Very lovely eight game slate we have here on the next to last Monday of July.  One that bring us three divisional series and a few 1st Basemen who are popping off quite a bit today for some obvious reasons.  First is Paul Goldschmidt going back to Arizona and second is Joey Votto going into Milwaukee, a place he has absolutely LOVED hitting in his career.   WEATHER No issues tonight.   MY NUMBER ONE YU DARVISH (DK – $9400, FD – $10k) Trust Darvish here with a very young bottom of the lineup from the Pirates to get him easily through the order twice and allow him to pitch around Reynolds/McCutchen/Santana if he has too.  I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw vintage Yu with a 10 strikeout game.   SECONDARY OPTIONS JON GRAY (DK – $8700, FD: $8800) Until Yordan Alvarez is officially back in the lineup and also without formerly good Jose Altuve this Astros lineup CAN be attacked despite the stigma that you don’t wanna use SP vs Houston.  They carry a 27% strikeout rate vs RHP over the last week, are still rolling out Jose Abreu in the heart of the order and Gray has owned Bregman and Tucker historically. JOSE BERRIOS (DK – $9200, FD: $9800) My sleeper pick today, mainly a pivot off Darvish if you want someone contrarian instead.   OTHER NOTES Both Ryan Yarbrough and Quinn Priester will be good enough to give you 2x today, but that’s not really anything flashy from either.  They are more guys to not donkey chalk stack against them. Luis Castillo and Kenta Maeda in a warm Target Field after both teams have seen each other recently feels like a firework special.  If I am wrong here, this game will finish 2-1 and a SP game stack will work, but I feel good about avoiding both guys today.   FAVORITE CORES … CARDINALS Goldschmidt, Contreras, Arenado, Gorman Goldy back in Zona.  Arenado back in the NL West and road catchers in Chase Field.  A great way to kick off the MLB week by getting some red-birds in the game where most will want Snakes against Waino (which isn’t a bad spot either) … And before anyone asks, yes I believe Contreras will suit up tonight after sitting out Sunday.  If he doesn’t then take his replacement. ROCKIES Jurickson Profar, Ezequiel Tovar, CJ Cron If Colorado […]

Since there is no Coors Field today both sites have the same amount of games — which is 10 — for the Main Slate. This is a pivot/be different kinda slate from an offensive perspective.  We have a ton of openers going and then we have a bunch of sneaky veterans who normally would fit perfectly into the Sunday Sleeper profile but I just can’t pull the trigger on any of them. Sunday’s are the most chalky day when it comes to people blindly following Vegas totals and I think they all get burned today, so that’s the number one thing you should ignore when building lineups.   WEATHER Perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  Mid 80’s, no wind, no rain.  Just perfect.   MY NUMBER ONE JESUS LUZARDO (DK: $10.8k, FD: $10k) There shouldn’t be a single person today who doesn’t default into Jesus Luzardo as a primary pick.  It’s a Sunday South Beach narrative with the Rockies of all teams.  And after him the choices are a massive heaping pile of crap which includes Nola vs Cleveland (nah), and two dorks fighting it out in Target Field that I’ll get too below.  Luzardo should roll. SECONDARY OPTIONS Taj Bradley (DK: $7600, FD: $8000) Baltimore saw Bradley a month ago down in the Tampa Bay regional COSTCO Warehouse and they struggled versus him, they should do better today specifically with good games from Henderson, O’Hearn and Santander, but he too like Gore will get enough whiffs to give him a good score. MacKenzie Gore (DK: $8300, FD: $8800) My love child, Mr. Gore is the second southpaw I will roster today after Luzardo.  The Giants will be heading back home after this game and aside from a bunch of HR lately (playing in Cincy helps) they’re collectively hitting around the Mendoza line post the ASB with a near 30% strikeout rate.  Any SP2 you ride today has to have ability to get 7 strikeouts otherwise it’s a blind click and hope for a positive score. Gore can do that.  In fact, I believe he can finish SP1 as well. SUNDAY SLEEPER MARTIN PEREZ What.. You want me to actually provide justification?   Look.  Here’s the justification.  The alternative option was Jordan Lyles.  I love some premium hitters today as one offs and so punting SP2 is the path for me here. OTHER NOTES Lucas Giolito and Bailey Ober square off in a battle […]

