If you are looking for the monthly Dongers Club Appreciation contest, which has been running on Tuesday’s then be advised that it is moving to Friday’s for the month of June. So look for details on the June contest this Friday.
There appear to be no weather issues to monitor tonight which is a 14 game slate and the only game we do not have included is the White Sox vs Indians in Cleveland. Tonight will feature the return of Coors Field and it has a total less than 10 — which says a lot about baseball hitting right now. And so with a 14 game slate and no 90 degree games in 2021 you shouldn’t be automatically forcing in a certain player for fear that some historical trend on them from 2015 is going to suddenly translate into a chalky automatic 3 Home-Run game. In other words, ignore the damn vegas implied total touting today and be smart about your roster construction — which I will outline my approach below in the hitting section.
All these pitching options to pick from tonight and not a damn one looks like a lock.
Tyler Glasnow
Is tonight the night the Yankees suddenly go back to being good? Not likely considering they’ve never really hit Glasnow to begin with and they have shown no talent signs of being able to suddenly become good again. LeMahieu has fallen off a cliff, Voit is out, Stanton/Judge are Stanton/Judging which isn’t a good thing and we’ve got enough evidence no to convince ourselves that guys like Urshela were secretly juicing while everyone else was hurt and avoiding juice testing during the COVID protocols from a year ago. It’s a weak lineup and the Rays are rolling out their ace tonight, whom we should trust to give us 6 innings and 9 strikeouts.
Sandy Alcantara
Sandy doesn’t get the respect he deserves for being a top end pitcher and I wanted to be a little contrarian with my second pay up spot tonight so it’s Sandy over Nola who like Sandy is pitching in a tiny park tonight. The key difference for Sandy is that the Jays are a RH heavy lineup who will swing and miss still quite a bit and Sandy’s been dominant vs RH batters allowing sub .100 ISO / sub .280 wOBA and this year around 31% strike out rate to righties. If you wanna take two high end pitchers, he will be 2% owned tonight at most and should beat out Nola/Gray/Bassitt in my mind.
Matt Boyd
A big boost for Boyd tonight is that he won’t have to face LoCain and he gets the 9 hole pitcher benefit as well to get him back on track if he walks a few guys he shouldn’t. At $6,500 getting a potential roof open matchup in Milwaukee against a weak team vs LHP is a decent spot to look for value SP tonight.
Brady Singer
Some will point to the Pirates as a low K% team but they also do not walk very much and struggle with some of the basic concepts in Baseball, like understanding force outs. Anywho, if you are a team who has not seen Singer before and you are not patient at the plate then he is going to get you to swing at a lot of pitches on the edges where he typically gets away with getting a lot of called strikes. I see Singer bouncing back today with a 100+ pitch outing that could have upside to take him through 7 innings with very limited damage off a ton of soft contact. He’s a DK SP2 play more than anything.
Sneaky plays that I see pitching well: Marquez, Weathers
Welcome to a big stack Tuesday. There’s a lot of hitting spots I like tonight and there’s gonna eventually be a correction on the totals. One thing that stood out to me today is you have Dane Dunning vs German Marquez in Coors Field and the total is only 9.5. A sign of the times in MLB but while scoring remains down across the board, there’s a good reason to think tonight is the night you want to diversify your stacks if you do more than one lineup. If you are a single lineup person, ride the 2-2-2-2 model tonight.
Red Sox / Astros
Neither bullpen is a lock down spot and neither starter is going to generate any whiffs tonight. Boston has been quiet for a little stretch here and is poised to break out. Garcia has been hit extremely hard by lefties but while Devers looks like a nice name tonight, it’s Alex Verdugo who leaps off the page against Garcia and is the primary Boston bat to lock in. The question becomes can Xander and Devers get hot and my feeling is that tonight they can. Houston might be getting Yordan Alvarez back tonight, so keep an eye on him as he is underpriced along with the rest of this really hot and really good lineup.
