Tonight is the final June Dongers Club Contest, and below is the leaderboard going into tonight. The rules for tonight are that you can play whomever you want but if your score is higher than all of your previous three scores then you get a 10 point bonus. Reminder that each round the top 10 finishers get bonus points too with 10 points going to first.
We had a great night last night so lets do it again tonight and through the weekend.
WEATHER & STUFF
Three of the best games tonight have weather concerns in them. In fact, it is worth noting that among the “Elite” Stadiums we have No Coors, No Camden and No Truist on this slate. On the second tier of stadiums we have No Citizens Bank Park, No Anaheim, No Chase Field. So we’re down to basically Great American Smallpark and Sahlen Field as the two main elite stadiums on this slate.
The three games which have weather concerns are all storm related and they include
Atlanta at Cincinnati … As I have said many times before, this ballpark drains well and they usually are good about waiting things out or calling it well in advance of the game starting.
Pittsburgh at St. Louis … I really hope the game plays, but with it being a divisional spot they could certainly PPD it. Risk here and it sucks because I love the Cards.
Houston at Detroit … Game ultimately plays, wind blowing in.
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION TONIGHT
For those playing on FanDuel, it’s much easier on a night like tonight because you only have to pick one pitcher and you can make it work off that. For those on DraftKings you have to make a distinct hard and fast decision. Do you pay up for two of the good arms tonight (which are limited) in which case you really only go with 1 or 2 good hitters and then value the rest of the way — or do you build off a cheaper arm and go for YOLO mode?
If you go the cheap pitcher route, I STRONGLY feel you should do it with a 5 man go all in stack. The upside of if your longshot pitcher hits tonight should not be killed by the fact that you need 3 or 4 different teams to produce. I usually do encourage for single entry or one lineup builds to play 3-3-2 or 2-2-2 type balanced lineups but that typically is when we trust the pitching. If you are taking a pitcher under 8k today, you aren’t trusting them very much so go all in with a full 5 man stack with that.
Carlos Rodon
Rodon comes in with an insane rating on the model today and it’s heavily driven by how terrible the Mariners have been against LHP lately. So bad that we got by the other night with Kyle Freeland against them and I say we continue to ride this until others catch on. Rodon should be a popular top end option tonight and given how solid the match-up is and how well he has pitched of late/this season we should take this and move right along tonight because it has double digit strike out potential and I would put confidence in him hitting 9 strikeouts at an EXTREMELY high number today. That and finding a second pitcher tonight is hard enough, let alone two others…
Pablo Lopez
An elite home pitcher with a 1.89 ERA, .192 AVG against and a low .302 SLG in 47 IP at home this season Lopez will get the Nationals who are hot right now but likely to run into a brick wall tonight and the only bats that are of concern are Soto and Ryan Zimmerman who is unlikely to play. Lopez will put down the Schwarber heater tonight and give us a nice long outing.
— BIG GAP —
Martin Perez
I was going to write up Paddack but I am strongly riding my theory that Padres/Dodgers lose their first game after playing. That theory came from old Red Sox/Yankees series and Boston is back home tonight and one of my favorite plays to WIN the game. The Yankees offense against LHP can be a little up and down and Voit/Sanchez might look like they are locked back in for this lineup but I see a lineup which has very low xWOBA against Perez’s pitch types and a lower scoring game to kick off the Fenway weekend.
Just missed the cut: Mike Minor
Longshots
Josh Fleming (Rays) … Angels have a terrible park shift here and are mostly weaker vs LHP at the bottom of their lineup — but Fleming isn’t a go long guy, so upside really low.
Cal Quantrill (Cleveland) … Twins are a jeckyl & hyde team.
Corbin Martin (Arizona) … The theory.
Popular pitcher fades
Dane Dunning – Match-up is good but he isn’t going past 80 pitches right now as he is starting to tire.
Framber Valdez – Weather concerns
Braves
Albies, Freeman, Riley
Don’t look now but Freddie Freeman is on a tear and seeing the ball really well right now with a HR last night and going 6-9 over the last two games after really lowering his strikeouts he should once again be in great position tonight in Cincinnati. The Albies/Riley combination was one sided last night but Riley gets a match-up against a below avg fastballer tonight and should put one into the seats in left field. If this game starts in a delay then I expect the Braves to come out on fire after they start it up.
