Saturdays in the Spring. The sounds of lawn equipment firing up early in the morning, birds chirping non stop, making pancakes and FanDuel rolling out as many slates as humanly possible to ruin the day.
Fortunately they only did three today, but we did not get any site synchronicity as DraftKings opted for a GOOD early slate starting at 1PM. It’s larger than the 7PM slate, but I have considered this to be early with 7PM being the Main slate.
This article covers 1PM.
WEATHER
All clear. We do have some wind going OUT in New York, Kansas City & Cincinnati.
Overall this pitching slate is fairly boring for massive upside plays, so we find ourselves gravitating towards the dont get blown up options.
ERICK FEDDE (DK: $7700)
It’s a shame these two teams can’t play 162 against each other. I really cannot stand either lineup and won’t try to sell you that Fedde is anything more than give me a 12 on DraftKings and move along. He shouldn’t walk many guys & will give us 6 innings.
JOE RYAN (DK: $8800)
I am 100% out on Joe Ryan, he has far too often been inconsistent but lets get this scar out of the way as quickly as we can. On a yucky pitching slate I will opt to go with a double stack on SP from the same game. The Cardinals lineup shouldn’t be one to not swing and miss, so I don’t see how he wont have 5+ strikeouts.
OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS …
- Max Fried, Justin Verlander, Nestor Cortes and Jesus Luzardo all get the do not touch on their new team treatment. I would say the same for Max, but you aren’t using Max against Baltimore after he complained about his thumb all spring. Among these however, Luzardo is the best play because the Nationals aren’t going to be as strong vs LHP.
- Gavin Williams: All eyes on Gavin Williams for me today. He was the pretty boy hyped up in the Spring but I still have some “show me” questions if he can avoid nibbling whenever he gets tired in the 3rd or 4th inning of a game.
BLUE JAYS
The tradition of Blue Jays home games on Saturday’s and them going off is due to come alive with Dean Kremer taking the mound for Baltimore. Throw in Anthony Saturday Santander in his first Toronto Saturday home game, Bo Bichette looking okay and I like Toronto to put up big numbers.
Santander, Bichette, Springer
RAYS
Good for Antonio Senzatela, the guy has made over $43M in his career and is signed through 2027. What a life. There’s almost no expectations for him to be good and yet the Rockies are just like, hey, go throw 80 pitches for us today. Give up 3 or 4 runs, maybe a solo shot to Brandon Lowe and then go hit the showers. Thanks, bud. The guy probably doesn’t even speak English. What a life… He’s basically the Rockies version of Jesse Chavez.
B.Lowe, Caminero, Diaz
BREWERS vs YANKEES
Some traditions have to be broken and the Yankee Saturday afternoon unders feels like it’s run its course. I cannot back it here today and will be invested in this first game but more so from an individual standpoint chasing homers. I could envision this one finishing up 5-3 with 5 solo homers.
The other side in this game has Hoskins and the Brewers who WILL hit Max Fried today. Fried is an annual slow starter, Hoskins is Mr. Saturday afternoon now and there’s gonna be fireworks there. But lets not be silly. The real meat here is the Yanks vs Nestor Cortes.
MIL: Hoskins, Contreras, Chourio
NYY: Goldschmidt, Judge, Dominguez
OTHER HITTING TARGETS
- GIANTS/REDS: What will Justin Verlander do? That’s the big question here. No, I’m not saying he is an elite pitcher, but he isn’t a moron still. I think he can avoid getting rocked. Small park with decent weather however makes this a good secondary target too.
CATCHER
Most of the teams going today were off yesterday so I would expect the starters to play in these day games. Catchers are raking early as usual and I definitely think it has something to do with them just having more eyes on pitches at this point than anyone else. #RennerLogic
- William Contreras
- Adley Rutschman
- JT Realmuto
- Korey Lee
FIRST BASE
Someone at DraftKings is anti-stacking. They have made Schwarber 1B only, which means if you want to stack Schwarber and Harper together … you cannot. Throw in that 1B is loaded today and we have ourselves quite the conundrum.
- Rhys Hoskins – Mr. Saturday
- Paul Goldschmidt – Feels like the most obvious HR call of the week.
- Vlad Guerrero Jr.
SECOND BASE
- Brandon Lowe
- Michael Massey
- Andres Gimenez
THIRD BASE
- Matt Chapman
- Ryan McMahon
- Junior Caminero
SHORTSTOP
- Bo Bichette
- Xavier Edwards
- Jackson Holliday
OUTFIELD – Tier 1
- Anthony Santander
- Aaron Judge
- Mike Trout
- George Springer
OUTFIELD – Tier II and Value
- Heliot Ramos
- Josh Lowe
- Colton Cowser
- Anthony Santander – OF – Toronto Blue Jays – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Rhys Hoskins – 1B – Brewers
- Aaron Judge – OF – Yankees
- William Contreras – C – Brewers
- Brandon Lowe – 2B – Rays
- Matt Chapman – 3B – Giants
- Heliot Ramos – OF – Giants
- Bo Bichette – SS – Blue Jays
- BONUS … Paul Goldschmidt – 1B – Yankees
TOP BETS
Rockies / Rays OVER 8
Phillies / Nationals UNDER 9
Guardians / Royals UNDER 8.5
Cardinalns ML +110
Brewers ML +140