WEATHER
Chilly in pretty much all the spots today. One day it’s 85 and feels like 100, the next day you wake up and its 35 degrees in the morning, Spring. Fun…
All games play
This fine Sunday brings us aces like deGrom, Kershaw, Burnes and Fried. It features the return of Zach Eflin to the mound, Kevin Gausman in Yankee Stadium and E-Rod in Baltimore. Young stars Hunter Greene and Grayson Rodriguez are on the bump and so too are veterans Lucas Giolito and Marcus Stroman. And of course, we have the holy trinity on a Sunday with Cristian Javier, Jesus Luzardo and Patrick Corbin.
JACOB deGROM
I may just start using this exact write up going forward for every deGrom start… It does not matter who he plays, where they play and what day or time they are playing. Using deGrom is a guessing game. The guess is how many pitches will he throw and does that result compared to the rest of the options on the slate make you comfortable enough using him. Will he throw 40 pitches and get you 12? Will he throw 90 pitches and get you 40? Or is it somewhere in between. I don’t care if he is facing Oakland, Kansas City, Toronto, Houston or the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, it’s entirely a guessing game on how much he will pitch and today I think he’s in the 70-75 range and puts up a 28-30 on DK.
MAX FRIED
I actually would consider Max #1 today and with the depth on pitching I don’t hate coming off deGrom and starting your build with him at around 5% ownership tops? We are many years now into knowing that you simply do not touch Fried in his first 2-3 starts of the season and since he went on the IL and burned through a few of those we got everyone to forget just how good he can be. He showed that in his return on April 17 vs San Diego, going 5 IP, throwing 79 pitches and dominating his command with 0 BB.
Houston still scares people because of their name and lack of strikeouts, but the Braves will avoid the sweep with Fried going into the 90’s on his PC today and delivering once again.
HUNTER GREENE
Greene off a start when he didn’t last long feels like a GREAT time to buy into him. Anytime we get a high velo guy like this who who was under 60 pitches (he was 47) I feel like they should have a great bounce back next time out. Pittsburgh’s been good yes, and they have veteran bats who should keep them competitive, but also with veterans come guys who simply cant touch the heat anymore (Santana, Cutch) and thus I expect Greene to have 8+ strikeouts today.
The entire world will likely rush to the Twins (who did get whooped vs a LHP recently) in cold Target Field vs Patrick Corbin and while there are a couple hitters I can see having big games there I’m steering to some other spots for full stacks today.
RANGERS
Semien, Grossman, N.Lowe, Josh Jung
At this point we just wake up and ask who is facing Oakland and try to jump on that train. The Athletics have been outscored by 100 runs on the season have a bullpen WHIP of 1.68 and ERA of 7.13 and Kyle Muller their SP today is good for 7-10 hits allowed almost every start. Hard not to like Texas to have some long innings today.
TIGERS
UPDATE: Maton is out and I can now confirm that Javy Baez not only hates me but is also a Dongers Club reader because within minutes of the article posting he immediately has been scratched from the lineup. There might be a whole 4 slates per year when I love Baez and today was one and now he is scratched. Spencer Torkelson did the same f’n thing last year. The Tigers are dead to me. I hope that they forever remember the time Mike Sweeney kicked the shit out of Jeff Weaver as their shitty franchise in a shitty city rots like a Sunday morning shit after eating Taco’s and drinking IPA’s all Saturday night. Go to hell Detroit. And by hell, I mean go back home.
Maton, Greene, Baez, Carpenter
Grayson Rodriguez is going to be great, I firmly believe this. He isn’t great yet though and comfortable hitting conditions today along with him still figuring out the ropes gives us a cheap lineup to use with the Tigers today.
RAYS
B.Lowe, Franco, J.Lowe
I really do not see the Rays suddenly slowing down offensively and the White Sox bullpen had a good day yesterday which adds even more to the probability that things to sideways today in a hurry for the ChiSox. Besides, who doesn’t want to knock out the perfect Sunday with a trip to COSTCO and your favorite home improvement warehouse (Lowes)?
Other teams I would look at strongly
- Orioles
- Brewers
- White Sox
CATCHER
- A good day to punt catcher, so once lineups are out we can look to find a backup 2K catcher and just punt that…
- William Contreras
- Mike Zunino
FIRST BASE
- Ryan Mountcastle
- Brandon Belt
- Anthony Rizzo
- Nathaniel Lowe
SECOND BASE
So here’s the breakdown. Polanco is a one off from the Twins because he’s the bat that should smash Corbin the most that I don’t think others will consider (unless of course they jump him up to #2 in the order or something). Meanwhile Semien is NOT a one off play because he’s more likely to do heavy damage vs the bullpen or if he gets to come up with men on base vs Muller. And if you want to consider anything besides those two, then good luck, but obviously Sunday Brandon Lowe in a Rays stack is worth paying for.
- Jorge Polanco
- Marcus Semien
- Brandon Lowe
THIRD BASE
- Nick Maton
- Josh Jung
- Jose Miranda … Surely will be the optimizer chalk across the industry today.
SHORTSTOP
- Javier Baez
- Willy Adames
- Carlos Correa
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Daulton Varsho
- Austin Hays
- Aaron Judge … He is homering today, might not be needed in DFS because of his price, but he will homer.
- Riley Greene
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Harold Ramirez
- Jake Fraley
- Jorge Soler
OUTFIELD – Value
- Robbie Grossman
- Eloy Jimenez
- Jesse Winker
- Kerry Carpenter
- Daulton Varsho – OF – Blue Jays – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Austin Hays – OF – Orioles
- Jorge Polanco – 2B – Twins
- Jorge Soler – OF – Marlins
- Willy Adames – SS – Brewers
- Nick Maton – 3B – Tigers
- Ryan Mountcastle – 1B – Orioles
- Nobody – C
- BONUS ………. Aaron Judge – OF – Yankees
FAVORITE BET(s)
- Reds ML
- Astros/Braves under 8
- Tigers/Orioles over 8
- White Sox/Rays over 7.5
TOP PROP(s) OF THE DAY
- Max Fried OVER 4.5 strikeouts
- Vincent Velasquez under 5.5 strikeouts