him a better pitcher for DFS This is a high strikeout spot here against the Phillies I have Valdez projected for 7.3 strikeouts, which ranks second behind DeGrawam again Not within two strikeouts of him, but still still pretty high and I think we put Valdez firmly in the two hole so what I would do is kind of ask yourself, what are the odds DeGrawam flops and take that that probability and Kind of put Valdez into that probability So you think that it's a 25% chance that that DeGrawam does not do well take that 25% Make it from Valdez lineups I think that's why I'd want to play things for tonight because those two to me are the runaway top options for tonight To be fully honest, I don't like any of the value plays. It's gonna be honest with you I think you should spend up a pitcher for tonight But I understand if you disagree if you insist on the value play the one guy Who's usable I would say is David Peterson and to be clear There's a chance that this is David Peterson's last start because he has a 7.36 er a Justin Verlander's lurking Max Scherzer will be unsuspected eventually So Peterson may be pitching for his spot in the rotation right now And it's not like that bad er a is fluky because his expected er a is five point four eight The reason I'm highest on Peterson among the value plays is strikeouts He has a 26% strikeout right across five starts. He has a 12.4 percent swinging strike rate So those are good numbers. He's facing the Braves tonight 119 WRC plus against lefties 22% strikeout rates. They are not a good matchup again, which is why I have low confidence here I do have Peterson projected for six point one two strikeouts for tonight So it's actually a decent number for value play that's the one that I seem to have such low confidence in I Had low confidence because I think his struggles are legit So Peterson is my top value and I'm pretty sure like I feel good about that part But I'm also pretty confident. I won't be using him. So to me. It's a slate where I want to spend up I want to go to Grom I want to go of all that is pretty hard if you really want to value play to jam and everybody in course field or everybody somewhere else Then Peterson's your top guy But for me it really is all about spending up for tonight Now you can stack course field and use to Grom because of some of the salaries and the Rockies and the Rockies would be our number two Stack for tonight number one is the other side of that game in the Arizona Dynabax We'll start with them and we'll talk about the Rockies as a way to save some salary for Jacob to Grom The Dynabax facing Kyle Freeland who got off to a good start this year But hasn't been able to maintain it across his five starts his skill interactive ERA is 5.02 strikeout rate low It's 16 percent 38 percent hard hit rates in a 46 percent fly ball rate So low strikeout rates a lot of hard contact a lot of fly balls Now Freelance expected ERA is better than his skill interactive ERA Which likely means that the fly balls specifically are not well struck and that could allow him to get around a high fly ball rated course field But couldn't get around the pirates at course. He led up nine total runs there seven of those were earned He also led up three homers to the Phillies on the road last time out Now he's back at home and yeah, Arizona, I think stinks against lefties I still think they deserve to be on our list here regardless So Arizona to me the top stack of the night Against Freelance despite the fact that I'm not very high in them against lefties Now it is a lefty-on-lefty matchup for Corbin Carroll and he does get a down rate there as a result of that But in a pretty small sample he has a 164 ISO against lefties. He's stolen three bases against them too So he'll probably get moved down to sixth or so in the order But I think it's still worthwhile to be in on him for tonight You can look at that salary 38 and be like that in six that course field on a slate where I want to gromp Maybe you're not super enthused about that. I get that for sure, but I still think he's worth that personally So I'm still in on Carroll despite the lefty-on-lefty matchup think he's still worth that and he's still a guy I'd be willing to use the one downside with the Diamondbacks is they did not slip through the cracks Their salaries are quite high. The same is not true for the Rockies They have nobody with a salary of both thirty-four dollars Which means we can use them while stacking to gromp and feel good about it Actually, there's a guy at minimum salary here who I do like but the reason we are here on the Rockies is they're facing Meryl Kelly he has a 3.42 ERA so far this year It's a very good, but his skill interactive ERA is 5.21 His expected ERA is 5.71 and that allows us to stack against him at course field The primary issue for Kelly is walks. He has a 16% walk rate Which means letting up a lot of guys on base The bad at ball data is the same as it was last year Which means it's basically fine because last year Kelly had a 3.37 ERA, which is a very good number But now he's walking more guys without making any big gains elsewhere That can work in some spots for sure But I'm not sure course field is one of those so I think we can feel pretty good about the Rockies here even with Kelly's success both last year and the Results he has gotten so far this year now the guy who I think is kind of like the Skeleton key for unlocking the Jacob to gromp stacks is Brenton Doyle Just got called up here for the Rockies a couple days ago and his salary is minimum $2,000 not even the Coors minimum of 25. It is minimum minimum He