Welcome back from the All-Star Break! After doing an article for about 100 straight days and playing DFS every day, sometimes twice, it felt like an eternity going four days without real MLB DFS article or contests to enter. Sure, we passed the time with some HR derby props or some All-Star Game plays, but it just isn’t the same and considering how consistent things had been at the end of June and early July it wasn’t exactly the best time to take a break in my mind.
My initial expectation coming out the second half of the season is that we see lower scoring games for a week or so even with very warm temperatures. The reasons for this are because the hitters haven’t had any live at bats and in many cases went 3 days (or more) without taking any swings at all. The pitching on the other hand is mostly on normal rest and all the bullpen arms have had a few days to reset. If anything, we’ll see blown saves late in games as hitters do better in their 4th/5th PA tonight and the bullpen arms who maybe haven’t worked in a week are a little rusty. So from a betting standpoint, if there’s a team you thought was gonna win and they’re down say 5-3 in the 7th inning that would be a good time to jump on them.
MLB used today wisely to replenish some divisional PPD games into double-header spots today. The Marlins and Phillies are playing two and none of that is on the main slate tonight, while the Tigers and Twins are meeting for two in Detroit but the 2nd game is a 7:30 start which is included on the slate as a 7 inning game. It sucks, cross it off. Plus it has bad weather likely.
WEATHER
Twins at Tigers – Most likely to get washed out, but only 7 innings so they might try to get it out of the way.
Brewers at Reds – Should play
Rangers at Jays – Should play
Cubs at Diamondbacks in Chase Field – Roof Closed
Robbie Ray
Lets kick off the second half by checking in on ole Robbie Ray. He’s been fantastic and the humidor in Buffalo has been impactful so far this season. Ray will welcome in the Texas Rangers who right now are a team basically dead man walking until the trade deadline rumors are cleared up and I am specifically talking about Joey Gallo.
Kevin Gausman
If not for some pitcher in New York, Gausman would be the leading Cy Young candidate in the National League so far this season. His results aren’t just a fluke either as they started last year and have continued into 2021 as he uses more information from data sources on how to attack hitters. He gets a friendly match-up to kick off the second half as the Cardinals offense is one which is very middle of the road and very bad at home. Ironically, only Arenado has been decent at home for St. Louis this season.
Chris Bassitt
edit: Late change as Manaea is pitching now for Oakland He is fine but I would rank him 4th of all 4 mentioned…
Bassitt gets Cleveland which is fairly blah but in Oakland I greatly prefer him here for $8,500 against someone like Charlie Morton who I think has a hard time with the Rays tonight but the model likes equally.
SLEEPER
Lance McCullers Jr.
One thing to really like about Lance for the next month or so is that he missed time early this season, so his innings sit at 79.2 which is significant since he hasn’t thrown a big # in his entire career. For now though we ride Lance who was pitching great before the break and is a good pitcher that will be extremely low owned vs the White Sox tonight.
Another slate where we don’t have that one team we are latching onto. Welcome to a spread it out 2-2-2 Friday….
Tampa Rays
Meadows, Lowe, Franco
Tampa on the road in a good park shift has always been a staple the past few seasons. While Charlie Morton has pitched well he’s also someone who can struggle early in games and the Rays should make for fantastic leverage today. Lock in Meadows who is returning to his hometown for a big weekend and now is the time to be buying into Wander Franco now that he has had his initial service time up in the bigs and a little break to reset.
NY Mets
Nimmo, Conforto, Lindor
If the Mets could have done ANYTHING after the first inning last Sunday we would have won all the damn money. Instead they did nothing and it was like watching a Royals-Orioles game on a Friday night in July at your local watering hole (wait……). Anywho, Brandon Nimmo hopefully can continue his hot stretch and is somehow priced ahead of Lindor and Conforto by a mile, but you’ll want the LiPNC and other lefties in this lineup against Chad Kuhl – who is about as Kuhl as a Dad telling jokes while on the grill this weekend, meaning only he thinks he is funny.
