The Dongers Club – Tue, Sep 8th

What an odd slate of games today. Nine games as a bunch of new series kick off but there’s also some double headers and early start times. I honestly don’t see why we cannot just have games lock at 6:05 every night when there are the 6PM games but I guess there are bigger issues out there.

When I say odd slate of games, things I am just less than enthusiastic about are Brewers vs Tigers, White Sox vs Pirates and Orioles vs Mets. I mean…. Sure, there’s some good DFS plays hidden in there but holy hell you could open up the stadiums for these games and I doubt anyone would go.

WEATHER

Rain rain, go away, come again another day…

Do not ask me about weather before lock. I have been very clear about this all season long and all you’re doing is asking me a question I have already answered. I say this not to be a dick but just to re-program it into your brains.

If the game starts in a delay – run away.
If the game starts on time – it’s fine.

That is your golden rule for 2020. OK? That said, here’s the ones you’ll need to be aware of

RAIN
- Brewers at Tigers … Light rain, wind out to RIGHT field. I suspect
- Reds at Cubs … Light rain and the wind is blowing in HEAVILY.
ROOFS
- Angels at Rangers … No word but not scorching hot, I would be shocked if the roof was closed outside of a pop-up thunderstorm coming in but that seems unlikely today.
- Dodgers at Diamondbacks … Under 100 degrees, gotta think roof opens up.

Walker Buehler

DK ($10,200) & FD ($10,400)

Despite the roof most likely being open and Arizona back at home where they are league average, this is a spot where Buehler should be more than safe to mow down the bad Diamondbacks lineup.

Mike Clevinger

DK ($9,700) & FD ($9,600) – prefer him on FD by a slight margin over Walker.

Unlike his first start as a Padre, Sunshine has an elite strike-out match-up against the Rockies today and I don’t fear Nolan like I did last night against Lamet (which obviously failed).

Spencer Turnbull

DK Only – $8,500

Turnbull has been a decent pitcher this year up until his last few starts, including his last one against Houser and the Milwaukee Brewers in Miller Park last week. Today he returns home and the big challenge will be if he can avoid walking too many batters. In his recent stretch of games that have been poor Turnbull has walked 16 batters over 15 innings — that’s not good, in fact, that is down right horrific. But there’s enough history with Turnbull for me to trust him to get back on the right path and limit that down somewhat today against a bad Brewers lineup.

Outside the Box

Tyler Mahle

DK Only – $8,200

Assuming the wind does not do a drastic shift in direction at Wrigley, this is a game to take a risk on at pitcher tonight. Both Mahle and Mills would be logical plays given the 18 MPH wind blowing directly in at Wrigley making it extremely hard to hit home runs here. But it’s Mahle who benefits more in my mind. Both Mills and Mahle are significantly worse against LH bats and Mills is going to see a lot more than Mahle will, plus Mahle when he does get lefties out gets them out with a far higher strike-out rate than Mills does. So if they both have a little risk why not take the one who has more potential to get 6+ strikeouts? That would be Mahle today.

L.A. Dodgers

Corey Seager, AJ Pollock, Any Dodger you can name really….

Apparently the cool thing to do in California these days is a pyrotechnic gender reveal party. Well, tonight the Dodgers are going to bring their pyrotechnic’s to Arizona to reveal something about Luke Weaver and it’s not going to be pretty reveal. The fact that the Dodgers had yesterday off as an entire lineup is even more juicy to consider how much love we should have for them today. Corey Seager is having a fantastic season and is an automatic in Chase Field – check. A.J. Pollock is returning to his former home ballpark against a bad RHP — check. Throw in a little Chris Taylor value or a little Will Smith (road catchers in Chase Field) and we’ve got enough value in this start-studded lineup to roll them out today in a game they should go off in.

Miami Marlins

Brian Anderson, Matt Joyce, Cooper or Jesus Aguilar

Two games that are of interest today in the Eastern Timezone are Orioles-Mets and Marlins-Braves. And while the Orioles-Mets is a nice inter-league game I cannot overlook the park difference here as we have two young (but talented) pitchers squaring off in this hitter friendly stadium. My lean is for the Marlins side because Brian Anderson is a must play tonight and the Marlins vs Wright is better than Braves vs Sixto right now.

Other teams to look at

Padres … Look at the value in the middle to bottom part of this order. Bad Rockies pen shows up today.
Pirates … Cease will have to deal with a straight line of lefties today, lots of chances for them to put up some runs.

CATCHER

Jorge Alfaro
Yasmani Grandal
Will Smith

FIRST BASE

Josh Bell … It has been a rough go this year for Josh Bell but it feels worse simply due to the fact that it’s a short season. In the same way we’re seeing Raul Mondesi come out of his horrific start I suspect we see that with Bell too. I felt that way two weeks ago and it didn’t quite blossom but his $3400 price tag on DraftKings is hard to pass up on a slate where most 1B are kind of weak IMO. Cease has been hit for HR more from LH bats and that is Bell’s strong side. Great buy low spot today.
Garrett Cooper
Jesus Aguilar

SECOND BASE