Happy Friday ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, yes it’s another edition of the Friday Dongers Club and I want to remind you to not just use the information on this Friday night article for tonights games but to remember it all through the weekend as these teams play each other in the weekend series. There’s a lot of scenarios where teams are aided by park shifts, facing bad pitching staffs or general hot streaks and we should most certainly be riding on those factors a lot more than just blindly saying “oh this guy has a .375 xWOBA against LHP therefore he is …. blah, blah, blah”. Data is the foundation to making key decisions but it needs to be spread out over multiple days in order to have success and too many times we apply data before the fact as a certain reason and then completely move on without factoring in all the other variables which are involved.
DONGERS CLUB – JUNE APPRECIATION CONTEST – ROUND TWO
https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/109327340
RULES: You must use two ROAD pitchers. Both pitchers must be from ROAD teams. If you don’t, then you get a 0 .. unless the player you pick gets negative in which case we really make fun of you.
The weather tonight is not bad and we have two teams who are not playing tonight because … well, I really don’t know why the Yankees and Phillies couldn’t play tonight but I guess as part of a 2&2 home and away on the schedule they felt it was best to put their match-up on a weekend and not have either team playing on Friday. Stupid.
The Nationals and the Giants have virtually zero chance of playing tonight as it has been raining since early on Thursday and they PPD last nights game. The simple math here is that the two teams could play a doubleheader on Saturday and a doubleheader on Sunday and wind up playing only 28 innings compared to the 36 they would have played if there had been no rain across the weekend and thus really reset the button on their bullpens. So with constant heavy rain throughout the day today we should see this game PPD before this article actually publishes… (famous last words!)
UPDATE: It is now 3PM EST and the game has not been PPD, so it appears they’re going to give it a whirl and I am going to the game so that should end just perfectly.
We could see a delayed start between the Rockies and Reds, but no expectations that it causes a PPD.
All other games play fine.
Just about everyone will land upon the same pitchers tonight and it’s not like any of them are the wrong path tonight, but I certainly have the guys ranked a little differently.
Brandon Woodruff (over deGrom)
Unlike deGrom Woodruff will not be facing the same team twice in one week and he should not have any limitations still associated with his pitch counts. Certainly deGrom was able to make the most of 85 pitches last week vs San Diego in PETCO striking out 11 Padres, but everyone will blindly go deGrom #1 tonight when it’s Woodruff who is the pitcher I want more of today. Fitting both of them in on DK is actually harder than it looks tonight but don’t overlook Woodruff as the top player to use in a 7 inning masterpiece today.
Clayton Kershaw
The veteran lefty had two starts which were not favorable match-ups for him facing the Giants and then Atlanta down in warm Truist Park. He returns back home to comfortable Chavez Ravine tonight to welcome in Texas who might be without Joey Gallo and has to hit without a DH (not that it matters that much honestly). The Dodgers offense will give Kershaw plenty of run support today and he probably gets forgotten about off two blah starts and with so many other talented pitchers going. But Kershaw has one of the best strikeout match-ups tonight and is someone I really trust as an SP2 at a slight discount. His FD price is really good.
Jose Urquidy
Just because Donaldson and Cruz took Aroldis Chapman deep last night does not mean that suddenly Trevor Larnach, Ryan Jeffers, Willians Astudillo, Andrelton Simmons, Haywood Ja Blo-me and Gilberto Celestino are suddenly going to turn into the 2018 Twins offense. They feasted on Chapman having no velocity and throwing batting practice in the 9th but the team remains a really bad offense right now and Kiriloff is likely out so my lord just stick a fork in the Twins already as they take another beating this weekend.
Charlie Morton
Marlins probably scored enough runs last night to carry them through the rest of the month. Won’t be as easy tonight against Uncle Charlie who should strike out the lefties and get weak contact against the righties on his way to a nice long start today.
Best of the ‘Value’ Arms
Brady Singer … The Royals are becoming a fairly predictable team now. They have an 11 game win streak, an 11 game losing streak, two five game winning streaks and two five game losing streaks. They just ended a 5 game losing streak with a win last night. Do you remember those pattern problems in school where they said tell us what happens next? Okay, now explain to me if you think the Royals offense is going to go off tonight in a 10-9 game in Oakland or if the Royals get a quality start from Singer against the blah hitting at home Athletics? Right, Singer time it is.
Yes, Keegan Akin is really cheap and a lefty facing the Rays, but unlike Singer I don’t see him winning and I don’t see a chance for him to push into 6 innings tonight, so with plenty of SP’s being in the 20+ point territory his value still isn’t enough for me to love him vs a bad team vs LHP.
Astros
Much like the Yankees have a history of beating up on Minnesota in Target Field, the Astros are equally as historically great here. Alex Bregman has 6 career HR in 14 games in Target, Carlos Correa is right behind him with 5 in 13, they have put up some massive scores here, are coming in white hot, very healthy and the Twins pitching staff is arguably the worst in the American League right now. Ride Houston Friday, Saturday and Sunday because I’m not gonna keep mentioning them over and over again — you should be on board by now.
