Let’s go my friends, the best time of the year is here even if it is a little weird. Fall is in the air and we are ready for playoff baseball. Expanded playoffs this season which means expanded DFS too and I’ll be covering any slate that has three or more games on it.
The opening Wild Card round games are best of three and played in the home teams stadium with some spots having the families of the home team in attendance.
After that we go into four bubble sites for the rest of the playoffs and there are no planned off days in those rounds so expect fast and furious DFS action.
The American League kicks things off today with four games and both sites have one main slate with all the games on them. Tomorrow we will have EIGHT games!!! So lets hope we get something similar tomorrow with a large main slate. I have included a quick breakdown on each of the opening three game series in the American League below and will break down the National League series starting up tomorrow in Wednesday’s article. Here’s a full list of the teams to look at betting to win the World Series and if you get one of them to advance deep there’s always going to be good hedge opportunities to re-capture your investment no matter what.
The first set of odds next to each team is to win the World Series. The second set in parenthesis is to win each team’s respective league.
World Series Bets
Dodgers: +350 (+130)
The chalk and the logical play. You are better off taking the +350 in my mind to win it all.Athletics: +1000 (+500)
I like Oakland at +500 to win the American League a lot. Losing Matt Chapman could wind up being a big blow but they did replace him with Jake Lamb who seems to have found a resurgence late in the year. For my money, Oakland has the best bullpen setup with a ton of guys who can go a couple innings in relief and shut down the opponents.
Padres: +1000 (+500)
The Padres have to go through the Dodgers in the second round, which would be a five game series in Texas if they both advance to that spot. It would be the most thrilling most likely but the Dodgers are a tough road for the Padres to get through in my mind. But if they do, that +1000 looks really good.
Indians: +1500 (+650)
They were my pick to face the Dodgers in the World Series at the start of this short 60 game season and they have looked great of late, so I am doubling down here. Take +1500 and +650 on the Indians who have a lineup which will give opposing teams match-up problems due to a ton of switch hitters and arguably the best pitcher in Baseball this year at full usage in Shane Bieber.
Reds: +3000 (+1500)
The Reds have something which should scare everyone. They can roll out Castillo, Gray and Bauer and have some heat in the bullpen along with a good mix of veteran bats in their lineup. Cincinnati must get past Atlanta in the first round but after that they should cruise through the winner of the Cubs and Marlins and would be facing the Dodgers or Padres off their series which should go the distance. Nobody sets up better to have their pitching ready for the NLCS than the Cincinnati Reds and that should scare everyone else. The Reds at +3000 and +1500 are arguably the best value in the playoffs, but the opening round is also their toughest draw.
American League Series
Starting Today
Astros (Greinke) vs Twins (Maeda)
Another classic match-up spot as I project a ton of home runs here if the wind cooperates all series long. It’s chilly in Minnesota, but not mid 30’s or anything drastic like that. Houston has three guys who have raked in Target Field in Bregman, Correa and Springer. After Maeda I suspect Berrios is going game two and or Rich Hill — neither of which should scare off Houston. This series will be won by whoever wins today’s opening game as Houston really needs Greinke to be lights out.
Series Pick: Astros win in 3 and game 2 is an EPIC homer fest.
White Sox (Giolito) vs Athletics (Luzardo)
Luzardo out of the gate gives the White Sox some hope with Anderson and Abreu having some good match-ups against the young ace pitcher. But the ballpark greatly benefits a strong defensive team like the Athletics and with their deep bullpen they are going to be tough to beat in the first two rounds. Give me Oakland here to knock off the White Sox.
Series Pick: Athletics in 3.
Toronto Blue Jays (Shoemaker/Ray) vs Tampa Bay Rays (Snell)
OK Toronto. So the Jays are supposedly going to start Shoemaker then come back with Ray. I love this actually. The Rays are known for completely swapping out hitters to get LvR and RvL match-ups all the time and that makes their entire team outside of the catcher extremely difficult to use in DFS. So the Jays are going to start a righty in Shoemaker and then come in with Robbie Ray. Settle in folks, this is going to be a wild series.
Series Pick: Rays win in 3 high scoring games.
Yankees (Cole) vs Indians (Bieber)
A lot of teams are going to be sitting around complaining about the 8 team format of 3 game series, but honestly I love it for this short season. One of those teams who I see complaining will be the Yankees as they face a loaded pitching staff and in a park that favors the Indians lineup over the Yankees lineup.
Series Pick: I can’t pick Indians to reach the World Series and not take them here. Indians win in 2.
Tuesday Dongers Club – DFS Picks
PLAYOFF LINEUP CONSTRUCTION
I have had some great success in the MLB playoffs in the past, especially with four game slates like we have today and here are my basic rules that I follow. Consider this my playoff manifesto.