is 25 Doyle is so he's not a young pup But he does strike out a lot, but last year in the minors 23 stolen bases 26 home runs Before his promotion this year he had a 327 ISO in the minors So he might not be perfect, but his salary is 2,000. He has two pads to upside I'm fine taking a swing at that So if you want to jam in Jacob to gromp and stack Coors field Brenton Doyle is probably the way to do so Minimum salary, I think that makes a lot of sense. So I'll be looking there for sure In terms of making it easier to jam into gromp with your Coors field stacks Outside of Coors field then you can get some value in stacking the Brewers Brewers facing Tyler Anderson first night and Anderson Was really good last year. He had a 2.5 70 array But the velocity this year is down And I think we should stack the Brewers here against him as a result of that the fastball velocity for Anderson is down One mile per hour his cutters down about a half mile per hour But it's not just the velocity that's down his spin rate is down movement is down And it's leading to Anderson stuff getting just crushed his expected the array is five point nine seven his skill interactive Eray is five point nine four. So he should turn things around eventually I think the Anderson is a good pitcher But I want to see it first given how bad the velocity is and that leads a stack in the Brewers for tonight I do feel pretty good about them despite the fact it's a small sample of struggles for Anderson thus far then the Brewers stack you can't get some good values William Domus hasn't had like a Tremendous year by any means but his salaries down to three thousand dollars William Contreras the guy we discussed quite a bit his salary is 28 and I Feel like We're gonna see him come on here pretty soon The bat the hard hit rate is pretty good for him still still not a huge barrel rate But a lot of good hard hard contact to 43 ISO for William Contreras against lefties since the start of last year So Brian Anderson gets bumped up against leftie not a value play but gets bumped up Maybe you can consider Luke Voight in the situation I think that the Brewers make a lot of sense as a way to save salary But so between Doyle and the Brewers I think we should have enough salary saved here to get to Jacob to Grom and not have to Sacrifice upside across the board Things to watch for this Friday slate. I'm Frankly unsure what to think of Jack Flaherty because he has a 3.2 90 array this year But his skill interactive era is 5.46. So That's a pretty big gap And if you have a 5.46 skill interactive era against the Dodgers we're probably stacking against that But Flaherty looked a lot better last time out He had nine strikeouts across six innings He threw more curveballs there so it wasn't changing his approach his velocity was better So changing velocity too If not for that one start I would likely stack the Dodgers here And I still think you could because it is just one start But there were tangible shifts there in the pitch mix in the velocity And I think as a result that I'm less enthusiastic here. So Probably not going to be there But I understand if you want to do so yourself the guardians are facing nick pavetta who can get some strikeouts but Also lets up a lot of hard contact The guardians not the most powerful team, but they're in a good spot here in terms of some power So I think for tournaments who want some one-offs, uh, josh nailer salary is low I think you could go here to look for some guys who could get some power Uh, pavetta's overall numbers are not bad, which means this is primarily a tournament only situation But the guardians are in play at least for that Finally the rangers facing clark schmidt in that digram game who's running up a lot of hard contact So that's good for one-offs the rangers have a lot of guides the individual upside They're not a low salary team, which is why I don't think I can stack them with the grom But they're worth a look. Uh, they have guys who can definitely hit it pretty hard. So I think for one-offs they work, uh, or if you Decide to go peterson you want to go there. I think that could work as well Let's finish up here with the dinger calls for friday night the boring one going out to chorus field Ryan mcman's barrel rate this year is 20. He's striking out way too much, which is a concern against maryl kelly But it's a 20 percent barrel rate at chorus field. His salary is $3,100. I'm not going to say no to that So ryan mcman the first home run call for today The fun one mentioned josh nailer basing off against pavetta lets up a lot of hard contact got that short porch out in right field Uh, fenway, I think nailer could take advantage. So, uh, josh nailer the fun one ryan mcman the boring one for the home run calls for today That's all we got for this friday slate in mlb dfs. I think it should be pretty good. I enjoy having High standard pitchers. I feel good about we get that with both dagram and valdez So to me pretty fun slate to dive into do not forget to subscribe to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever You get your podcast. We are here every weekday breaking down mlb dfs and also over on the fando youtube page So subscribe there give a thumbs up if you like what you hear and also on apple podcast Leave us a five star rating. We appreciate those of you who have done both of those already If you have any questions for me. I am on twitter at jim saunas 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 And have a fantastic weekend. We'll talk to you once again on monday This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network