It’s June, it’s hot, we are hot and most importantly to me, YOU the readers are hot. So many people have sent winning screenshots and had good sweats going on lately that it really does make me proud because I have always tried to be the best at providing consistent and sustained content, tools and advice. I don’t like going the screenshot once a month route that others do and I never want to be a part of a product or site that is pimping 10-12 different people throwing around picks and ideas which 10% of it might hit. I’ve said before that my content is here for you to trust or build off your own gut and your own research and that you shouldn’t be looking at more than 2 or 3 sources generally because that just leads to confusion and mistakes. What I’ve seen and heard from everyone is that as you narrow and simplify the information flow to you the better and more productive you will be & that is proving true right now in many ways.
It’s also great when someone asks for advice and asks for me to include certain things in the article to help you out and I will continue to support and encourage feedback, requests or random comments. So keep that coming.
We go into the first Friday of June with a massive 15 game slate and we initiate the third Dongers Club Appreciation Contest Month starting tonight. It will be every Friday in June and there are NO RULES for tonights contest. Over the month we will be scoring the results a little differently however. Scoring for the June contest will work like this.
- All four weeks will be counted in the total score.
- If you miss a week, you will receive the lowest score from the contest for that week from those who did play
- 1st place each week receives 10 bonus points. 2nd place receives 9 bonus points, 3rd place receives 8, etc… on down to 10th place receiving 1 bonus point.
- Fun Rules for the June Contest:
- June 4th – No rules, play anyone you want
- June 11th – Road pitchers only!
- June 18th – Fathers Day Weekend Bonus — Rules will be explained on the 18th, but you get to pick 1 guy from the Dongers Club Section at the bottom for your lineup and receive double their points.
- June 25th – Receive a 10 point bonus if this score is higher than your previous 3 scores
- The Oh Shit! Rule for June
- Each week my lineup is going to consist of what I feel is the worst 2 offenses (4+4 stack) and the worst pitchers on the slate.
- If anyone posts a score that is BELOW this lineups score then they are eliminated – Max 1 person eliminated each week. So if 5 people finish below this lineup then only the worst score is tossed. Excludes someone who reserves and gets a 0 without a valid lineup.
- Basically, this is the “Fuck I lost to Castillo and the Pirates” rule…
- Undecided yet if you win a “I lost to a Pirates Stack” t-shirt or not…
Here is the Contest link for tonight — join!
https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/109041426
On to the Friday slate….
Let’s first do a little lesson teaching on contest selection. You should know by now that smaller field size is the key to everything. I personally had a $4,000 Monday and a $3,500 Wednesday already this week. I did that because I finished 1st out of 30 and 1st out of 10. Yes, they were higher buy-in’s, but the point of targeting a contest which pays 10x to first is where you are going to find the most sustained success. Chasing a 100x to first or insane donkey is going to result in about 3 months of chasing, min cashing and re-depositing until you wind up not winning that big contest because you made a tinker on a night you were right. I do not hate playing the 100x to first spots, but they are not what you should be measuring yourself against. There is a myth however that you should only be playing Single Entry contests. Not the case, it’s more about less people than anything else and in many ways MLB is a sport where MME pay lines are lower than the SE pay lines and for good reason. More lineups from someone who has 8 pitchers in their player pool results in more mistakes. So today I give you two medium $ contests on DraftKings.
Without wasting a ton of space on screenshots I will tell you that both contests pay out $10,000. The differences are that The $88 Contest allows up to 23 entries per user, pays $6k to second, $1k to 6th, $500 to 10th and has a min cash payline of $175 (2x) for 176th place. The Single Entry $121 will pay out $5k to second place, $1.75k to 6th place, $1k to 10th place and has a mincash pay line of $250 (about 2x) to 164th place.
One might look at this and say oh hell, I’ll play the SE tournament because its SE, has less users and has slightly better pay structure. The reality is, the $88 might be better because it’s going to have more bad lineups in it which makes it easier to move up, but harder to win. I don’t hate either one, although I’ll be much more confident winning a 100 man contest tonight than either of these. The lesson here is more that just because something is a Single Entry doesn’t mean that it’s an easier contest. Size matters.
Weather
All games play. All games warm. All games good.
We have a case where the two top pitchers are facing each other in Philadelphia on a warm Friday and we have Zack Greinke in tiny Buffalo, Scott Kazmir and yes … Luis Castillo on a Friday which means ….
nah, I’ll spare you on the hyeena GIF (….)
Freddy Peralta
We have to lock in and ride or die tonight with Freddy Master P. The Brewers pitchers are exceptionally good at home and unless they’re suddenly not greasing themselves up to get spin on the ball we should see Peralta do enough against the Diamondbacks lineup tonight to match both Max and Wheeler in a game with hitting conditions that are prime. The D’Backs do roll a ton of LHB which removes the “insane game” potential for Peralta tonight but his increased slider usage should give them a lot of fits today.
Blake Snell
I can see your reaction right now as I list Blake Snell on a 15 game slate after hating on him all season long …. You are wondering why?
