Yesterday was actually a nice little pause and I don’t mind a quiet slate every now and then but it’s when we have constant chopped up slates throughout a weak that creates chaos. Give me all or nothing any day of the week and today is an all spot with 15 games & no Coors Field for those who hate Coors Field slates. It’s hot as hell and the cicada’s are still humming outside where I am to the point that it’s a constant buzz in my ears all the time like the constant buzz of B.S. coming from the DFS sites in regards to taking things seriously. Tonight on DraftKings you can basically get the two best pitchers on the slate and manage to find a quality lineup without problem so I do not want to hear from anyone some bitching about how FanDuel pricing lets you get whoever you want because you should have tough decisions at pitcher in regards to pricing and not high priced hitters where everyone defaults onto the same bats. We want variance on bats because that’s where more mistakes will be made and as good as Ronald Acuna is, him being $6,000 when someone like Walker Buehler is $9,800 just seems stupid, but it is what it is.
Here’s the tip of the day for something about this week and Tuesday/Friday slates in general. This is when new series begin up typically and if you follow along you’ll notice that I will jump on teams in certain ballparks or vs bad pitching staffs often. When that happens you should look at a couple of different ways you can monetize the plays so that you aren’t walking around with a ton of anger on the second day after you played them first day and they’re going off.
- Just bet their team total if you do sports betting. This is very simple, maybe you like more teams in your DFS lineup but you really like the _______ (insert your own team) today because of a ballpark shift and expect them to pop off. Bet their team total each game in the series and call it a day with just needing it to hit once or go 2-1 to win.
- Play a second lineup each day during the full series with that team as a stack.
- Just lock in on that team for the full series as your main lineup play
Weather
Lot’s of very warm games including near 90 degrees in Target Field today. There are also some scattered showers/storms potentially in a few games which could cause delays but should not cause any PPD situations tonight at all. All games should play. Here’s the ones with potential delays.
Brewers at Reds … They usually are able to wait out games in Cincinnati if they start in a delay, the field drains well.
Dodgers at Pirates
Astros at Red Sox
Indians at Cardinals
— Roof listed as closed in Texas
Pablo Lopez
Lopez was scheduled to go yesterday afternoon and they pushed him back out to tonight, which is a fantastic upgrade for him to go from facing the Red Sox in Fenway down to the Rockies in his home Miami ballpark where he still has a sub 1 ERA this season and has historically always been very good. Since the Rockies have been at home recently some of their recent form numbers make them look better than they should be in this spot and Lopez is our get us over pitcher at $8,700 on DK.
Tyler Glasnow
Glasnow vs Bieber tonight for the highest upside on the slate and give me the guy who doesn’t have to hit and pitches in a dome vs the Nationals to win the battle as the highest upside. Just walk Soto please and we’ll be fine here Glasnow because the rest of this Nationals lineup terrible vs Glasnow’s secondary (and weaker) slider, so he should have no problem mixing things up today and generating a high strikeout total like he normally does.
Shane Bieber
Ridiculous pricing once again on a big slate over on DraftKings as I mentioned above and so why not just take the safe route here with Glasnow and Bieber who both are in match-ups that should get them over 20 points with 30+ point upside today. You can find value bats if you get creative enough out there today to just get you over in contests.
Matthew Boyd
My gut says that the Mariners/Tigers game is going to be higher scoring tonight and Seattle without Kelenic weighing them down should start to hit again, but the reality is they’re still a very thin lineup and with Seager/Crawford being in a bad split situation the data is clearly on the side of a very cheap Matt Boyd tonight. He isn’t my favorite arm out of this group and one I am avoiding on main lineups tonight but you can’t ignore the good data matchup he has.
The Cheap SP2’s
Kris Bubic … Bubic took his licks as a rookie last season and had come back much more comfortably this year and will be facing a team that has really struggled vs LHP. Bubic himself is being trusted to go deeper into games now and with the Royals having to use their long relief guy last night I think the leash will be long for him tonight to get through 5 innings with 6 inning and win upside as well in a low scoring Royals-Angels game.
Alex Wood … Wood will be in Texas for a rebound start against the Rangers. Monitor the roof status because it’s warm but likely they could play w/ the roof open which changes the dynamic on this game completely.
Jon Lester … LHP continue to do extremely well vs the Rays and it’s in a nice controlled environment. Outside of the Nationals losing the ball in the lights/ceiling tonight three times I envision Lester pitching very well as a punt play.
YANKEES
I have a lot of theories that have been very profitable, however I’ve found it’s critical to know when to jump off the theories and not follow them blindly. For years it has been profitable to bet against the Red Sox and Yankees after they played each other because they typically played very long, competitive, high stress games. The new Yankee-Red Sox match-up is actually the Dodgers and Padres and the Sox/Yanks just played a series that wasn’t very competitive and honestly wasn’t that stressful for either team because it was all Boston. New York however has a get right series in them and with getting out of New York and having Monday off we potentially could see that coming now… So let’s check who they get to get right against….
Oh Sweet Jesus, Michael Pineda the former Yankee in 90 degree Target Field. Yes sir, a park good for fat power righties (you know, like Salvy Perez who leads all players in HR in Target or Miguel Cabrera who is right behind him?). Hmm, who fits that mold? Oh yes. The guy who used to catch Michael Pineda as well — Gary Sanchez. I will not be betting against the Yankees tonight after they got swept by Boston, because you can’t really expect them to have a let down game when they just had a let down week. Welcome to the Yankee blow up game on a 15 game slate when they’re pretty low owned.