Six games on DraftKings, Seven on FanDuel since they have the Mets/Red Sox game. If you did not read the ‘Afternoon’ article, I mentioned in that one how I like the NYM/BOS game for offense and Rafael Devers was technically the afternoon Chairman, so he technically is a Chairman for FanDuel readers in this article too.   WEATHER All clear MY NUMBER ONE Josiah Gray (DK: $6900, FD: $8600) I Really like Gray and this game in general for pitching.  Gray continues to have success vs LHB more than RHB and with the Giants better hitting coming from the LH side today it could favor Jo Gray as the best Gray pitcher going today.   BEST SP2 CANDIDATES Cristian Javier (DK: $9000, FD: $8800) Should be over his little bad stretch that he had and getting Oakland at night is a high confidence boost scenario here too. Reid Detmers (DK: $7500, FD: $9000) Pittsburgh hit Ohtani as I expected, but is not as much of a threat tonight against Detmers, which just feels weird to type, but it’s how it is.   AVOIDING Sonny Gray, Zack Wheeler, Dylan Cease … I think this is a downgrade strikeout spot for all three.   FAVORITE CORES … This is a good spread it out kinda night.  I doubt you see any single team score more than 7 runs total, which is still a good number, but likely spread out from a production standpoint.  More important to find that Kyle Tucker type game than anything else.   BRAVES Ozuna, Murphy   BREWERS Yelich, Adames These two or bust for Milwaukee.   PHILLIES Schwarber, Bohm, Marsh They had a big late inning last night and tonight could have more success early against Bibee and I doubt anyone uses them.  We nailed the Stott homer on Friday, lets see if the second leg of the Lefties in Cleveland trifecta hits today with Schwarber.  I personally like Bohm too in the middle of 3 lefties at the bottom of the order.  Phillies value/bottom of lineup wrapping around to Schwarber is the play.   CATCHER Sean Murphy … Hefty price here, but the SP pricing is very soft today, so you aren’t loading up salary for pitching and thus you can spend here comfortably.  I literally do not like any other catchers.  So if he sits, plug in a blind squirrell (or Travis d’Arnaud).   FIRST BASE […]

This article covers the 4PM Slate, which DraftKings has 5 games on as they retained the Mets/Red Sox game which technically is a 7PM game, while FanDuel has it on the right time slot.  The reason here is that the game was an afternoon game and got pushed back as they are making up the Friday night game first. For the record, I am covering all five of these games in this article … Dodgers (Miller) at Rangers (Dunning) Blue Jays (Gausman) at Mariners (Gilbert) Diamondbacks (Gilbert) at Reds (Williamson) Orioles (GrayRod) at Rays (McClanahan) Mets (Scherzer) at Red Sox (Paxton)   WEATHER Warm and wind blowing out (10 mph) to center in Cincinnati. Of course, I write this as if it’s not the dead of Summer.  Of course it’s warm….   Pretty cool as we have two Gilbert’s going today and neither is named Godfrey, although Zach Godley did recently sign a minor league deal with the Athletics in case you were looking to make a ton of money stacking against him come later this season. The match-up between Grayson Rodriguez and Shane McClanahan is a doozy today.  I think that is a must watch game if you are free to wach it and I expect both to pitch very well but also have some high stress innings come out of it. Here are my SP rankings today Kevin Gausman Logan Gilbert Grayson Rodriguez Hard to not just go with Gausman against Seattle the way they strike out.  It’s becoming a broken record with those guys but we should keep pounding it until they can prove otherwise.  Pairing him with Logan Gilbert who should continue to pitch decent (and better than last time too) is my preferred built. Riding down with a cheap SP2 points us directly into Grayson Rodriguez.  He looked REALLY good despite the final outcome vs the Dodgers, and the Rays offense is not as potent as the Dodgers are right now.  Early in the season, yes, now though they’re very mediocre.  He’s viable.   The whole world should build around the Diamondbacks and Reds on this slate.  Cincinnati just hasn’t been as lethal vs a LHP of late, but Tyler Gilbert also isn’t someone who pitches a ton.  I am fine backing both teams here, but the Reds are for sure the ones I expect to do more damage. With the late start time and […]

