The final day of August brings us the final round of the 2021 Dongers Club Championships. Good luck to the others who are in it tonight. It also brings us the turning of the page into September which means Adalberto Raul Mondesi is likely to be back soon and we’ll be stacking bad teams in Baseball! That’s right, I looked ahead and saw Royals vs Orioles next week in Camden Yards for four games and I could not be happier about that.
The DraftKings main slate has 14 games on them today and hopefully we get these east coast games in before the remnants of Hurricane Ida come rolling through and drop rain washing away Wednesday baseball in many spots. Fanduel only has 13 games, because …
- The Marlins and Mets are resuming a game from April before their game tonight — which is now a 7 inning game and one which I really wanted to use hitters in. The early game is interesting because both teams now have new lineups and players who were not on the roster for that game.
Also Shohei Ohtani is no longer pitching tonight but he is not available for rostering in player pools.
WEATHER
It honestly looks all clear tonight.
Lucas Giolito
Why is Giolito only $8,800 on DK today? This makes no sense given that the Pirates are striking out a lot more lately and Gio hasn’t pitched poorly recently, nor should be lose this game tonight. Just feels like we’re getting about a $1500 discount on the chalkiest pitcher tonight and we’ll just eat it and move on.
Walker Buehler
I don’t remember the exact day but it was a Friday night in like June and the Cardinals were homering their butts off in Cincinnati, Goldy was a Diamondback and he and the D’Backs were doing Coors things in Coors Field and everyone played Chris Sale instead of Walker Buehler who was at home against the Braves on a Friday Night. All he needed to do was get 4 more outs while sitting with a pitch count in the 60’s against a Braves lineup that was not very good outside of Mr. Freeman that night and I would secure that live final seat. He got two outs and then proceeded to strain something and was immediately removed from the game. I have not been mad at Walker Buehler because I was always a Walker Buehler fan, but whenever he faces the Braves at home I just have to share that little bad beat story which I’m sure you don’t give two shits about. Oh for what it’s worth, I turned the game on one batter before he was removed from the game — so yeah, I don’t like to watch my pitchers when they are doing well.
Ah, you are now wondering if should we play him? What kind of question is this?
Jameson Taillon
I built and rely upon the DCPA metrics on our dashboard not because I am not a believer that BvP can be useful, but more because the root of BvP is often times baked into the profile of the hitter and pitcher and if they haven’t met then lets use the metrics which will be most predictive. In this case, Taillon has one hitter that he’s really seen on the Angels and it just happens to be Jose Iglesias who is 6-8 off him. Not shockingly, Iglesias has a really low strikeout rate as being a good contact hitter. You know who else has a good contact rate on this team besides Ohtani and Iglesias? Nobody. The Angels lineup is loaded with swing and misses against a RHP like Taillon and the Yankees could use a good 6 inning game from him tonight which is what we would be hoping for by using him as a cheaper SP2. And there’s a good chance Iglesias isn’t even in the lineup tonight.
Also will pitch well
Lance McCullers: 6 IP and 8 strikeouts in each game vs Seattle. He should replicate that once again tonight.
Austin Gomber: Too many other strong options for me to trust Gomber as one of the top three tonight but the talent is good and there’s a potential he mows down Texas.
The Yankees, White Sox and Blue Jays are all facing really bad teams and bad starting pitching. Of those three teams, the Blue Jays are the one who I trust the most to destroy Keegan Akin who is coming off a great afternoon start against the Angels last week but is not someone we should be trusting to pitch well two times in a row and his fastball is not going to be able to save him against a fastball hunting lineup like Toronto.
The challenge with trying to “stack” away on these teams is that they’re going to cost you a pretty penny on DK and I don’t want to force off one of the top end pitching options tonight. But for certain George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez and Randal Grichuk as cheaper or mid-range options in this lineup are the favorable spots to attack. Here are the top “popular” teams ranked for one offs today.
- CWS: Robert, Grandal, Abreu
- TOR: Hernandez, Grichuk, Bichette
- NYY: Gallo, Voit
If we’re looking for an anchor team, let’s get off the “obvious” spots tonight because I will use them to fill in as one offs based upon the pricing. Here are teams I think could provide under the radar stack upside
Houston Astros
Gurriel, Bregman, Tucker, Correa
Bregman not playing last night was a bummer. But today we’ll get Yusei Kikuchi so yeah I am back on Houston once again and Bregman should be in the lineup but Yuli Gurriel is the anchor here. He has really good prototype splits vs Kikuchi and is a good HR/2B candidates tonight.