You see… what ha-had-happened was … Blake Snell has actually been very good at PETCO — which is to be expected considering how much of a pitchers park it plays into normally and the Mets while not striking out a ton vs LHP also do not walk a ton, so his little soft ass snowflake pussy twig body can managed to get 6 innings tonight, something he hasn’t exceeded it seems since the damn Nixon Administration (there’s a joke here in that we are currently back in the … nevermind, I’m not getting political now)…. Anyways, I see a good bounce back game for Snell and the Mets bats cool back off tonight in a no doubt about it Padres win.
Jake Arieta
No Yaz and a lineup that is more suited to hit LHP. Jake can keep the ball on the ground and hopefully get solid defense behind him. With the Cubs bullpen pitching well too we have a great chance to steal a win on the road if the Cubbies offense can manage to just score on Scott Kazmir — WHICH SHOULDNT BE THAT FUCKING HARD BECAUSE HE IS SCOTT KAZMIR!
Just Missed The Cut …
Josh Fleming – Gets a bad offense in a park which when the roof is closed (likely) helps pitching. Problem is he rarely strikes anyone out.
Shohei Ohtani – None of us really know what Ohtani is as a pitcher because we have so much inconsistent information off him and the talent/perception so far has actually outweighed the real results. If you just showed me his stats I would say no chance in hell I want someone who’s walking nearly 20% of hitters he faces and doesn’t have a long leash, but that would be overlooking the pure talent he has against a young lineup in the Seattle Mariners.
Luis Castillo – Kidding, he didn’t miss the cut…..
… or did he?
Other Quick Thoughts
Max Scherzer – 6 and 2/3 IP with 3 to 4 ER allowed with 8 strikeouts might actually still wind up being a top score tonight, but I’d rather take the savings and spend it on non donkey cheap Coors bats tonight. The path that most are gonna take is Max & the under priced bats and I think it just ends up blah today.
Cody Poteet & Mitch Keller & Kyle Gibson & Brad Keller – These are basically all the same dudes and they’re all the same as Fleming or Arieta. Just… Shoot me now with these group of guys.
This is another slate where individual plays in the positional break down are standing out to me more than a full team stack here and there, but there’s a ton of warm and humid spots with weak pitchers going tonight, so proper build should include 3+ guys as your core from one team.
ASTROS
Altuve / Correa / Yuli / Tucker
They have no right being “sneaky” when going into small Sahlen Field and they’re not going to struggle against Ryu if I can put my money on things, but here we are. I cannot picture a better go all in game tonight than this one because it’s either 13-12 or 4-3. The battle of the Gurriels looks front and center as Yuli is hitting LHP even harder this year with a .303 ISO and an extremely low 7% strikeout rate. Combined with Altuve/Tucker/Bregman and Correa he should power Houston to a big night.
NATS / PHILS
Turner / Soto / Bell / Schwarber / Segura / Herrera
Up in Citizens Bank Park, a small stadium, a couple automatic hitters I like tonight and some HR friendly pitchers on the mound who sure they might strike-out 7-8 hitters as well but they’re both serving up 2 HR each. Juan Soto is the new Ryan Braun — and no he isn’t a converted Jew, just like Rod Carew. Soto has played 20 games in Philadelphia and has three multi-HR games in his short career. He’s got 10 HR all total in 20 games, with a .321/.426/.756 slash line, 4 doubles and comes in having just woke the hell up down in Atlanta. One reason Soto is so great in Philly is because he is the best opposite field hitter in all of baseball and routinely hits them out between LCF and CF, which if you look at Citizens Bank Park you can clearly see where the guy fell asleep while designing the field and it took a turn back in right before going to center field. It’s like they knew they were going to sign a Nationals lefty when he became available in free-agency and he would hit a ton of home runs there. Only, they signed Bryce Harper. Oops. But While I clearly lay out the Soto stuff now so you can play him all weekend, the kid you gotta expect to pop up out of nowhere and win all the money tonight with a 2 HR game is not Soto. It’s Trea Turner.
Philadelphia meanwhile is a much riskier play against Max, but it is hot and if you saw Cole get hit yesterday and tied it to the spin rate conspiracy going around then you should be monitoring Max who has long been known to grease his hair and get some extra spin from that. Philly in a warm game vs Max has to be looked at for some solo HR pop. The trick though is look at the RH hitters on the Phils – because they are the better hitters and that’s where Max is getting hit hard this year. Realmuto/Segura/Hoskins and …. Holy shit Alec Bohm might actually not suck tonight. Cool.
ATHLETICS
Lowrie / Olson / Brown
Coors has not been Coors this season, so what better time for Coors to donkey its way for all the zombies who play it religiously than on a 15 game slate right? Jon Gray has reached the point where he is good enough when pitching at home, so I am not going heavy here but Jed Lowrie/Matt Olson/Chad Pinder all look favorable.
ORIOLES
Santander / Severino / Mancini
This is an opener/bullpen game for the Indians in a VERY warm and humid Camden Yards and the Orioles continuing a long homestand. Give me the Birds over the Indians who face Keegan Fatboy Slim Akin on the other side. I trust Akin more than the Indians combination today (which isn’t saying much) so in getting exposure to this great game ride the Bird side.
