Congrats to our own resident expert Mark Farris (yes he is eligible) for scooping down the Dongers Club June Championship. The July/August contest is going to be combined into a double elimination tournament and I highly encourage everyone to opt-in to it. It will start after the All-Star Break assuming the players don’t decide to boycot the All-Star game and then we have a big lockout.
Don’t ask me why FanDuel went rogue with their breakdown on the 2PM and 4PM contests today, because I can’t fix stupid, but the 2:00 PM slate is the main slate this fine Saturday afternoon with three games in that window and then a TON of games in the 4PM window. Tonight’s tilt and put me to sleep because I am an old man with kids Saturday night slate has only four games on it so there won’t be an article but I’ll identify my quick thoughts at the bottom of this article instead.
WEATHER & STUFF
Late in the 4:05 pm games today there will be some shadows creeping in for a few stadiums, although there are overcast conditions in most areas which reduces that somewhat.
All games should play this afternoon with the Mariners – White Sox having the most showers. There’s some other areas where showers might linger in but I don’t see anything thats gonna impact DFS.
These four games are not on the 4PM FanDuel Slate (because they play at 2PM/3PM)
Cleveland at Minnesota
Seattle at Chicago
Pittsburgh at St. Louis
Baltimore at Toronto
So any references for those games on FD and you gotta play the 2PM “Early Early Early, Boy touching a girl for the first time” slate on FanDuel.
Jacob deGrom
My bold call today is that Rhys Hoskins homers off deGrom. But you know what, that’s about as productive in DFS as Shohei Ohtani’s no doubt homer last night, which is very little as an Island play itself, so just play the Hoskins to HR prop and move along there.
As for Jacob deGrom, I really don’t even know what to say here.
Kyle Gibson
Similarly to Pablo Lopez yesterday we have a pitcher in Gibson who is very comfortable at home and it’s understandable given how well the stadium plays for the Rangers pitchers. Gibson has been about as consistent as they come when looking for someone to just not get blown up and he has faced some serious competition in the Astros, Rays, Giants, Athletics and now gets to face Kelvin Gutierrez, Michael Taylor and Jorge Soler. Sure, the Hunter Dozier homer is still a thing but if the roof gets closed in Texas (it should with 15 mph winds) then Gibson is our 2nd favorite pitcher today.
Kenta Maeda
Major bait here by DraftKings with Maeda being $6,800 today considering how good he has pitched since coming off the IL even with limited pitch counts of 76 and 84. But considering he hadn’t thrown more than 94 all season long I would say he’s more than good for his normal workload today and should project for between 15 and 19 DK points.
Also pitches well, but don’t pair as well with deGrom because of $
Adam Wainwright – FD Option on the early 3 gamer there.
Hyun-Jin Ryu
Blue Jays
Semien, Springer
It has been a while since we had the Blue Jays playing a Saturday afternoon home game near Toronto, but we’ll consider Buffalo close enough. They just don’t lose these games and certainly against Keegan Akin they shouldn’t be expected to lose a second straight game to the Orioles this afternoon.
Twins
Cruz, Jeffers
Everything today starts with the Jays and these Twins. Minnesota will face Sam Hentges who isn’t good and should have problems with the Donaldson-Cruz combination who are really lower priced than they should be here. Twins will be 20-30% owned I would estimate as Ryan Jeffers ($3k) and Miguel Sano ($4k) are gonna be popular plays to be paired with deGrom but Cruz is the must own from the Twins here today. Lock him in.
Cardinals
Goldy, Carlson, O’Neill
Brubaker is coming off a really good start and the Cardinals are ice cold, so consider this the ole law of averages play that eventually Goldy is going to have a multi-HR game and the Cardinals offense will explode. They had chances last night and just couldn’t get the big hit but O’Neill and Carlson are swinging the bats well right now and I would suspect Arenado walks every time up today. St. Louis should put up a big number in good hitting conditions (nearly 20 MPH out to left field and mid 80’s with high humidity)…. Goldy is a must in a Cardinals build.
