Two articles today as there are two decent enough slates to play.
Weather
Some rain showers for the Dodgers vs Pirates, but nothing to expect a PPD.
Julio Urias
The cost on Urias on DK has finally come down and I would expect his ownership to be around 60-80% today against Pittsburgh. This is someone who typically I avoid because of the Dodgers tendancy to not let pitchers go that deep however Urias has also typically been above 9k and on slates when there are more solid options. Both of those factors are thrown out today so he should be in line for our top option against a team that is striking out more vs LHP lately.
Finding a second pitcher then becomes extremely uncomfortable for me today. Zack Wheeler will host Ian Anderson in what is the toughest game to peg today. It’s a day game here (no shit, this is the early only article!) and I expect both offenses to do well against pitchers they know well. The Braves strikeout rate is not that high for Wheeler and the Phillies are the much better looking offense at the plate, so I have reservations on both of these guys in what I expect to be a higher scoring game today.
Freddy Peralta travels to Cincinnati, actually he should have already been there and he will just travel from his hotel down to the ballpark and has a match-up against the Hyeena Luis Castillo. Peralta is the one we are likely going to have to make a choice on, but the Reds DONT strikeout much at home and already had a game vs Peralta where they managed to drive his pitch count up without striking out a ton. Given how good the Reds offense is, he should be a contrarian guy but likely winds up more ownership than we want. Luis Castillo is your YOLO play, if he can finally get some swinging strikes on pitches outside of the zone then he won’t continue to get hit hard. I am not holding my breathe.
So then there is Justus Sheffield. He won’t strikeout as many guys as Peralta and Wheeler because like Jimmy Key — he sucks, and has been much worse on the road outside of SafeCo (T-Mobile!). However he shouldn’t have risk of blown up like Castillo or Anderson against the Tigers, right? He is just kind of in between and has the biggest match-up advantage of all these options out there today and no we are not using Mitch Keller for the Pirates although … no, I’m not going to be able to make it out to the bar today, so nope, not going there. So who should be the SP2 today? I wouldn’t hate it if you took any of the guys I mentioned above knowing your roster construction and on a four game slate I have always advised to consider an SP game stack and a hitting game stack and move on, but we’re clearly not doing that with Urias and Keller … are we?
No.
We are not.
Might be a good day to just play FanDuel.
My rankings for SP2 … I know these guys have holes and I don’t mind using one hitter against them, but they are the ones I am most comfortable with.
- Freddy Peralta
- Ian Anderson
Brewers
Lets see if the trend of a day late continues here as the three teams I wrote up on Tuesday just went OFF last night. But more so, this is about Castillo not being able to dominate LH batters at all and it’s honestly the one thing we knew about him before this season which has really carried over. All eyes are on Vogelbach/Yelich today in this match-up and if one of them sits then Castillo is in our pool of options.
Phillies / Braves
We are not playing to min cash, we are playing for first on this fine June 10th and thus you are likely all in on this game or using the pitchers in a game stack spot. I prefer the offense in this spot and Ronald Acuna Jr is the first player going into my lineups given how good he is at the baseball, but more so how good he should match-up against Wheeler’s slider. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Braves top 4 produce enough to make them the full stack here. Meanwhile for the Phillies, Ian Anderson is just struggling to get depth into games and Jean Segura, Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins and JT Realmuto all grade out very well. The value of Odubel Herrera leading off should not be ignored as well and so you’ll likely need him over one of Rhys/Harper/Realmuto to make things fit. Sorry Rhys, you are my odd man out at a deep position.
Dodgers
The Dodgers have a history of NOT being a team that falls asleep in get away games and the theme here is that Mitch Keller just stinks. Specifically he walks too many batters and the big park should let the Dodgers keep runners in the bases all game long. However the three guys who should do the most damage here are three of the colder bats on the L.A. lineup. Muncy/Bellinger specifically are cold right now but their lineup today includes McKinstry and Beaty as well ahead of Lux in the bottom of the order. Dodgers will put up a 6 spot today on Keller.
CATCHER
- JT Realmuto
- Manny Pina
FIRST BASE
- Daniel Vogelbach
- Miguel Cabrera
- Freddie Freeman
SECOND BASE
- Ozzie Albies
- Jean Segura
- Max Muncy
THIRD BASE
This is the position we’ll punt today – if you wanna be cute then KeBryan Hayes vs Urias would be nice leverage.
- Isaac Paredes
- Luis Urias
SHORTSTOP
- JP Crawford … Last 5 game log really good and top of the order for $3,000. Don’t over think this one and then come back and cry that you can’t fit in a full stack. This position is cheap.
- Gavin Lux
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Ronald Acuna Jr.
- Christian Yelich
- Odubel Herrera
- Bryce Harper
OUTFIELD – Value
- Zack McKinstry
- Jackie Bradley Jr
- Jace Peterson
- Robbie Grossman
- Taylor Trammell
The Dongers Club
Ronald Acuna Jr – OF – Braves – Chairman of the Dongers Club
BETS
- Braves / Phillies OVER 7.5
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
THE HIGHEST CHALK STACK(S)
- Dodgers
- Mariners
LOW OWNED GOOD TEAMS
- Braves
VALUE STACK
- Brewers
LEVERAGE PLAYS
- Braves
- Mitch Keller — gulp!
CORE PLAYS
- Ronald Acuna Jr
- JP Crawford
- Brewers Value LHB