LA Dodgers
Bellinger, Turner, Muncy
LA opens things up in the second half as chalky Coors team and it’s more for the fact that Antonio Senzatela will be on the mound. Hopefully for Senzatella they didn’t mix up the home run derby balls with what they use tonight so he can survive at least three innings, but I don’t expect him to survive cleanly.
Brewers vs Reds
Winker, Naquin, Votto — Yelich, Adames, Avisail, Jace Peterson
This game has rain risk and it’s rain coming in during the game – so consider this a second lineup tonight as a game stack. But with the rain will come more humid weather and in a tiny park with Mahle (facing Milwaukee too much now) and Houser (Mr. vomit machine) on the mound we should expect a good HR upside here.
Just missed the cut spots
San Diego vs Washington – Great weather for this game to go over the total, hard teams to stack though due to pricing and lineups. That said, we are awaiting potentially the debut of Derek Dietrich as a National, which is fucking awesome… However he’s still just in their minor league organization for now, but holy hell when he comes up he’s going to go off in his first Nationals series if he gets one. As for today Hosmer and Myers both at 3500 are excellent values in a really warm Nats park behind the Padres studs. The Nationals welcome in Chris Paddack a two pitch pitcher who gets hammered by righties. Good spot for Trea, Castro and Harrison.
Baltimore at Kansas City – Zero chance Danny Duffy was sober during the all star break and yes I say that jokingly but two bad bullpens should be picked on in this spot.
CATCHER
We are going to see lots of catchers do well tonight. They all finally got some rest and thus I’d prefer to not spend here — but if you do, spend on Contreras in Chase Field vs Bumgarner over Will Smith chalky in Coors
- Christian Vasquez
- Luis Torrens
- Willson Contreras – road catchers in chase … oh and MadBum
FIRST BASE
I am going to take a major risk and fade Ohtani who has been automatic on Fridays. I think he’s a fade for 7-10 days. In general this is a poor position today.
- Eric Hosmer
- Rowdy Tellez
- Trey Mancini
SECOND BASE
- Brandon Lowe
- Max Muncy
- Jeff McNeil
THIRD BASE
- Wander Franco … Forgotten man and a must in a Rays 3+ man stack.
- Justin Turner
- Eugenio Suarez … Who is gonna have a great second half and why is it Eugenio Suarez, thank you.
- Rodoflo Castro … Cmon. $2k still?
SHORTSTOP
- Francisco Lindor
- Fernando Tatis
- Brandon Crawford
OUTFIELD – Mt Rushmore
- Austin Meadows
- Tyler Naquin
- Christian Yelich
- Brandon Nimmo
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Cody Bellinger
- Jesse Winker
- Mitch Haniger
- Avisail Garcia
OUTFIELD – Value
- Michael Conforto
- Austin Hays
- Jorge Soler
- Jarren Duran
The Dongers Club
- Austin Meadows – OF – Rays – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Christian Vasquez – C – Red Sox
- Brandon Crawford – SS – Giants
- Tyler Naquin – OF – Reds
- Eugenio Suarez – 3B – Reds
- Eric Hosmer – 1B – Padres
- Jeff McNeil – 2B – Mets
- Cody Bellinger – OF – Dodgers
- BONUS ………….. Christian Yelich – OF – Brewers
HR PARLAY
Meadows – Naquin – Bellinger
BETS
- Orioles/Royals OVER 10
- Rays/Braves OVER 8.5
- Mets ML
- Nationals ML
- Giants ML
The Chalkiest Stacks
Dodgers, Blue Jays, Cubs, Royals
Good Teams Getting Overlooked
Rays, Reds
Best Leverage Play against Chalk
Rays
Favorite DK Pitching Combinations
Gausman, Ray
Favorite CORE Hitters
Meadows
Vasquez
Nimmo