Brewers (good game-stack w/ Rockies)
Roof should be closed in the park formerly known as Miller and Milwaukee draws Senzatela, who has virtually no strikeout ability (14%) and is allowing opponents to hit .293 off him this season. He’s bad and with the prices on the Brewers today I doubt they push over 5% ownership but this should be a very high scoring game on both ends.
CATCHER
- Ryan Jeffers
- Omar Narvaez
- Jose Trevino
FIRST BASE
- Vlad Guerrero Jr
- Paul Goldschmidt
- Rhys Hoskins … 0.00001% owned play and his ownership is only that high because I played him.
SECOND BASE
- Jeff McNeil – Happy Jeff McNeil 4-5 day
- Nick Solak
- Brandon Lowe
- Cesar Hernandez
THIRD BASE
We have Josh Donaldson along with popular Twins facing a lefty and he is smashing LHP again this year but much more on the off-speed stuff than fastballs as he ages and Sam Hentges is primarily fastball/breaking ball, so I’m only looking at Donaldson if doing 5 Twins.
- Ryan McMahon
- KeBryan Hayes
- Austin Riley
SHORTSTOP
- Marcus Semien
- Wander Franco
- Trevor Story
OUTFIELD – Mt Rushmore
- Nelson Cruz
- Tyler O’Neill
- George Springer
- Teoscar Hernandez
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Joey Gallo … Royals likely bring in Bubic and Gallo has long been a good LvL hitter. He is basically today’s version of Ohtani last night. You probably should just play his HR prop bet and then move on away from it in DFS.
- Christian Yelich … Ditto Yelich … See the bets section below.
- Tyler Naquin … All things considered 4200 for Naqbomb at home is pretty good here.
- Dominic Smith
- Austin Meadows
OUTFIELD – Value
- Dylan Carlson
- Adam Duvall
- Michael Conforto
- LARS NOOTBAR
The Dongers Club
- Marcus Semien – SS – Blue Jays – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Nelson Cruz – OF – Twins
- Paul Goldschmidt – 1B – Cardinals
- Tyler Naquin – OF – Reds
- Ryan Jeffers – C – Twins
- Nick Solak – 2B – Rangers
- Joey Gallo – OF – Rangers
- Austin Riley – 3B – Braves
- BONUS ……………………… Trevor Story – SS – Rockies
BETS
- Phillies / Mets OVER 6.5
- HR Parlay: Gallo, Yelich, Cruz, Hoskins
- Cards + Jays + Rays Parlay
- Cardinals OVER 4.5 Runs
- Rockies / Brewers OVER 8.5
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
THE HIGHEST CHALK STACK(S)
- Twins, Blue Jays, Rangers
LOW(er) OWNED GOOD TEAMS
- Reds, White Sox
LEVERAGE STACKS/PLAYS
- Rockies
DK PITCHERS
- deGrom & Gibson
- deGrom & Maeda
- Gibson & Maeda
FD PITCHERS
- deGrom
- Gibson
CORE HITTERS
- Ryan Jeffers
- Nelson Cruz
- Marcus Semien
SATURDAY NIGHT QUICK THOUGHTS
Yanks vs BoSox … This game hits the over in the first five innings and continues on. Stack it up offensively.
Cubs vs Dodgers … Late afternoon start out in L.A. Love Bellinger at 3900, how do you not lock him in?
Athletics vs Giants … Should be another low scoring game, Montas pitches a gem.
Diamondbacks vs Padres … Lamet will pitch well here not sure how long they let him go though, however Merrill Kelly is going to pitch well, he’s the leverage arm tonight.
Favorite stacks: Yanks, Dodgers, Red Sox
Favorite pitchers: Montas, Kelly, Urias
Core Hitters: Bellinger, Voit, Chavis