RED SOX vs YANKEES
The blow up game for both teams is coming and we’re either gonna get two blowouts and a close game or one big back and forth high scoring 8 hour long game. I love Devers and JD coming into Boston and X’s comments the other day tell me that he’s extra focused to break out of a slump that the entire team has fallen into. Granted, the Yankees are the much larger slump and I’m not sure I love them vs Eovaldi here, so I’ll be passing but if you expand your lineup count tonight this one has to be liked.
Sneaky Sneaky …
PADRES … Welcome back to PETCO Joey Luuchesi, take your beating as per the rules.
DODGERS … Flying under radar, best “spend up” team on the slate tonight as Mookie/Bellinger should both have a great weekend to get things going.
Not only is it a full slate but with lots of good hitting it’s very hard to narrow things down here today, but I’m gonna do what I can as always and remind you to not force yourself into playing someone just because they are “popular” based on some horrible analysis you might hear on the radio. Be smart. Trust the data first, trust your gut last…
The fourth player listed at each position is your out of left field 1% play that I really like tonight. Don’t load up on all these guys but differentiate with them accordingly…
CATCHER
- Pedro Severino
- Salvador Perez
- Omar Narvaez
- Martin Maldanadong
FIRST BASE
This is the best position to get off the reservation today and I could give two shits who is chalk but it’s probably Matt Olson and yeah I get that, but these are all solid one offs outside of Matty O.
- Yuli Gurriel – Gurriel matchup in Toronto and outlined him as a core play from Houston, batting cleanup.
- Jose Abreu
- Trey Mancini
- Miguel Cabrera – Not sure how to best monetize this but Miggy homers tonight on a 1-4 night. Probably best as a HR prop bet.
SECOND BASE
- Jed Lowrie – Ridiculous pricing
- Whit Merrifield
- Jose Altuve
- Jean Segura
THIRD BASE
I fucking love everyone at this position, including not pictured Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado, but we dont need to pay for them as one offs.
- Rafael Devers
- Yoan Moncada
- Alec Bohm
- Eugenio Suarez
SHORTSTOP
- Trea Turner
- Xander Bogaerts
- Carlos Correa
- Fernando Tatis Jr … Yes, he will be 1% tonight.
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Juan Soto
- Anthony Santander
- Mookie Betts
- J.D. Martinez
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Willie Mays Hayes (Odubel Herrera)
- Kris Bryant
- Corey Dickerson
- Lourdes Gurriel Jr … How do you think Yuli feels knowing that his dad gave Lourdes his name even though Yuli is older?
OUTFIELD – Value
- Jorge Soler
- Alex Verdugo
- Kyle Tucker / Yordan Alvarez / Aledyms Diaz – The Astros have 5 guys who are OF eligible tonight which is annoying but they are ranked in this order for me and you want two of them in an Astros stack today.
- Seth Brown – It really fucking sucks that DK and FD just completely disregarded life tonight with the pricing in Coors, I personally feel we need to get lucky and hope this isn’t that 14-13 game that Coors has been holding back on.
The Dongers Club
- Juan Soto – OF – Nationals – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Trea Turner – SS – Nationals
- Miguel Cabrera – 1B – Tigers
- Rafael Devers – 3B – Red Sox
- Anthony Santander – OF – Orioles
- Martin Maldanado – C – Astros
- Jed Lowrie – 2B – Athletics
- Odubel Herrera – OF – Phillies
- BONUS …………………. Mookie Betts – OF – Dodgers
BETS
- Nationals / Phillies OVER 7
- Orioles ML
- Red Sox / Yankees OVER 9
- Astros / Blue Jays OVER 8.5
- Dodgers ML
- Cubs ML
- Padres 1st 5 RUN LINE
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
Chalkiest Stacks
- Athletics / Rockies
- Angels – Bad Chalk
- Indians – Bad Chalk
- Red Sox – Honestly not sure where they wind up falling on ownership but it won’t be at the top
Team(s) with most upside getting overlooked and also not being attacked with a SP (i.e. Low owned secondary stacks)
- Astros
- White Sox
- Dodgers
- Blue Jays – Price makes them hard to full stack.
LEVERAGE PLAYS
- Nationals / Phillies
- Orioles
COMPLETELY OVERLOOKED 3RD LINEUP STACKS
- Padres
- Cardinals
DK SE SP Recommendations in Order
- Peralta & Snell
- Ohtani & Fleming
- Snell & Arrieta … Open a bottle of Jack and pass out as fast as you can
FD SE Recommendations in Order
- Blake Snell … Let’s ride.
- Freddy Peralta
- Max Scherzer
CORE HITTERS FOR SE
- Mini Stacks: Gurriel / Maldanado (Houston)
- One Offs: Juan Soto, Anthony Santander
DOUBLE DONG CALL
Trea Turner
And this is an appropriate song for Trea Turner since I’m gonna go mow the lawn and think about life.