Ladies and Gentlemen.  We have a glorious Friday slate tonight which includes 11 total games and excludes the three turbo games as well as the glorious late July, Friday afternoon Cubs home game in Wrigley Field. For your menu tonight there’s no games which are on the MAIN slate that are Apple TV+ games, thank the lord.  Sadly that Cubs game is on AppleTV for some unknown reason.  But the menu does include the Royals and Yankees, one of these teams has won a World Series in the past decade and the other traded away Jay Buhner, who hit 30 HR and 100 RBI and had a rocket for an arm – for KEN PHELPS! It’s Asian Pitcher night again, Kodai Senga is in Boston, Shohei Ohtani is at home vs the Pirates and lord have mercy, Yusei Kikuchi is back in Seattle against his former team in what could feel like a home game for the Blue Jays as most of that area roots for them over the Mariners.  The real question here though is will anyone actually stake claim to Kikuchi and root for him?  We can only hope the Mariners play BOTH Tom Murphy and Cal Raleigh tonight back to back in the lineup for the Catcher(s) vs former Pitcher narrative. Lance Lynn, Michael Soroka and Clarke Schmidt also go tonight, three random guys who most definitely, are not Asian.   WEATHER NYM at BOS – Chance of T-Storms here.  Probably okay to get the game in unless they are extremely violent at the exact wrong time.   MY THREE PITCHERS FRAMBER VALDEZ (DK: $10.8k, FD: $11.2k) I won’t be using Ohtani until August and that has been consistent with him the past couple of years post-ASB, which is even more strong now with all the trade rumors out there.  I don’t care if he plays Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann tonight, he’s not gonna get a recommendation from me today. Framber though?  Against Oakland?  Yeah, I’ll go here.  He’s had a ton of starts versus them in his career, many have been dominant and tonight on a late night in the Coliseum I would be shocked if he didn’t roll out a 7 inning 1 hit performance.   JOE RYAN (DK: $10.6k, FD: $10k) Mid range SP options tonight on both DraftKings and FanDuel are bad, really bad.  It is a land of which 60% of them […]

This fine Thursday while The Open is on in the morning gives us Noon/Early afternoon Baseball as there is a 7 game MAIN slate and then a small and quiet 3 game night slate tonight that features the Orioles and Rays on it, the Cardinals in Wrigley and Houston at Oakland.   WEATHER Rain will roll in to Cincinnati at some point, but it shouldn’t be too heavy and shouldn’t cause this game to not finish.   MY THREE PITCHERS PABLO LOPEZ (DK: $10,200, FD: $10,400) / GEORGE KIRBY (DK: $8300, FD: $9700) Classic mid-week day game out in Seattle which you forget to bet the under on pre game and then see it’s 1-0 through 4 innings and you wanna jump on that U4.5.  We’re gonna go back to where the ball has been carrying well and take a risk on both of these guys today. Lopez finally had his rough outing last week against Oakland, but overall 6 of his last 7 starts he has gotten 30% or better CSW rates and the Mariners, well, they’re still striking out folks.  Kirby is my sneaky favorite in this game to slow down a HR happy Twins lineup. CORBIN BURNES (DK: $8500, FD: $9300) I do not expect Burnes to be as dominant as he was vs the Reds, therefore his price is about the right spot, but I do expect him to get through 6 innings, keep the Phillies from scoring more than 2 runs and still get 7 strikeouts or so.   OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS I have no issue with Strider today, I just cannot work it to justify building him and one of the cheap SP’s. Greinke will get you 6-8 points.  Why bother. Michael Lorenzen wont make it out of the 5th inning. More like Jose Quinta-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-hey-hey-hey-good-bye and Michael NoPech… So yeah, don’t go cheap and cute.   FAVORITE CORES … This is a one off slate, and the chalk today isn’t going to be that strong in my mind.  The Giants/Reds could get some attention due to being in the best park for offense, same could be said for the Braves/Diamondbacks but those are very good pitchers that most will not bother with going against. I would imagine the Twins pop off a good deal, they are cheap and they are hot, but they are also a team I expect to pack their bags and […]

