Twelve games on the MAIN slate’s tonight with no Angels, Orioles, Pirates, Tigers, Nationals or Marlins.
Early Slate thoughts
- Angels/Orioles should go over. Love the Orioles 1-4 hitters.
- Nationals/Marlins is likely your SP stack… Actually, it’s no doubt the SP stack on this slate
- Pirates/Tigers over
Here’s my quick take on the Aaron Judge peeking over to the side incident last night. In case you missed it, in his 2nd AB the Toronto broadcast found it odd that he was peeking over to the side (towards the Yankee dugout/1B line) right before the pitch came and it immediately reminded me of this famous GIF
So here’s the deal. The pitcher, Jay Jackson, has basically thrown only two pitches in his MLB time, 4-Seam Fastball and a Slider. He had thrown 5 straight Sliders to Judge before the peek over and subsequent 2nd HR of the night by Judge. So why in the world would there be thoughts about him “tipping” a pitch here if the guy is throwing the EXACT same pitch over and over, not to mention he’s a bullpen guy and only throws two pitches — one of which is a f’n 4-seam Fastball.
Judge claims he was peeking over at his bench chirping and that is certainly plausible and I’ll buy it. But I also do not doubt that teams are trying to predict the pitch that a guy is throwing and in the case where it’s a reliever that the hitter certainly didn’t study for he might want some help from the bench of 1B coach about “what could be coming”.
With the pitch clock in place now, Judge can’t step out and casually have time to look over at the bench, he’s gotta do it faster, and they gotta process things faster. Ask yourself this, if a team KNEW that with historical data a pitcher had NEVER (or less than 2%) thrown the same pitch 3 times in a row, wouldn’t that be HUGE information to know?
I remember a scout in NFL talking about how in the early 2000’s there was an NFL Defensive Coordinator who had NEVER blized on consecutive plays all season long — and this was early December. That type of analytical information is MASSIVE to gain and what the analytics departments should be spending their time on, not “hey this guy hits X about 08% better than pitch Y, so we should go sign Darrin Ruf baby!” … Yes, that’s a jab at the Brewers)
p.s. Darin Ruf is on the Brewers now.
WEATHER
- SEA at BOS – 10-14 MPH winds out to CF
- TB at NYM – Same here, a little more windy in fact.
- CLE at CWS – Very solid hitting weather here, just without the ‘Chicago’ style wind
To put it plainly, yesterday was horrific. The pitching analysis was very lazy and casual on my end and not enough common sense, gotta be better.
CRISTIAN JAVIER
The Cubs are a lineup which Javier should be able to get a strong performance versus. He will give up power to one of these RHH (Swanson/Wisdom/Mancin) but this Cubs lineup is really bad vs RH Slider’s and 6+ strikeouts is easily achievable if he gets through the lineup 2x — which he very much should be able to do here.
We can live with that one solo HR or double he gives up in to the RHH above.
ZACK WHEELER
Wheeler is back to normal, he seems to have this stretch every year where he must be getting a good nights sleep as he just rolls out of bed and throws up 7 innings, 7 strikeouts and pretty much gives you exactly what you would expect. Two of his last three starts have been that way, and tonight he should make it 3 of 4 with no Joc Pederson in the heart of a bad Giants lineup that got a 6 spot in one inning yesterday – don’t be fooled. They’re ice cold.
TOMMY HENRY
We’re at the point where writing up a french poodle against the Athletics would not sound that crazy, so when you give us the gift of a SP going over 6 innings lately by pitching to contact for just $5,600 it’s hard to not bite.
No use going with Henry on FanDuel today, but that DK price and expected outcome here is a great SP2 pick.
Other SP Thoughts
- Clayton Kershaw – Should pitch just fine, $11k on DK is a no
- Kevin Gausman – Best pivot off Javier here for me today. Yankees are a good matchup for him to go over on strikeouts, but that’s a better prop pick than DFS play.
- Chase Anderson is BACK and he is in Coors as the home SP. Facing the Reds for $5200 might be a temptation for Mr. Bullwinkle as I call him because you never know what you’ll get if he can try to pull a rabbit out of his hat and magically not get hit. Ew though.
- Seth Lugo ($8,000) and Jordan Montgomery ($7,400) will pitch fine. Not their night for DFS winning builds though with limited upside.
RANGERS
Adolis Garcia (OF), Josh Jung (3B), Corey Seager (SS)
Sometimes I write up blurbs early in the morning and when a SP or lineup changes it annoys me if I am not going to be able to updated it. That’s what happened with these teams yesterday but we lucked out on the Braves still going off.