- Evaluating pitchers comes down to two criteria. Will the pitcher no doubt about it win or will the pitcher strikeout a bunch of hitters? If the answer to either of these is no, cross the pitcher off. If no pitcher qualifies either of these for you confidently then you do not spend on pitching. Period. We see quick hooks in the playoffs normally, so pitchers have to accumulate points either with a WIN (and this is harder than you think to project in the playoffs) or with a bunch of strikeouts. A pitcher going 4 2/3 with 6 strikeouts is a fantastic playoff pitcher. Someone going 7 innings, 0 ER and 6 strike outs is RARE as we get deeper into the playoffs.
- I rarely care about BvP in the regular season, but in the post-season it matters. Every pitcher will know the opposing hitters history against them as they read into every minor detail possible and when a pitcher hasn’t fared well against the opposing hitter he’s going to over think things and wind up walking or giving up some contact.
- Evaluate each position by itself. There will be days when a position (ahem, second base?) has nothing but garbage in it. You have to look at spots and realize if there’s no good option at this position then why would you just blindly eat heavy chalk on a player? Unless they’re a value player maybe batting second, you should go contrarian on individual hitters.
- Game stacking works. This might change in 2020 because in the second round we’ll have neutral sites with less than ideal hitting parks. But normally when we have some good stadiums in play in the playoffs we look to attack them blindly with a game stack.
- Higher $ contests and smaller fields. You should treat every contest you enter like you are entering a head to head contest. The fewer opponents the better if you want to maximize your ROI. Note, I am not saying enter nothing but H2H. But look for an 11 man contest that pays out the top three, or look for a contest that you normally wouldn’t play every day and go for that. You will enjoy it far more than dropping in $5 into a contest with a thousand people and then complaining that the picks weren’t perfect for that day.
PITCHING
Shane Bieber (Cleveland)
Give me the American League Cy Young to dominate this likely pitchers duel in Cleveland. The Tribe as many of you know are my World Series pick from the beginning of the season and they are my pick to represent the American League now that we have the playoff field set. That begins with Beiber who is unlike any other Cy Young because he’s essentially getting to continue in the middle of his Cy Young season in the playoffs without fear of being worn down. He should go 8 innings and strikeout more than anyone else today.
Gerrit Cole (Yankees)
There are times we take a gift and we just move on. DraftKings has given us that today with the pricing on pitching as we can game stack Cole and Bieber and take the strikeouts and confidence in Bieber getting a 2-0 win.
Zach Greinke (Houston)
Veteran arm who I can see Dusty Baker just letting him throw as long as he wants if he isn’t in major trouble. Houston’s bullpen is an issue and they cannot win this series without Greinke throwing very well today.
LINEUPS TO TARGET
Houston Astros
Alex Bregman, George Springer, Carlos Correa
Batters in Ballparks. The Astros in Target Field have been money. The short wall in left field plays perfect for these righty line drive hitters like Bregman, Springer and Correa.
Oakland Athletics
Matt Olson, Robbie Grossman, Mark Canha
A noon time local start in Oakland with nice weather makes this a friendly target to look at. I saw that Lucas Giolito was getting used to the mound in Oakland as he has never pitched there before and that’s a major confidence red flag for me. I like Oakland to get lots of base runners going today against Giolito and there’s no other 1B to look at than Matt Olson – unless you lock in Yuli Gurriel from Houston.
Tampa Bay Rays
Randy Arozarena, Mike Zunino — They should remain in most of the game.
One of the hidden factors in the playoffs is the new reliever rule and teams cannot do the one pitcher for one batter pitching changes as easily. No team should be able to take advantage of this more than Tampa who has a ton of hitters they will trust. The problem for us in DFS is that we’re likely to be tilting a player getting swapped out when Tampa does this from a hitting stance to get the match-ups they want. So beware of going to heavy with Tampa in the playoffs for this reason.
Toronto Blue Jays
Bo Bichette, Lourdes Gurriel, Teoscar Hernandez
With these four game slates we should be putting in a second lineup that is contrarian and in my mind is the most contrarian build of the day. Today there’s a couple legit thoughts to considering the Indians or Yankees in that Ace match-up but Blake Snell is someone who I project to be fairly highly owned and there’s some Toronto bats that can hit him. If Snell’s slider is off, look out, the Jays are going to make noise.
POSITIONAL BREAKDOWN
CATCHERS
- Mike Zunino
- Yasmani Grandal
FIRST BASE
- Matt Olson
- Yuli Gurriel
SECOND BASE
- Jonathan Villar
- Brandon Lowe
THIRD BASE
- Alex Bregman
- Tommy La Stella
SHORTSTOP
- Bo Bichette
- Carlos Correa
OUTFIELD – Tier 1
- George Springer
- Randy Arozarena … Assuming he starts he should remain in the game.
- Mark Canha
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Teoscar Hernandez
- Robbie Grossman
- Eloy Jimenez
Chairman of the Dongers Club
George Springer – OF – Houston Astros