SLATE NOTES
We made it through all the off-season rule changes, the hot stove season and of course the World Baseball Classic. Now it is time to rip this bandaid off and see what the MLB season has in store for us.
Here are my quick thoughts on the rules changes and their impact
Pitch Clock: I love the concept of guys stepping into the box and on the mound and going. It’s like the golfer who gets up to their shot and takes 5 practice swings, re adjusts, looks at the hole, back at the ball and over and over and then just duffs one 30 yards forward while you wait to hit your 283 yard drive. Lets go, chop chop. But I hate the concept of enforcing rules such as called balls and strikes in key situations and I don’t think it was that necessary as much as the players just needed to really self police themselves better.
My guess is that it will impact some hitters and some pitchers, everyone differently and in the end the pitchers will be the ones who adjust faster than the hitters. Hitters are more likely to choke up and try to just put the ball in play deeper in counts and thus we might see a reduction in homers and an increase in base hits.
I believe the limit on throw overs to first base is going to burn relievers. They’re the ones who take the longest with pitch times generally and have the fewest depth of pitches for the base runner to guess what they are throwing. This, combined with teams being more aggressive late with the lead is going to result in most of the steals boosts coming off bullpens. And yes, there will be a steals boost. Mostly for the guys who were already running and run fast. They’ll just go more often now, but you still gotta get on base to steal.
The shift is going to be a minimal impact. Why? The only thing the shift was preventing were singles. So maybe some more hits and RBI ops go up for lefties. Maybe some more steals too for those guys, but generally these were home run hitters that were being punished and those numbers won’t change. It’s a minimal impact.
For DFS today we have site synchronicity! Amazing that both sites chose to include the 1PM games, and although some contest selection decisions are weak on FanDuel I am pleased that this article can cover the same 11 game slate on both sites.
WEATHER
So nice of The Weather Channel to do an Opening Day graphic for the cities with opening day games in them. Obviously Houston and Arlington will have roofs to protect them from precipitation and I am going to go ahead and say it … All games play!
Most games are chilly as expected this time of year, but no snow like we saw in Detroit recently. There is some wind to deal with today, most notably in these spots
- Twins at Royals: 15+ MPH winds out to LF
- Giants at Yankees: 10+ MPH out to RF
- Orioles at Red Sox: 10+ MPH out to LF
All in all, you can move about your DFS process today without worrying about weather too much — which is very rare for opening day because normally we have ice cold temps in some spots and rain in others.
Obviously the following games being played in domes are worth slight consideration for hitting: DET/TB, PHI/TEX, NYM/MIA, but it is Opening Day and most teams are rolling out Ace pitchers.
NOTE: Rockies/Padres has been pushed back due to rain, but the game will play.
WHAT TO EXPECT
A few Opening Day theories out there for you.
#1. There will be blown saves, usually by the road teams and no closer is immune to this.
#2. Unders and Underdogs dominate in April, but unders on Opening Day always scare me because who the hell knows which “special” baseballs we might get. But the dogs will win more in April than any other time.
#3. Although I don’t love paying for ‘Ace’ pitchers in April, they’re all cheap so that’s somewhat negated. The logic here is that even Ace pitchers do not go 110 pitches this early in the season, so that extra 1-2k that you pay for them is negated because their ceiling is negated compared to a mid range SP.
GERRIT COLE
Things didn’t exactly go as planned this Spring for the Yankees starting rotation with Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino getting banged up, so the weight gets put even more onto the shoulders of Cole and normally I’m not one to automatically jump on an inter-league match-up but I don’t like anything about the Giants offense. Sure, this is in theory one of the better ‘lefty’ park shifts out there, but not many SP’s today come in off a better Spring Training groove than Cole who logged 27 K over 21 IP and 5 starts down in the Grapefruit Spring Circuit. Keep Wade off the bases at the top of the order and he should have no problem with Conforto, Crawford, Yaz later on.
MAX SCHERZER
For $1700 less than Max there’s logic to just taking Shane McClanahan against a strikeout happy Tigers lineup. I get that, but Max is in an almost identical spot vs the Marlins and as long as they roll out Soler, Cooper and Avisail in the heart of the order I won’t worry about them just running wild on him today.
His second full season in New York is going to start off with a bang, trust the stud against the fish.
MARCUS STROMAN
Stroman is one of the pitchers who was in the WBC, but really wasn’t there very long so do not try to overthink him or other guys like him.
You’re probably like, seriously? I got a slate with deGrom, Alcantara, Max, McClanahan, Burnes, Manoah, Webb and you’ll have hte nerve to mention Marcus Stroman?