Tonight Dane Dunning is finally going for Texas, and while I like some ATL bats again, I want to jump on Texas vs Jared Shuster and a probable mediocre bullpen night for Atlanta.
Seager didn’t return last night, but remains on course to be back very soon. If he is a go, I will use him even vs the LHP starter tonight.
ROCKIES
Jurickson Profar (OF), Randal Grichuk (OF), Alan Trejo (2B)
A rookie making his debut in Coors. No, check that, a tall lefty rookie who has had command issues in the minors making his debut in Coors. This is first three innings disaster tonight. Rookies SP’s struggle early, tall pitchers take longer, tall lefties? Jesus, remember Daniel Lynch? Yeah, this isn’t a great idea Cincinnati.
Having a Rockie who is 6-7-8 or 9 tonight is a must. They’ll be up to do the kill shot once or twice.
GUARDIANS
Josh Bell or Josh Naylor, Julio Rodriguez, Steven Kwan
*** UPDATE – Jose Ramirez OUT – Bereavement list – This lowers them on the STACK upside ***
The Guardians aren’t are great offense in 2023, however Josh Naylor is heating up and this is a great spot for Josh Bell as well. The way Chicago’s bullpen is this year we can get a few good crooked innings to have Cleveland finish with 7+ runs.
Other Teams in Nice Spots … Just all are $$$
Toronto (Bichette/Vlad/Chapman)
Seattle (Teo/Julio/Kelenic/Suarez)
Atlanta (Riley/Olson)
Best Value Stacks
Cleveland
Colorado (Sadly)
Arizona
CATCHER
- Gabriel Moreno
- Elias Diaz
- Jonah Heim
FIRST BASE
- Josh Naylor and Josh Bell … Cleveland has been known to PH for Naylor in the past, which bothers me but he comes in hot right now and much like Bell has a favorable advantage against Lynn. Both are behind Jose Ramirez which only adds to the RBI upside tonight. I would use both on FD in CLE stacks.
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
SECOND BASE
Couple decent cheap options today and there’s no 2B that grades out above a 70 on the model tonight, so I don’t really see a need to go spend up at this position. While Marcus Semien is decent, at $5800 it’s tough to load him into a full TEX stack and also have good SP options, but he for sure is the top 2B overall today.
- Marcus Semien
- Alan Trejo
- Kolten Wong
THIRD BASE
We got the Riley HR last night, we also got Bregman and Suarez HR which were itching closer as well, and oh yeah, Nolan Arenado …. still the GOAT
Today though I’ll bank on the side of law of averages that none of those guys go yard again (although Suarez is a sneaky one), and rather some other due guys are gonna go off, namely Jose “Bubba Gump” Ramirez
*** UPDATE – Jose Ramirez OUT – Bereavement list ***
Jose Ramirez- Josh Jung
- Rafael Devers
SHORTSTOP
- Bo Bichette … How is he only $5200 vs German who gives up plenty of HR to RHH?
- Corey Seager
- Dansby Swanson
- Matt McLain … Still 2k min price on DK, and now in the FD player pool. Hate it DK. Hate it!
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
$5 to the person who finds me someones content today that lists the top OF and has something like (Acuna, Judge, Julio, Adolis, COORS, Harper, Soto, Mookie, Tatis) as their top OF…. No crap, if you like the pay up guys, pick one and go, mine is Adolis today although Julio is VERY close 2nd.
- Teoscar Hernandez
- Jurickson Profar
- Adolis Garcia
- Jake Fraley
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Julio Rodriguez
- Jarred Kelenic
- Randal Grichuk
- George Springer
- Steven Kwan
OUTFIELD – Value
- Jake Bauers … If leading off at 2K I don’t mind that with such little OF value today
- Dylan Carlson
- Edward Olivares
- Josh Naylor – 1B – Guardians – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Jonah Heim – C – Rangers
- Jose Ramirez – 3B – Guardians
- Bo Bichette – SS – Blue Jays
- Jurickson Profar – OF – Rockies
- Alan Trejo – 2B – Rockies
- Jake Fraley – OF – Reds
- Adolis Garcia – OF – Rangers
- Bonus & Co-Chairman … Teosco Tuesday Hernandez – OF – Mariners
TODAY’S TOP BET(s)
K Prop Parlay:
- Seth Lugo over 4.5
- Luis Castillo over 4.5
Over 0.5 Hits Parlay:
- Adolis Garcia over 0.5
- Matt Chapman over 0.5
- Josh Naylor over 0.5
- Jarred Kelenic over 0.5
Best Dog ML:
- Brewers +152
Best Total:
- Braves/Rangers over 10