METS
Camden Yard Humidity. There will be no fewer than 6 home runs in this game, and that might be before the 7th inning happens, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see them scattered all over as a bunch of solo homers tonight. New York really got lucky here on the schedule with the day off Monday after a west coast trip where they started to hit and now going into Camden Yards we might actually see a resurgent Francisco Lindor be able to have a good series along with McCann, Alonso and hello Kevin Pillar. This also marks the return of Jonathan Villar to OPACY but at $5300 you really need him to have a huge game tonight to pay off on DK.
REDS
Jesse winker has 5 HR in 18 AB against Adrian Houser, which is Max Kepler vs Trevor Bauer level dominance right there. He comes in on fire along with Castellanos and we have the return of Joey Walks tonight into the lineup making the Reds — who rake at home — one of the better under the radar plays today to put up a big night.
ASTROS
Speaking of crazy theories. Houston has changed to not be as horrible against short pitchers but they’re getting one tonight who has proven the theory to work in the Past. Martin Perez has a strong history against the Astros so I am a little concerned here tonight but it’s too good of a spot to at least not bring some guys onto our radar. Houston is raking right now and especially on the road. The theme tonight is hot and humid spots and it’s extremely humid up in Boston today so the ball should get some quality extra boost.
Additional Stacks
Blue Jays vs White Sox
Two pitchers that a year ago would have been auto stack against and this year have been lights out. Not a ton chatter about spin rate on either Rodon or Ray but with the news about crack downs it wouldn’t shock me if we suddenly saw some regression from both guys. And they’re facing offenses that really dominate LHP so the upside for this to be the top game tonight is there but caution with two decent bullpens going too heavy tonight.
Padres & Dodgers (No they arent playing each other)….
I can see the Dodgers being a little popular given that they are the Dodgers and facing Pittsburgh but nobody will have San Diego. Both these teams do not make it into the pool when considering a single lineup play tonight but I can see potential for them to go off for good reasons. LA will be in a lefty friendly park with a pitcher who has had trouble keeping his change up from getting smashed by lefties – Muncy/Lux/Bellinger look good. For the Padres they welcome back former Padre Zach Davies into PETCO and that never ends well for the former pitcher — Machado/Tatis/Pham/Cronenworth
Mariners vs Tigers
Seattle did the right thing and sent down Jarred Kelenic which to me makes their lineup better automatically since he was an auto-out after his first couple of games. The Tigers have been really good of late and are past their struggle vs LHP woes somewhat. Seattle major leverage against Boyd today.
CATCHER
- Gary Sanchez
- Thomas Nido
- Yasmani Grandal
FIRST BASE
- Yuli Gurriel
- Jose Abreu
- Rhys Hoskins
- DJ LeMahieu … Use at 1B on DK, and 2B on FD.
SECOND BASE
- Marcus Semien … One of my top HR picks of the day.
- Jonathan India … Great value and playing well right now
- Jose Peraza
- Jonathan Schoop – ABsolutely on fire of late and Marco struggles vs RH a ton this season meet Schoops power vs lefties of late.
THIRD BASE
- Jonathan Villar
- Alex Bregman … Someone alert Alex Bregman that we would like our 2 HR game please. Thank you.
- Jose Ramirez
- Gio Urshela
SHORTSTOP
- Bo Bichette
- Gleyber Torres
- Francisco Lindor
- Gavin Lux
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Jesse Winker – Coming off a 3 HR game you might think it’s chasing but he also had a 3 HR game vs Adrian Houser and weather is good in a small ballpark.
- Nelson Cruz – Hand should be healing up and you don’t think the Yankees are the only ones to homer tonight do you?
- Giancarlo Stanton
- Kevin Pillar
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Teoscar Hernandez
- Thomas Pham
- Aaron Judge
- Mitch Haniger
OUTFIELD – Value
- Ryan Mountcastle
- Clint Frazier
- Robbie Grossman
The Dongers Club
- Gary Sanchez – C – Yankees – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Jesse Winker – OF – Reds
- Jonathan Villar – 3B – Mets
- Marcus Semian – 2B – Blue Jays
- Gavin Lux – SS – Dodgers
- Mitch Haniger – OF – Mariners
- Giancarlo Stanton – OF – Yankees
- Rhys Hoskins – 1B – Phillies
- BONUS …………………………….. Kevin Pillar – OF – Mets
BETS
- Yankees / Twins OVER
- Padres -1.5
- Mets ML
- Athletics ML
- Mariners / Tigers OVER 8.5
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
Chalkiest Stacks
- Astros
- Mets
- Phillies
Team(s) with most upside getting overlooked and also not being attacked with a SP (i.e. Low owned secondary stacks)
- Reds
- Yankees
LEVERAGE PLAYS
- Braves
- Mariners
- Cardinals
DK SE SP Recommendations in Order
- Glasnow and Lopez
- Glasnow and Bieber
- Lopez and Wood
FD SE Recommendations in Order
- Glasnow
- Bieber
- Lopez
CORE HITTERS FOR SE
- Gary Sanchez
- Jonathan India
- Yuli Gurriel