Mariners
Seattle is hitting well again thanks to getting rid of Jared Kelenic back to the minors and we’ve got Haniger/Seager going into Progressive field in a good match-up against Aaron Civale. Happy LiC weekend for Seager, Crawford and Trammell
Rockies
Great ballpark and Tyler Mahle’s little April run is long a vision of the past as lefties are starting to get back to beating him up. Love McMahon & Blackmon and now with Story back he’ll add some good pop here. Colorado has a 4 HR game in them this weekend and Mahle is the most likely to serve them up.
Dodgers
It’s only a matter of time until the Dodgers have another one of those games like they had last week against Carlos Martinez in the first inning. The difference the next time is that they’re going to do it with the long ball once three specific hitters get hot. Max Muncy, Cody Bellinger and Gavin Lux. They all kind of went into a lull while Turner/Taylor/Mookie have been hitting well and welcoming in Michael Foltynewcizczxlczffzfzbzfbz (Folty!) is a really good time to take a gamble on the Dodgers popping off in warm conditions at their comfortable home environment.
The other favorable hitting spots
Blue Jays vs Red Sox – Toronto’s hitters have really enjoyed some big series in Boston and I don’t know if we are ever going to see the return of George Springer, but the CT native has hinted he would be close to returning when back near his hometown and should give Toronto a nice boost. Garret Richards remains a target every time he takes the mound and I like this as another nice buy low spot on Toronto — especially Teoscar Hernandez.
CATCHER
- Reese McGuire
- Max Stassi
- Martin Maldanadong
FIRST BASE
Very little to like about this position today, Vlad and Abreu great plays but pricey.
- Vlad Jr (Rowdy Tellez if he plays a great value spend down to allow for better SP)
- Jose Abreu
- Tyler Stephenson
SECOND BASE
- Brendan Rodgers – Just the value we needed on a night like tonight.
- Jose Altuve
- Jace Peterson
- Shed Long Dong
THIRD BASE
We leave C, 1B and 2B which all are just find good value spots and come to 3B which is loaded.
- Alex Bregman
- Kyle Seager
- Ryan McMahon
- Justin Turner
SHORTSTOP
- Carlos Correa
- J.P Crawford
- Bo Bichette
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Teoscar Hernandez … Fantastic numbers in Fenway, almost up there with Soto in Philly. Teo is very streaky and certainly isn’t hot right now but neither was Stanton before he went off in Minnesota earlier this week. These guys get hot in a flash instant.
- Ronald Acuna Jr
- Charlie Blackmon … I don’t see any reason to not love Blackmon today. He has enough power still to hit one out of tiny Cincy and has a xWOBA of .448 and an ISO of .348 against Sliders, which is Mahle’s primary non fastball pitch to lefties.
- Kyle Tucker
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Yordan Alvarez
- Cody Bellinger
- Nick Castellanos
- Eddie Rosario
OUTFIELD – Value
- Jake Fraley
- Taylor Trammell
- Jorge Soler
The Dongers Club
- Teoscar Hernandez – OF – Blue Jays – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Alex Bregman – 3B – Astros
- Charlie Blackmon – OF – Rockies
- Jose Abreu – 1B – White Sox
- Carlos Correa – SS – Astros
- Jace Peterson – 2B – Brewers
- Eddie Rosario – OF – Indians
- Austin Barnes – C – Dodgers
- BONUS ……………………… Kyle Seager – 3B – Mariners
BETS
- Houston Astros 1st 5 Innings -0.5
- White Sox ML -158
- Royals ML +119
- Rockies / Reds OVER 9.5
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
THE HIGHEST CHALK STACK(S)
- Astros
- Reds
- Indians – Bad Chalk vs Justin Dunn IMO.
LOW(er) OWNED GOOD TEAMS
- Blue Jays
- Dodgers
LEVERAGE STACKS
- Rockies – Love Colorado tonight.
DK PITCHERS
- Woodruff & Singer
- Kershaw & Morton
- Urquidy & one of the four above
FD PITCHER
- Kershaw
- Morton
CORE HITTERS
- Teoscar Hernandez / Vlad Jr
- Brendan Rodgers
- HOU SS/3B or SEA SS/3B Combo
RANDOM GAME GUT NOTES
I have been playing the single game parlays on FanDuel a lot lately and find doing a 3 part parlay to pay out well where normally I am taking a player to get a hit, a good K prop and the total or winning team… These aren’t officially some plays but they’re more just notes on all the games tonight and the series ahead … Consider these the gut feeling on the series.
- San Fran at Washington – If the game does play I did like Donovan Solano as a long shot play off Max, otherwise this game and the whole series is a mess to me.
- White Sox at Tigers – Chicago seeing Skubal who dominated them last weekend is tempting, but outside of Abreu nobody is consistent enough right now. Tim Anderson has yet to show signs of doing anything in 2021 that makes us think he is the same guy but if someone turns it on this weekend it’s him and Jose
- Braves at Marlins – Betting under all weekend but also like Braves to come in and sweep Miami.
- Orioles at Rays – Orioles always suck in Tampa, should be a Tampa sweep. Orioles started out season well on the road and that is correcting itself big time. Just dont trust Yarbrough coming off a CG.
- Pirates at Brewers – After tonight we can consider Gregory Polanco. Consider I said. He did homer in Milwaukee earlier this year, so he got that out of the way already. Yelich heater is coming.
- Angels at Diamondbacks – Ohtani homers. We cant play him in DFS. It sucks.