Marlins
Marte, Aguilar, Duvall, Dickerson
Welcome back to Sahlen Field in Buffalo! This is the new home of the Toronto Blue Jays as the days in Dunedin, Florida are gone and the Jays move back up north to play in the windy Sahlen Field. Tonight it looks like the wind won’t be a factor in any direction but the Robbie Ray wheels are starting to fall off the train and if Marte & Duvall are back in the lineup tonight then things should get REALLY bad for Ray. Great park shift and lots of HR upside for the Marlins who did quite well here last season too.
Twins
Donaldson, Cruz, Simmons
Bruce Zimmerman gets hammered by RHB and managed to skate his way through against the White Sox in his last start who are known to destroy LHP. A good pitcher can get through two ‘bad’ spots in a row. A bad pitcher cannot. He is getting murdered tonight by the Twins then in theory. But it’s not extremely hot in Camden and the Twins just aren’t that team anymore. None the less, if you had 2-3 Twins tonight you would not be crazy and they will no doubt be the highest owned team on both sites in a good spot.
Those other spots I can see blowing up
- Nationals … Turner/Harrison/Soto/Zimm
- Phillies … Love Rhys Hoskins today.
- Padres … Hey, it’s a SP vs his former team! Never ends well for the SP.
- Diamondbacks … Zona and Baltimore are gonna win eventually right? The streak continues on and the roof is projected to be open so if they can chase Stroman I like Zona to finally get a win.
- Giants … Giants vs LHP always a good bet.
CATCHER
If you want to spend up tonight you are in the Garver/Realmuto range on catchers. Garver is swinging the bat better and will be uber chalky as will the rest of the Twins. Realmuto to me is a great low owned play along with the rest of the Phillies, but ideally on a main optimal lineup tonight you are taking value at catcher.
- James McCann
- Jorge Alfaro
- Yan Gomes
FIRST BASE
- Freddie Freeman
- Rhys Hoskins
- Ryan Zimmerman
- Nate Lowe … Things we hate about DFS. A $3500 3-hole hitter in Coors Field
SECOND BASE
- Brandon Lowe … I had nobody wrote up at this position … then the Rays went and put Lowe lead off. Problem solved. Thank you Tampa.
- Josh Harrison
- …
- …
THIRD BASE
- Josh Donaldson
- Rafael Devers
- Ryan McMahon
- Hunter Dozier … Ah yes, the time of year when Dozier starts to hit against bad pitching and makes us think that he’s a legit hitter
SHORTSTOP
- Trea Turner … I swear every shortstop in Major League Baseball homered yesterday except for him. His turn tonight
- Carlos Correa
- Andrelton Simmons
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
Not a strong area today, and Nelson Cruz obviously could be justified here but the guy has had an injured wrist/hand for a couple weeks now and has had some really weak at bats. I don’t see why we would auto lock in a chalky guy who is injured and likely walks.
- Alex Verdugo
- Juan Soto
- Trey Mancini
- Charlie Blackmon
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
Look away Pirates fans …
- Starling Marte
- Andrew McCutchen
- Corey Dickerson
- Austin Meadows
OUTFIELD – Value
- Robbie Grossman
- Chad Pinder
- Kyle Garlick
- Brad Miller
The Dongers Club
- Trea Turner – SS – Nationals – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Josh Donaldson – 3B – Twins
- James McCann – C – Mets
- Rhys Hoskins – 1B – Phillies
- Andrew McCutchen – OF – Phillies
- Alex Verdugo – OF – Red Sox
- Starling Marte – OF – Marlins
- Brandon Lowe – Rays – 2B
- BONUS …………………………. Freddie Freeman – 1B – Braves
BETS
- Boston/Houston OVER 8.5
- Anaheim/San Francisco OVER 7
- Marlins ML
- Phillies ML
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
Chalkiest Stacks
- Twins
- Rangers … Cuz they so damn cheap.
- Dodgers
Team(s) with most upside getting overlooked and also not being attacked with a SP (i.e. Low owned secondary stacks)
- Red Sox / Astros
- Rays
LEVERAGE PLAYS
- Phillies
- Sandy
OFFENSIVE FADES
- Royals
- Blue Jays
- Mets (Except McCann)
- Dodgers
DK SE SP Recommendations in Order
- Glasnow & Sandy
- Glasnow & Singer
- Sandy & Boyd
FD SE Recommendations in Order
- Glasnow
- Sandy