Welcome to another Friday edition of The Dongers Club, we have a fantastic slate of games this weekend and a good 14-game Friday Main slate tonight on both sites. New series are beginning with the return of games in Camden Yards, Coors Field, Target Field, Comiskey* and everyone’s favorite dumpster — Tropicana Field.
There are a good number of non divisional match-ups this weekend and so far those are still the higher scoring series in most situations. The divisional spots we have this weekend are
- Washington at New York Mets
- Kansas City at Detroit
- Toronto at Tampa Bay
- LA Angels at Houston
- Cincinnati at St. Louis
- San Diego at LA Dodgers
WEATHER
There are no weather concerns tonight from a PPD/Rain risk perspective and no games with wind concerns that are worrisome (11+ in Citi Field but it’s deGrom on the hill on one side, so who cares). All temperature conditions are comfortable as well. Dare I say, a quiet weather evening?
Roof probably closed in Houston
JACOB deGROM
See the guy in the picture above? He’s finally going to win a game tonight, but it would be so fitting if deGrom finally got run support in a game where he somehow gives up 2-ER in the first inning to a terrible Nationals offense right now. Heck, he could walk the first two guys, let them steal every base and score and still finish as the highest scoring pitcher tonight. The only fear with deGrom would be …. yeah no, I have nothing to come up with. Not even the Mets can fuck this up… or can they? Hey look, I just rolled through 15-30 seconds of your time to say — play deGrom again until he is 12k+.
TYLER GLASNOW
Glasnow has been very good this season and really has just continued his progression forward into a true Ace for the Rays. With him now going 6+ innings in three of his first four starts we’ve gotten past concerns about how reliable he can be to achieve a Quality Start or put up a slate breaking score. He’s put up a 47 already this year when he dominated Texas and the Blue Jays are a better offense overall but they still have a few kids who will hack away early and often, which will keep Glasnow in a favorable pitch count scenario and allow him to factor into the equation for us tonight.
MIKE MINOR
As a team the Tigers are hitting .174 with 1 HR and a 30% strikeout rate against LHP this season. The majority of the players who factor into those totals will be in the lineup tonight, so for $6,900 we have a pitcher who usually will go 6 IP and most of his problems have been on Fly Balls this year which even in a big outfield like Detroit should still play to his advantage so long as the Royals defense doesn’t have another bad defensive game.
Big slate, so there are some other SP who look good tonight
- Jordan Montgomery: I’d rather just take Glasnow for $900 more, but I expect him to pitch well vs Cleveland
- Dylan Cease: The pivot off Minor if you are scared off Minor for some weird reason
- Sandy Alcantara: Mostly a late slate play. He’s not gonna be able to match the studs tonight for upside and is facing Giants 2nd time in a week — but 16-18 fpts is reasonable projection.
- Steven Matz: Tampa weaker vs LHP
ATHLETICS
Update – No Canha tonight, look at Laureano in 1 hole instead.
The hottest team in Baseball just keeps finding ways to win and if history is any indication of the trust we can have with Oakland then we know we love them in the first game on east coast series and then they cool off. The park shift is the best of any American League team as they go from big Coliseum to Camden Yards and the pitching matchup is extremely favorable as well against Jorge Lopez. Matt Chapman and Matt Olson provide the big HR pop and Mark Canha is a virtual must whenever you want to stack Oakland lately. Focus on those three as the primary plays.
D’BACKS
We had anticipated the Diamondbacks would get hot and unfortunately the weather in the first two games in Cincinnati derailed us from the huge outburst they had yesterday afternoon. They’ll draw Huascar Ynoa. You know-a him from Sunday night in Wrigley when he gave up a touchdown to Devin Hester before you could even settle into your seat for the Sunday Night game. Ynoa should not be as horrific tonight but I would ride Peralta-Asdrubal-Escobar here. Also expect a big game coming from Nick Ahmed very soon and Asdrubal knows the park really well. He’s a thorn in the side of Atlanta all weekend.
PHILLIES / ROCKIES
I haven’t really wrote up Coors Field games all year with the exception of a little Dodgers on Opening Weekend and mostly that hasn’t been an issue. German Marquez is generally someone who we can avoid attacking too much because he gets a lot of ground balls – but we’ve got a couple fantastic HR prop plays on the Phillies side today. Alec Bohm has hit knuckle curve’s well in his short career which is what Marquez generally relies upon at home to RH hitters, so he is one and old man Andrew McCutchen is nothing more than a singles hitter at this point in his career — but he’s naturally benefited in Coors in his career and at $3,900 leading off isn’t gonna kill you too bad today even if he settles for 3 singles and a run scored.