Blue Jays
Value guys under 4k: Springer, Hernandez, McGuire
The chalk spot tonight as they draw Matt Harvey and I’m not overhyping up Sahlen Field but we cannot ignore that they should have a good amount of base runners again tonight and there is an edge here I think because there will be a temptation to jam in Vlad (6200), Beaux (6100) and Semien (5600) but as you read above the pitching isn’t very friendly in terms of value tonight. So the sharp play here is Teoscar/Springer/McGuire/Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel, all under $4,000 on DK and all fairly cheap on FD as well.
Indians
Hernandez, A.Rosario, J.Ramirez, H.Ramirez, Hedges
The Twins are using this as a likely bullpen game and their pitching staff from soup to nuts is like eating soup with nuts in it. We need a value team who can put up 8-9 runs in a park that is warm and against a terrible pitching staff. Hello, Cleveland and do not leave off Austin Hedges if you do a 4 or 5 man Indians stack who against a journeyman lefty making his debut is in a prime spot for a value catcher homer.
Cardinals
Arenado, O’Neill, Carlson
High risk of rain out here but if somehow the storms stay away then load up on the Cardinals for their break out game tonight powered by Arenado and O’Neill
6:13 PM UPDATE
Boston Red Sox
I generally try to not post updates in the article like this but with Houston being PPD and after looking over my lineup construction on both sites tonight I found myself drawn to a team that should be included in the top tier but is probably still under owned. The Red Sox, who I mentioned in the bottom section and certainly loved Devers so on FD where I can play two 3B I have Devers + Arenado (STL game looks ok) and found myself wanting to use Xander at his good price. German has been friendly to righties and Boston has smashed at home all season long, so consider Boston a good pivot off Toronto chalk tonight.
CATCHER
- Austin Hedges
- Gary Sanchez
- Reese McGuire
FIRST BASE
- Freddie Freeman
- Paul Goldschmidt
- Christian Walker – Value and leverage
SECOND BASE
- Cesar Hernandez
- Jonathan India – Great FD value
- Nick Solak – Value on DK
THIRD BASE
Fantastic position tonight but Nolan Arenado is without a doubt my favorite play today — except he has weather concerns. Use two guys here on FD
- Nolan Arenado
- Eugenio Suarez
- Rafael Devers
- Jose Ramirez
SHORTSTOP
The thinnest position tonight and one to find value or punt outside of your stacks.
- Amed Rosario – Value
- Paul DeJong – Value
- Xander Bogaerts
OUTFIELD – Mt Rushmore
- Shohei Ohtani
- George Springer
- Aristides Acquino
- Tyler O’Neill
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Joc Pederson
- Mookie Betts
- Dylan Carlson
- Max Kepler
- Starling Marte
OUTFIELD – Value
Win this tier and you’ll win your freedom
- Harold Ramirez
- Abraham Almonte
- Hunter Dozier – For the HR prop folks, Dozier will hit a HR this weekend in Texas.
- Juan Lagares
The Dongers Club
- Nolan Arenado – 3B – Cardinals – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Frederick Freeman – 1B – Braves
- Max Muncy – 2B – Dodgers
- Joc Pederson – OF – Cubs
- Hunter Dozier – OF – Royals
- Aristides Acquino – OF – Reds
- Paul DeJong – SS – Cardinals
- Austin Hedges – C – Indians
- BONUS …. Rafael Devers – 3B – Red Sox
BETS
- Atlanta Braves ML
- Miami Marlins ML (-148)
- Pirates/Cardinals OVER 8.5 … Cardinals ML … Nolan Arenado to get a hit — Same game parlay or individually where available with your book
- Diamondbacks ML — YOLO!
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
THE HIGHEST CHALK STACK(S)
- Blue Jays, Reds, Astros
LOW(er) OWNED GOOD TEAMS
- Braves, Dodgers, Red Sox
LEVERAGE STACKS/PLAYS
- Royals / Rangers … Although I don’t think this is a high leverage spot so likely not worth it, but the SP in this game will be DK popular.
DK PITCHERS
- Rodon & Lopez
FD PITCHERS
- Pablo Lopez #1, Carlos Rodon #2.
CORE HITTERS
- Aristides Acquino – OF
- Austin Hedges – C
- Amed Rosario – SS (DK)