Yes. Yes, I am sir. These Brewers are baaaad. I’ll buy into the Winker resurgence either when he is in St. Louis or Cincinnati and don’t think William Contreras is as good as his spurts were in Atlanta. This leaves an overrated and not gonna bounce back Christian Yelich, Willy Adames and Rowdy Tellez. Given the HR reducing weather and Stromans likely slider usage here, I’ll buy into him cruising through 5+ IP, getting a win and having 5+ strikeouts along the way.
Really like but wont bother using
- Shane McClanahan … The Rays may still treat him with a quick pull IMO. Max will beat him with 1 more IP and 1-2 more strikeouts for sure.
Wont use because I dont trust pitchers making first start with a new team
- Jacob deGrom, Pablo Lopez, Kyle Gibson
Cincinnati Reds
Jonathan India, Tyler Stephenson, Wil Myers, TJ Freidl, Jake Fraley
Someone will win this game folks. My Reds? Yes? I am all in on the Reds as a sleeper team, which isn’t saying much given the expectations are that they win under 70 games. Bottom line here is that we’ve got the best hitters park on the slate, with solid hitting conditions for April (low 60’s is nice Opening Day weather) and not gonna blow you away Mitch Keller on the bump for the Pie-rats.
Tampa Bay Rays
Harold Ramirez, Randy Arozarena, Wander Franco
Look folks, this might be one of the ten times all season we load up Tampa Bay, or maybe they shock me and turn into a consistent offense but I doubt that. I’ll pick on Eduardo Rodriguez and a bullpen that is still not deep with arm talent. Plus, Tampa is a lineup which is going to win by putting the ball in play, something that should play well early in the year.
Wander Franco got banged up late in Spring, but says he is good to go here, I would leave him off for Margot if you want to limit the Rays stack
Philadelphia Phillies / Texas Rangers
Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber / Corey Seager, Nate Lowe, Josh Jung
Long ago when Greinke first went to the Diamondbacks we developed the Greinke theory, which is to attack a high name SP in his first home start with a new team. I’m not pulling the trigger on the Phillies vs deGrom here, but I do like some Rangers bats and expect this game in the dome to go over the 6.5 total and both sides have good HR upside.
CATCHER
- Tyler Stephenson … Was a great offensive threat when healthy back in ’21
- Sean Murphy
- Elias Diaz … It’s not in Coors, but the model absolutely loves his matchup vs Snell today.
FIRST BASE
- Harold Ramirez
- Jake Cronenworth
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr
SECOND BASE
Don’t love India overall but at the top of the order for my top offense today is enough to give him the #1 spot here.
- Jonathan India
- Brendan Donovan
- Brandon Lowe
- Nick Gordon
THIRD BASE
- Josh Jung
- Austin Riley
- Manny Machado
- Yandy Diaz
SHORSTOP
- Corey Seager
- Oneil Cruz
- Gunnar Henderson
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Randy Arozarena
- Jake Fraley
- Byron Buxton … I honestly wish he was leading off and not Kepler, but Buxton’s gonna run if he gets on first and if he doesn’t get on then he probably doubled or homered.
- Juan Soto
OUTFIELD – Tier 2 / Value
- Manuel Margot
- Wil Myers
- TJ Freidl
- Alex Verdugo
- Austin Meadows
THE DONGERS CLUB
Go light chasing HR Props today… Weather isn’t ideal.
- Corey Seager – SS – Rangers – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Harold Ramirez – 1B – Rays
- Manny Machado – 3B – Padres
- Tyler Stephenson – C – Reds
- Jonathan India – 2B – Reds
- Byron Buxton – OF – Twins
- Jake Fraley – OF – Reds
- Alex Verdugo – OF – Red Sox
- BONUS ……………. Oneil Cruz – SS – Pirates
TOP BETS
- Phillies/Rangers over 6.5
- Tigers/Rays over 7
- Nationals ML (+220)
- Cubs ML (+126)
WINNERS PARLAY OF THE DAY
- Yankees, Nationals, Red Sox, Cubs, Rays, Rangers, Reds
TOP PROP(s) OF THE DAY
- Corey Kluber u4.5 strikeouts
- Max Fried u5.5 strikeouts
- Byron Buxton o0.5 stolen bases
Nobody is scoring 12 runs today, at least nobody you expect to do that. So really find that one core stack and build around that without forcing two stacks together.
You can get away without two elite SP’s, but it’s hard just because there are so many of them.
I would not go Stroman on FanDuel, there is no point.