The player I love most tonight in this game though is Charlie Blackmon. They get Vinnie Velasquez? At home? For atleast an inning??? Hell yes we want to attack his .241 ISO vs LHB with a $4500 Charlie Blackmon.
ONE LOCK & SMALL EXPOSURE
ROYALS
Certain teams just dominate other staffs no matter the location or the pitcher. The Royals are that to the Tigers and more so when they have gone into Comerica. Jorge Soler is someone I have said for a week or so now was about to pop off and I am not the only one who has been writing about it. The underlying metrics with Soler were there and you could see watching him that his timing early in the season was way off and it’s been slowly getting better as his swing is level and he was just out in front of things. He absolutely hammered two balls on Wednesday night and the light is going off at the absolute nut time for him. Soler has 11 HR and 11 2B against the Tigers in the past two seasons (23 games), is batting around .380 and 7 of those 11 HR have come in Comerica Park. Casey Mize, his opponent, is coming off the best start will generally try to attack down in the zone — that’s Soler’s wheelhouse. It’s either a walk, a double or a homer for Soler in each AB tonight vs Mize and the Tigers have the worst bullpen in the league. So i will be honest here, it’s mostly Soler, but Santana is hitting well lately and the Tigers pen is very very very favorable. So 3 Royals can work out tonight.
FULL STACK OR NONE
WHITE SOX
The pitchers against their former team theory is going to get another chance to win us some money. Dane Dunning will walk into Chicago to face his former mates who got hot quietly earlier this week in Boston and then Cleveland. Tim Anderson is settled in at the top of the order once again and the Jose Abreu hot streak is going to quickly approach as we get closer to May. Moncada/Grandal are two guys who should thrive against Dunning.
CATCHER
Stat of the day – I have been telling everyone I run into that the Braves haven’t had a clean up hitter score 10+ DK fantasy points all year. Now, my wife was like “thats great dear, take out the trash” but my dog was all into this stat, he was wagging his tail and sniffing my leg and all happy. Then I noticed I had food on my leg, so maybe that wasn’t it. The point is …. I’m not sure what the point is but it’ll probably happen tonight now that I have told everyone about it.
- Sean Murphy – Road catchers in Camden
- Tom Murphy
- Yasmani Grandal
FIRST BASE
This position really drops off a cliff after Matt Olson for me today. You could look at Carlos Santana in a KC stack because he’s been hitting extremely well of late and yes I know Mike Ford is someone the model is in love with at $2800 if he does play even in a LvL spot. But factor in small sample size with someone like that. It’s Olson or the cheaper Moreland for $3100 on DK
- Matt Olson
- Jose Abreu – Pitchers against their former teams theory which I didn’t push above, but will down here. White Sox one offs are fantastic tonight. They got hot in Cleveland and
- Rhys Hoskins
SECOND BASE
- Jed Lowrie
- Enrique Hernandez
- Max Muncy – I like some runs in the Darvish/Kershaw re-match. Mostly a late slate leverage play
THIRD BASE
This is the deepest position on the infield tonight. I even wanted to mention a Pirate (Evans) but … nah, we’re done with them.
- Matt Chapman
- Asdrubal Cabrera
- Alec Bohm
- Yoan Moncada
SHORTSTOP
- Eugenio Suarez – Kid loves St. Louis and got a big one yesterday — was struggling early as he learned new defensive position.
- Nick Ahmed
- Corey Seager
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Jorge Soler
- Ramon Laureano
- Charlie Blackmon
- David Pearlta
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- JD Martinez – 6k for Martinez? Steep. Do not force him in if it means punting on your SP’s today.
- Joey Gallo
- Ryan Mountcastle
- Wil Myers
OUTFIELD – Value
- Andrew McCutchen
- Stephen Piscotty
- Raimel Tapia
CHAIRMAN
- Jorge Soler – OF – Royals – Chairman of the Dongers Club all weekend
THE REST
- Matt Olson – 1B – Athletics – Basically call him the Co-Chairman tonight
- Asdrubal Cabrera – 3B – Diamondbacks
- Sean Murphy – C – Athletics
- Charlie Blackmon – OF – Rockies
- Eugenio Suarez – SS – Reds
- Max Muncy – 2B – Dodgers
- Wil Myers – OF – Padres
- BONUS …………… Alec Bohm – 3B – Phillies
BETS
- Dodgers / Padres OVER 6.5 … Favorite bet tonight easily.
- Athletics / Orioles OVER 9
- Rangers / White Sox OVER 8.5
- Pirates / Twins UNDER 8