I told you to prepare for a wild week and we are here now. Nine games tonight as it’s going to be very warm at the early part of this week and we have a ton of very good hitting spots for more offense now that the spin rates are dropping everywhere.
WEATHER & STUFF
Twins at White Sox – This is the only game that likely has a delay although Diamondbacks-Cardinals might carry slight delay risk, but only Twins-White Sox is one we are monitoring with heavy flash floods throughout the day in Chicago. I would expect the game to play however.
This is a horrible pitching slate — get used to that this week too!
Lucas Giolito
Giolito wins over Bauer for me today. Trevor Bauer has 3-4 very scary bats in a very warm environment while Giolito should be good in a low scoring game tonight in South Side Chicago. I doubt we see a high strikeout game here from Giolito as the Twins top 6 batters do not project with a high K% against his arsenal, but they also do not possess a ton of slugging upside and with how often the Twins adjust their lineup these days I would suspect they remain very up and down offensively without much rythym.
Matt Manning
Manning for $5900 gets an Indians lineup that has been favorable to pitching this season. I don’t see the need for value pitching over value hitting today, but you also will have a hard time getting multiple 10k pitchers on DraftKings, and Manning to me is far better than some of the other mid range options out there as SP2 choices.
Freddy Peralta
The Cubs are coming off the late Sunday Night game and then traveled West to East into Milwaukee which might downgrade them some, but it’s also ideal for Peralta to be seeing the Cubs for what feels like the 50th time this season. To his benefit however, he has not seen them since April 24th when they saw him for the third time in a few weeks and he only went 4 IP. Peralta has never thrown more than 85 IP in a season and currently sits right at 81. He is a prime candidate to slow down in the second half of the season but should still have 1 or 2 more really good starts in him and we can take advantage of that this evening.
And now we have bad offenses in great spots tonight… So this is a slate where I see a couple good value options for stacking teams paired with solid one offs from the popular spots.
Kansas City Royals
Salvador Perez, Ryan O’Hearn, Whit Merrifield, Carlos Santana
Welcome to Kansas City Royals night 2021. Sorry, I know they suck ass and couldn’t even beat the Texas Rangers but no matter who is in a Kansas City Royals uniform they manage to look better when they’re in two specific stadiums. Camden Yards and Fenway Park. And it makes sense considering the massive park shift they get leaving Kauffman Stadium and for the RH batters going into Fenway is a solid spot to pester long singles all game long off the wall. What is the real perk/reason tonight though is that we have Garrett Richards, Warm Fenway Park and of course the Sox coming off a sweep of the Yankees.
Update – The Royals are rumored to be calling up 3B prospect Emmanuel Rivera who has been RAKING through winter ball and so far this season in the minors. He is a power righty who hammers LHP, so keep that in mind going forward.
Angels vs Yankees
Ohtani/Walsh … Judge/Voit
Couple things really stand out here. First off the Yanks aren’t a great offense against RHP but Dylan Bundy back on the east coast is probably a good cure for them. He’s gone back to struggling this season allowing 0.333 ISO on his fastball after finding success with that pitch last year. The Yanks should be able to get right in some ways against him tonight, in particular Voit and Judge being the best priced options.
The Angels also have a guy who is great, and $5,000 for Shohei Ohtani when DJ LeMahieu is $5,500 is just down right stupid. Let’s just be clear and state that someone at DraftKings hates Ohtani which is why we can’t get him in the player pool as both SP and hitter when he is pitching. Michael King is very generous to lefties and so Ohtani/Walsh will be popular and solid plays here.
Detroit Tigers
Lefties in Cleveland? Well, Eli Morgan isn’t exactly immune to hard contact. This is basically a AAAA pitcher against a AAAA lineup + Jonathan Schoop. Advantage, hitters. Honestly, this kid has the face of “Holy fuck Mom, look I just got drafted by the New York Jets” all over him.
Under the Radar Gamestack
NY Mets vs Washington … Looks like the Nats will opt for a bullpen game. This is a make-up game and a one off before the Mets head to Atlanta & the Nats welcome in the Rays. I am buying into the Mets offense about to get hot on the road. Conforto/Alonso/Lindor musts in the Mets stack. For Washington, Eickhoff will start for the Mets which should result in a Turner single, Turner SB and Juan Soto RBI. Can they turn it around later off the Mets bullpen dictates how far this game goes on both sides.
CATCHER
- Salvador Perez
- Jake Rogers
FIRST BASE
- Jared Walsh
- Carlos Santana
- Luke Voit
SECOND BASE
- Whit Merrifield
- Kike Hernandez … Also known as Enrique
- Eduardo Escobar
THIRD BASE
This position offers very little to like today. Rendon is underpriced in a good environment but Candelario has hammered the Indians in Progressive Field and is near minimum.
- Jeimer Candelario
- Anthony Rendon
- Emmanuel Rivera – DK Only, I won’t even check FanDuel but I assume he isn’t there.
SHORTSTOP
Both Xander and Crawford are your “safer” plays here, but Lindor/Turner is the hard call of the night. Trea has been hitting extremely well of late, as has Lindor. Both have solid match-ups and I can see a 3-SB game from Turner today.
- Trea Turner
- Francisco Lindor
- Brandon Crawford
- Xander Bogaerts
OUTFIELD – Mt Rushmore
- Shohei Ohtani … Sho-time indeed.
- Cody Bellinger … HR in back to back games, $3900 with wind blowing out and a relatively OK matchup against the Italian.
- Ryan O’Hearn
- Kyle Tucker
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Ketel Marte
- Aaron Judge
- Max Kepler
- Juan Soto
OUTFIELD – Value
- Jorge Soler … You can make an argument that he is fighting for his job right now. He has to have a big series or else….
- Akil Baddoo
- Jason Heyward
- Michael Conforto
The Dongers Club
- Salvador Perez – C – Royals – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Shohei Ohtani – OF – Angels
- Luke Voit – 1B – Yankees
- Jemeir Candelario – 3B – Tigers
- Kyle Tucker – OF – Astros
- Michael Chavis – 2B – Red Sox
- Michael Conforto – OF – Mets
- Trea Turner – SS – Nationals
- BONUS ……………………Ryan O’Hearn OF – Royals
BETS
- Royals ML
- Tigers ML
- Nationals/Mets OVER
- Cubs /Brewers UNDER
HR PARLAY
- Salvy Perez + Shohei Ohtani + Kyle Tucker
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION THOUGHTS
THE HIGHEST CHALK STACK(S)
Yankees, Red Sox, Astros
LOW(er) OWNED GOOD TEAMS
Dodgers (1-4 part of lineup)
LEVERAGE STACKS/PLAYS
Royals
DK PITCHERS
Peralta & Giolito
FD PITCHERS
Peralta
CORE HITTERS
Perez, Candelario, Bellinger, Ohtani