Minnesota Twins
Buxton, Donaldson, Kepler
Do not overlook Minnesota today. With Buxton back the 1-5 part of this lineup becomes much more reliable and Zach Davies has never been a strikeout pitcher so I like this good contact lineup to put the ball in play and have some big crooked numbers tonight. If you want to stretch it deeper there’s some bargain prices on Sano/Gordon and Catcher Ryan Jeffers as well.
San Diego vs Arizona Diamondbacks
Cronenworth/Grisham + Ahmed/Kelly/Marte
I would look for another higher scoring game tonight in Chase Field but this is more of a game stack scenario. Arizona really falls off after Ahmed-Marte-Kelly but all three are VERY strong match-ups against Blake ‘bad on the road’ Snell. San Diego gives us another shot to use Cronenworth & Grisham today vs Zac Gallen — who I wouldn’t go heavy against, but he will get hit.
Meanwhile … about those New York Mets
Call me stupid. Go ahead. But I think the Mets will actually use the whole thumbs down bull**** to get them amped up to drop a 13 run performance for a couple nights in a row only to later blow up and be at home on their couches in October. I am one who believes Javy Baez is a total douche bag for what he said after the game the other night. I mean c’mon dude, you are brand new to the team and to the city, you are all hitting like shit, you strike out a ton and this is nothing more than the sign of the times with these thin skinned soft ass athletes. You wanna give it back to the fans, maybe do that after you have earned something for a while, or embrace being in a spot where you could potentially form a good middle infield duo with your pal Lindor rather than be angling for some contract in a terrible organization like the Diamondbacks for the rest of your career.
Anyways. The Mets are likely going to get Edward Cabrera, who is a really good talent long term but fits into the “rookies who are gonna poop their pants” mold tonight. Look for the Mets to pop off and have a big emotional game today once they start to play the real game slated tonight. Unfortunately it’s only a 7-inning game so stacking it isn’t going to work out great
CATCHER
- Salvador Perez … Can he keep it going? Guy is on fire. No, he is fire on fire.
- Carson Kelly
- Yasmani Grandal
- Alejandro Kirk
FIRST BASE
- Yuli Gurriel
- Jose Abreu
- Frank Schwindel
SECOND BASE
- Jake Cronenworth
- Jed Lowrie
- Javier Baez – 7 inning game
THIRD BASE
- Matt Chapman
- Alex Bregman
- Carter Kieboom … This happens late in the season when we have a full 162 game season. Many will forget this, but guys like Kieboom who are getting consistent playing time after being labeled “busts” will suddenly start to hit well. This is a top heavy position today, but for salary savings, Kieboom is one of the better options I would trust right now.
SHORTSTOP
- Bo Bichette
- Jorge Polanco
- Nicky Lopez … Somehow Lopez continues to just get on base and produce. Most of this is due to how hot both Whit and Salvy have been and with Lopez between them he is benefiting greatly.
OUTFIELD – MT RUSHMORE
- Byron Buxton … Him and Mondesi are going to fight it out for AL player of the month honors in September.
- Teoscar Hernandez
- Joey Gallo
- Luis Robert
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- George Springer
- Ketel Marte
- Yordan Alvarez
OUTFIELD – Value
- Lane Thomas
- Randal Grichuk
- Joc Pederson
The Dongers Club
- Byron Buxton – OF – Twins – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Yuli Gurriel – 1B – Astros
- Nick Ahmed – SS – Diamondbacks
- Javy Baez – 2B – Mets
- Matt Chapman – 3B – Athletics
- Randal Grichuk – OF – Blue Jays
- Joey Gallo – OF – Yankees
- Carson Kelly – C – Diamondbacks
- BONUS ………… Joc Grandal – OF – Braves
- BONUS 2 ……… Yasmani Pederson – C – White Sox
BETS
- HR Parlay: Grandal, Pederson, Gurriel
- Mets ML (Second game)
- Twins/Cubs OVER
CHALKIEST STACKS
- Blue Jays – Play the value guys
- White Sox
- Yankees
GOOD TEAMS GETTING OVERLOOKED
- Houston Astros
BEST LEVERAGE SPOTS
- Diamondbacks vs Snell