Tonight is the final Dongers Club Contest Round for the 1st Half Close out.
Tonights Contest Link: https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/128879577
There is no rule for tonight but there is a BONUS if you have a solo owned HR from a player, in which case you get 10 points (for each homer) that the player hits. This means if you roster a player and nobody else does, then you get that bonus.
We are also DROPPING your lowest score. So if you have a dud or a 0, you aren’t dead. Here are the scores with the penalties for not following rules along the way notated.
WEATHER
The Baseball God’s would not let Rob Manfred screw up the final Friday before the All-Star Break as we have a day game in Wrigley and then a 13 game main slate, which is skipping over the South Beach game starting in the Senior Citizens window between the Phillies and Marlins. Somewhere Jose Urena and Tommy Joseph are having a moment, but then maybe 0.2% of you will get that reference so we move on.
Oh, Weather. Right.
All games play and all games are Humid, bet some overs tonight.
[spacer height=”20px”]
The Cliff Notes for tonight include the return of Nate Eovaldi for Boston and he gets his whipping boys the Yankees in his return, this time in New York and I was cursing the shit out of my dumbass watching the Yankees lose to the Reds last night and then realizing they play Boston tonight. Worst bet I’ve ever made fellas. Okay, so maybe betting the Lions that one time was worse.
We have one Zack and one Zach but they are not facing each other tonight, thankfully.
We have the Pirates in Coors, which is way cooler than Orioles in Costco.
Robbie Ray is on the Road, but Friday’s with Robbie Ray most definitely sounds like a bad show on the Oprah Network.
We got ourselves a Tyler, a Drew, a Hunter, two Jose’s, one Luis and the best pitching friendship you will find between Madison and Yu – which sounds like a show on Nickelodeon or a really bad chick flick featuring Reese Witherspoon. Although can a chick flick featuring Reese Witherspoon really be bad? I don’t think so. Just as long as it doesn’t include Ryan Phillipee but if it does and it includes Sarah Michelle Geller then okay fine, I may have watched that too much back in the day and you know you did too.
Yes, Yu can be an option tonight or you can look at the DK combination of Smeltzer/Bush if you are into that sort of thing. I’m kind of looking at Woodruff considering an Alek is on the slate so suck on that Trebek.
Okay, enough play on words for now, let’s pick some arms….
[spacer height=”20px”]
ALEK MANOAH
The Royals are without their top two lefties in Benintendi and Melendez which helps Manoah. The down side is he will see Pratto and Pasquantino who both could hit him hard tonight, but around that for $9,000 I don’t see why Manoah won’t get into the 20’s on DraftKings. He did that with only 4 strikeouts against them in Kauffman Stadium earlier this season and at home I believe he gets through 7 tonight with a good amount more swings and misses.
CLAYTON KEEERSHAW
In his career Keeershaw has always had this June-July stretch where he just dominates the league with 7 innings on about 95 pitches and at most 1 ER damage. He’s doing that right now with 18K, 1ER over his last two starts, each going 7 innings.
The Angels should be without Trout again today and even if he is in Keeershaw has pitched him just fine so he has the boost of being a lefty vs the Angels which rarely fails.
[spacer height=”12px”]
Other Pitching Notes …
Those two above are 1a and 1b for me today. They beat out the other 8k+ options such as Ray, Woodruff, and even Alex Wood — who are all okay, but all below those two on my rankings.
If we go searching for an alternate 3rd option or a cheaper guy there’s a couple unique names which stand out to me today
- Zach Plesac is not really a big strike-out guy and he doesn’t strike out lefties at all but his DCPA K% against Detroit ranks very well and could bounce back vs them. In fact, after getting swept in Detroit, the Guardians are FOR CERTAIN sweeping the Tigers this weekend.
- Ian Anderson on the other hand does not have a good K% match-up but I still think there is a glimmer of hope for him to have some big games down the stretch and if Atlanta keeps him in the rotation then he’s going to win us some money in the 2nd half of the season, maybe even tonight.
- Andre Pallante, Tyler Wells and Hunter Greene might all be curious flavors to try out again tonight. I’m not gonna be that bold, give me the Vanilla with Sprinkles and I’ll have a nice summer July Friday night.
[spacer height=”12px”]
GUARDIANS
Josh Naylor, Jose Ramirez, Nolan Jones, Andres Gimenez
Cleveland had 1 base runner per inning last time they saw Hutchinson and 12 of the 20 batters hit line drives off him. They managed to score a grand total of ONE run in that game and back at home I believe the fortunes will favor them much more strongly tonight for another easy win where they find a way to roll over the lineup and post multiple crooked number innings.
Who else can’t wait for the Tigers to deploy a position player two days before the All-Star break to “save” their bullpen arms tonight? Lets go.
