Last time I checked there were still 30 teams in Major League Baseball. Yet, here we are, on a Friday in August and there are just 28 of them who are in play for some stupid reason. No, it’s not the Field of Dreams game, because that is coming next week, instead we have the Athletics and Giants off today. I know you are all very, very upset about this.
WEATHER
Couple spots to monitor in the Northeast tonight, both games should wind up getting played though as it’s just storms rolling through
- Astros at Yankees — 50-60% chance of rain throughout the game. I do like a SP here, so we have to monitor it…
- Blue Jays at Red Sox — Not using SP here, it’ll be humid, ball should jump and wind carries out to LCF too. Slight chance of rain early and then a pop up thunderstorm.
REID DETMERS
The Mariners have the second highest K% on the slate, the 6th highest over the last week and rank 30th in all of MLB against what Detmers should throw 50% of the time tonight. He’s setup to dominate as he usually pitches well at home too.
LOGAN C. ALLEN
We’re staying in the mid range but not going down too low on pitching tonight. Andrew Heaney just carved up these damn morons from the south side, so Logan C. Allen at home is no concern for me ither. The White Sox with a heavy RHH lineup project for a fairly low .134 ISO against LcA, so the risk here should be low.
HUNTER BROWN
Normally this is probably where I would get cold feet and run away from a SP against a bad offense that burned me the night before. F*** it though. New York blows, give me Hunter Brown here, he’s not limited and he is showing no signs of not being able to push through for 6 innings and 7+ strikeouts today if he can avoid a rain delay.
OTHER NOTES …
- James Paxton in Canada vs the Jays? Yes. James Paxton at home vs the Jays? Heck no.
- Aaron Nola is likely to get 20 on the white hot Royals today. Kinda think he is fine for use on FanDuel, but how can I fade the Royals right now??? HOW?
- Bobby Miller will give up a homer to Fernando Tatis, but still do decent. Yu Darvish has a nice 28.3% strikeout rate (adjusted for recent sample size) against lefties, and the Dodgers rank 28th vs RHP Sweepers but 3rd against RHP sliders. Lots of iffy signs there with Darvish. This game is a nice late/tilt slate stack spot (Muncy/Mookie/Peralta/Tatis), but most those guys are too expensive for the main slate.
BLUE JAYS
Springer, Vlad, Chapman, DeJong
Big time buy low spot on Toronto. Historically in prior seasons we would take Teoscar Hernandez and Bo Bichette anytime they came into Fenway, but Teoscar remains 6 feet underground in Seattle and Bo is unfortunately on the IL. No fear, the George Springer weekend is here, he’ll hit a home run tomorrow night in the first inning, which should be at 15-20% ownership after he has a 2-double, 3 RBI night tonight.
CARDINALS
Arenado, O’Neill
Really want to go full Cardinals tonight against Chris Flexen, this is a smash and destroy spot for Arenado and Tyler O’Neill is too hot to fade tonight.
TWINS
Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco, Edouard Julien
I bet you did not see this one coming. The team who has been failing every night it seems as a top stack on the model the last week comes in under the radar vs a good but not great Merrill Kelly and Arizona. This D’Backs pen had a nice Thursday but over the last week is posting an ERA just under 5 and showing cracks in the middle innings. If Minnesota can get plenty men on and make MK work then I see no reason they won’t post good double digit DK scores.
Other spots giving me interest today and why …
- Rockies … It’s Waino. It’s Tovar, McMahon and Rodgers. It’s … Nolan Jones who should be hitting clean up. It’s too obvious, no?
- Royals/Phillies: A relatively young lineup should go cold on the road against a veteran SP like Nola. But Witt and Melendez really stand out tonight, Salvy should homer 2x this weekend and if you go full Royals that means Garcia/Massey have good games too. Harper homers on the other side against Jordan Lyles… I mean, he has too, right?
- Pirates … ‘Return the blowout’ theory against a vulnerable SP. The Pirates actually had Houser on the ropes early last night and then went full Pirates. Maybe they can give us more than 1 inning of production today, maybe???
CATCHER
August, the time when Mitchell C. Garver the III comes back into our lives it seems. He’s got the power and Luzardo has known to make HR mistakes before. Nice cheap spot if you want to pivot off a stack spot elsewhere. Good night for the men behind the dish.
- Mitch Garver
- Willson Contreras
- Salvador Perez
- David Fry
FIRST BASE
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr
- Bryce Harper
- Alfonso Rivas
SECOND BASE
- Jorge Polanco
- Nolan Gorman
- Jake Burger
THIRD BASE
Strongest position among the IF spots tonight.
- Nolan Arenado
- Rafael Devers
- Matt Chapman
- Ryan McMahon
SHORTSTOP
- Bobby Witt Jr
- Paul DeJong
- Carlos Correa
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- George Springer
- Masataka Yoshida
- Tyler O’Neill
- Nolan Jones
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Bryan Reynolds
- Byron Buxton
- Jarren Duran
OUTFIELD – Value
- MJ Melendez
- Jack Suwinski
- Bryan De La Cruz
- Nolan Arenado – 3B – Cardinals – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Bryce Harper – 1B – Phillies
- Tyler O’Neill – OF – Cardinals
- Jarren Duran – OF – Red Sox
- Salvador Perez – C – Royals
- Carlos Correa – SS – Twins
- Jake Burger – 2B – Marlins
- Nolan Jones – OF – Rockies
- BONUS …………… Matt Chapman – 3B – Blue Jays
TODAY’S BETTING ANALYSIS
Good Over Upside — Meaning these have best potential to go way over…
- Rockies/Cardinals
- Blue Jays/Red Sox
- Marlins/Rangers
Good Under Upside — Meaning best potential to be a 2-1 or 5-2 type game.
- Mets/Orioles
- Mariners/Angels
ML Targets
- Orioles -162
- Royals +200
- Marlins +118
- Twins -130
- Angels -102