I have always been a fan of larger slates in Baseball and medium to small sized slates in other sports. But this year these type of six game mid week slates have been fairly mundane just based on the players and teams that have managed to roll into them. It feels like every short slate this season has had the Pirates on it, some old veteran lefty like Dallas Keuchel and some guy who doesn’t deserve to be pitching as well as he might like, oh I dunno, Ross Stripling.
Well, will you just look at that? This slate has all of those boxes checked. Except there’s a much more refreshing view for me on tonight’s six pack than normal, I really like what we have in front of us tonight. Granted that is most likely because it beats the Cowboys and Steelers for entertainment value, but if baseball and football both go bad just remember that we’ve probably got some dumb Olympic sport we can turn on to watch instead.
Or I am sure that a Tom Hanks movie is on somewhere.
Information on the Dongers Club Appreciation Championships
Here is how this will work out, the contest begins tomorrow, August 5th with the qualifier round that will run for three time periods. The whole rest of the month on Tuesday’s and Friday’s there will be some form of the tournament running.
- August 5th, August 10th and August 12th: Qualifier Period
- August 17th, August 19th: Pool Play
- August 24th, August 26th: Championships
The top 9 entrants from the qualifier period will be entered into three pool play groups on the 17th and 19th. Seeding is calculated based upon results from August 5th, 10th and 12th. First place = 25 points, second place = 21 points, third place = 17 points, fourth place = 15 points and then 14 points, 13 points, 12 points, etc… all the way down to 1 point as the minimum each week. So if you don’t play, you don’t get a point.
The top 4 will then advance to the Championships on August 24th and August 26th
First place = $750, Swag
Second place = $250, Swag
Third place = Swag
Fourth place = First loser
Show me another site running that kind of promotion, meanwhile they’re out here forcing you to pay for a football package at limited capacity like it’s fucking milk in the great depression…
WEATHER
All games play and there are three new series today
Mariners at Yankees
Twins at Astros
Pirates at Reds
One really cool thing about tonight’s slate is that we got a Coffee Legend, A Drug Lord, a Stripper, A Barber, A rejected 90’s sitcom, A brewmaster, The Sequal to Brokeback Mountain and The uncles of Milli-Vanilli on the mound… Go ahead and see if you can correlate the 12 pitchers to the nicknames. Answers at the bottom. Tell me where you can find that kind of entertainment on a Thursday MLB DFS article? Pfft.
FRAMBER VALDEZ
No data required to pick this one here. A low scoring game indeed tonight in Houston between the Twins and Astros with Houston just glad to get out of L.A. alive and Minnesota having most of their hot hitters in a bad split here. Outside of Garver, Valdez should cruise through the Twinkies today and the roof closed doesn’t hurt.
NESTOR CORTES
Nestor’s worst pitch is his curve ball which happens to be the pitch the Mariners are worst at hitting. As the Yankees use Nestor more he is proving to serve as a reliable fill-in when they need him and coming off a 5 IP/79 pitch outing he should be able to get relatively similar results with good strikeout rates. I greatly prefer him over Ross Stripling who really is the same profile (not a deep into the game guy)
Eh, fine: Sonny Gray … I just have this weird disease with wanting to use Pirates when they go into Cincinnati.
TORONTO BLUE JAYS
Bo Bichette, Teoscar Hernandez, Santiago Espinal
Triston McKenzie has a good moving fastball and he’s going to try to put it right past Bo Bichette who is going to swing so violently that he either tears his groin or launches one into the second deck. I’m going to go with the second deck.
CLEVELAND INDIANS
Amed Rosario, Jose Ramirez, Franmil Reyes, Bobby Bradley
Ross Stripling is a 5 inning guy max, and not someone that we are going with tonight because of that and because A.Rosario-Ramirez-Franmil are all really solid plays against him in the heart of the order.
CINCINNATI REDS
Winker, Votto
Jesee Winker and Joey Votto are almost sure to put the ball in play or draw a walk tonight. Crowe walks a ton of lefties (Votto boner alert!) and is murdered on his change-up to lefties (Winker boner alert!). Those two guys alone should make any Cincinnati stack pay off today.
CATCHER
- Jacob Stallings
- Kyle Highishioka
FIRST BASE
- Jose Abreu … The HR has been launched, Mr. August is here.
- Joey Votto
SECOND BASE
- Whit Merrifield – Playing good right now, can hit Keuchel and is only $4,200.
- Marcus Semien
THIRD BASE
- Jose Ramirez
- KeBryan Hayes
SHORTSTOP
- Bo Bichette
- Gleyber Torres
OUTFIELD – Mt Rushmore
- Jesse Winker
- Franmil Reyes
- Teoscar Hernandez
- Bryan Reynolds
OUTFIELD – Value
- Ben Gamel
- Tyler O’Neill
- Jorge Soler
- Gregory Polanco
The Dongers Club
- Beaux Bichette – SS – Blue Jays – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Jesse Winker – OF – Reds
- Jose Abreu – 1B – White Sox
- Whit Merrifield – 2B – Royals
- Jose Ramirez – 3B – Indians
- Franmil Reyes – OF – Indians
- Higgy – C – Yankees
- Bryan Reynolds – OF – Pirates
- BONUS ……………………………. Tyler O’Neill – Cardinals
BETS
- Indians/Jays OVER 9.5
- Mariners/Yankees UNDER 9.5
HR Parlay
- Bichette, Winker, Abreu
The Chalkiest Stacks
Astros, Blue Jays, Reds
Good Teams Getting Overlooked
Indians
White Sox (I’m only on Abreu here though)
Best Leverage Play against Chalk
Indians
Favorite DK Pitching Combinations
Valdez and Cortes
FAVORITE HITTERS
Jesse Winker
Bo Bichette
Jose Abreu
Nicknames
Coffee Legend – Framber “Juan” Valdez
Drug Lord – Nestor Cortes
A stripper – Duh!
A Barber – Sonny Gray
A rejected 90’s sitcom – Tyler (Anderson) & Wil (Crowe)
A Brewmaster – Griffin Jax Brewery
The Sequal to Brokeback Mountain – Dallas and Wade
The uncles of Milli-Vanilli – Triston (McKenzie) and Touki (Toussaint)
aaaaaaaaand Daniel Lynch