WHITE SOX
Tim Anderson, Luis Robert, Jose Abreu
Good dew point in this game and likely another over today. Smeltzer has continued to give up too many HR/Fly Balls to RH power bats which he will see throughout the White Sox lineup. But then they are the White Sox, so who the hell knows what drama they come up with tonight. Timmay and Robert figure to be the most likely to have huge games.
ROCKIES
Connor Joe, Kris Bryant, CJ Cron, Jose Iglesias
Colorado is playing pretty good Baseball right now, especially at home, and they always find a way to finish above .500 at Coors Field which I think gets overlooked in DFS too much. They will win games here and they’ve been at home all week and now get a team coming from South Beach in the Pirates with Jose Quintana who is EXTREMELY due for a start where he barely makes it out of the first inning
[spacer height=”12px”]
Other good hitting targets
Houston – I normally fade Houston at home, but we might have some really good value here if Altuve is out as well. Cole Irvin is really bad away from Oakland and any RHH he faces who has an ISO over .150 is going to be a reasonable play. Look for Pena, Diaz and McCormick to benefit here and if Altuve is out we will monitor the top of the order for our best value play tonight.
Atlanta – I’m not gonna check game logs or anything but it does feel like Atlanta is in the midst of possibly homering at least once a night for 30 straight games or so because with Swanson, Olson, Riley all doing it every third day they’re managing to fill in around when Harris, Acuna, Ozuna, Duvall, TDA homer. Speaking of which, feels like TDA and Acuna are more than due — especially Acuna for a lead off homer tonight.
Toronto – This will be a chalk stack tonight. Not loving it TBH but not hating some Jays.
Pittsburgh – Hell yes we are playing the Pirates in Coors, what kind of question is that?
[spacer height=”12px”]
CATCHER
- Travis d’Arnaud
- Elias Diaz
- Martin Maldanado
[spacer height=”12px”]
FIRST BASE
- Daniel Vogelbach – Big Vogey for $3400 on DraftKings in Coors vs Marquez. Yes, sign me up my friends.
- Jose Abreu
- Josh Naylor
[spacer height=”12px”]
SECOND BASE
Both Jose Altuve and Trevor Story playing tonight would rank at the top of this list, but we do have some cheaper guys who fit within our stacks.
- Andres Gimenez
- Brendan Rodgers
- Tommy Edman
[spacer height=”12px”]
THIRD BASE
Contrarian position today. If you are on FD the play is Nolan Jones, but Matt Chapman is also a decent mid range option. Arenado, Ramirez and Devers are the three big studs here who can all hit one out tonight given their match-ups, but it’s Friday, so we go with Nolan at the top.
- Nolan Arenado
- Matt Chapman … You should see the size of Matt Chapmans eyes when he realizes he gets a pitcher who is throwing it slow enough that he can hit it.
- Jose Ramirez
[spacer height=”12px”]
SHORTSTOP
Reminder for the 10000th time, it’s guys who can hit it into the gaps and down the lines in Coors who turn doubles and in the case of Cruz triples into play. Dont give me shit about Dan Vogelbach either, that mother fucker is a Gazelle in an Elephant’s body and he will run your ass over for two doubles tonight. Anyways, back to SS. Cruz, Pena value, or pray Bichette times his 100 mph swing against Greinke’s 57 mph change.
- Oneil Cruz
- Jeremy Pena
- Bo Bichette – swings so hard that he can probably swing four times on the same pitch and hit it by the time it makes it home.
[spacer height=”12px”]
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
JD Martinez can hit it out to RF in Yankee Stadium, play his HR prop all weekend. The others are musts in the stacks above.
- Luis Robert
- Nolan Jones – Free Square on DK
- Connor Joe
- J.D. Martinez
[spacer height=”12px”]
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Ronald Acuna
- Andrew Vaughn (FD)
- Juan Soto
- Kris Bryant
[spacer height=”12px”]
OUTFIELD – Value
- Chas McCormick
- Hunter Renfroe
- Alex Kiriloff
- Adam Duvall
[spacer height=”12px”]
- Daniel Vogelbach – 1B – Pirates – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- JD Martinez – OF – Red Sox
- Nolan Arenado – 3B – Cardinals
- Tim Anderson – SS – White Sox
- Travis d’Arnaud – C – Braves
- Tommy Edman – 2B – Cardinals
- Luis Robert – OF – White Sox
- Connor Joe – OF – Rockies
- BONUS ……………….. Nolan Jones – 3B/OF – Guardians
[spacer height=”12px”]
CORE PLAYS
SP – Clayton Keeershaw
1B – Daniel Vogelbach
SS – Tim Anderson
3B/OF – Nolan Jones (Depending on which site you are on)
[spacer height=”20px”]
BETTING PLAYS
Red Sox / Yankees OVER 0.5 1st inning but then the game will go under 10.5, so if you see in game hit the in game under. No juiced balls tonight.
Toronto / Cleveland / St. Louis ML Parlay
Pirates/Rockies OVER 10.5
Dodgers / Rockies ML Parlay
[spacer height=”20px”]