How about all that offense last night?  A little too much?  Just right?  Yeah, so, the Baseballs love the heat, we kinda knew this last year but the combination of that and some pitchers who hadn’t thrown in a while and aren’t very good lead to the perfect science of a record breaking offensive output last night. Expect some more of that but not as wide spread today.   WEATHER No major concerns.   MY THREE PITCHERS JUSTIN VERLANDER (DK: $8800, FD: $9500) Verlander is holding opposing RHH to a .283 wOBA and as long as Tim Anderson remains in the game that should hopefully be 3 strikeouts right there.  Sub 10k price here in a big park with not extreme temps and Verlander should avoid the walk issues he had last outing vs the Dodgers tonight allowing him to posisbly even go into the 8th inning. KENTA MAEDA (DK: $7800, FD: $7200) What can I say, I am a sucker for punishment?  Going back to the Asians on the west coast well here with Maeda who was GOD AWFUL against Oakland and now I want to pray he pitches well in the great Northwest against the Mariners and their 28% strikeout rate vs RHP over the last week. TREVOR WILLIAMS (DK: $6500) Williams last threw on July 7th, he tossed 110 pitches against the Rangers and went 6 full innings but still dot not break 10 DK FPTS.  The guy isn’t good but the wind should help him tremendously today.   ALSO LIKE Yu Darvish   FAVORITE CORES … D’BACKS and BRAVES ARI:  Carroll, Gurriel ATL:  Olson, Rosario Arizona is a great curve-ball team, something that we obviously know Uncle Charles is going to lean on no matter what.  They didn’t hit him earlier back in June at home and he had a whopping 37% CSW rate in that game.  But I’ll go right back to the spot that had 29 runs last night and expect it to at least get into the double digits again today.  Tough to go full one team or another but the four guys mentioned above are the top options.   REDS / GIANTS CIN: De La Cruz, Stephenson, Benson, India SF:  Bailey, Pederson Cincinnati’s cold streak ends tonight, which has to come from their bullpen locking down finally because the offense will explode here.  The De La Cruz transition to the lead off […]

FanDuel players are exposed to the Guardians and Pirates at 12:35 while DraftKings will lock at 1:05 with just a 5 game early slate. This slate includes LAD/BAL, TB/TEX, HOU/COL, MIA/STL and BOS/OAK.   WEATHER No major concerns   MY THREE PITCHERS Sandy Alcantara (DK: 8400, FD: $8400) Price synchronicity and happy Sandy Day 2023!  Sure, there is a ‘former team’ narrative if you want to stretch it here but I see someone who just had much higher expectations that is pitching just fine of late.  His last four starts Sandy has allowed a total of 5 walks over 24 2/3 IP, 8 ER — 4 of which were in Atlanta and has 21 strikeouts.  It’s not Cy Young level no, but it’s good and the Cardinals offense should struggle to produce consistent hard contact today. Brayan Bello (DK: $9100, FD: $10k) Hey nice, the Boston in Oakland shutout came with Medina last night?  Of all people, awesome.  I would go here again for a “hopefully” safe pitching combination and a 4-2 game.  Boston will hit Waldichuk enough to only consider Bello Sneaky Value – Austin Gomber   FAVORITE CORES … ROCKIES Kris Bryant CJ Cron Nolan Jones   DODGERS / ORIOLES Will Smith Max Muncy Ryan Mountcastle   RAYS / RANGERS Luke Raley Isaac Paredes Nate Lowe Josh Jung Jonah Heim     CATCHER Will Smith Jonah Heim   FIRST BASE Good upside on taking HR picks here. Freddie Freeman CJ Cron Ryan Mountcastle Garrett Cooper – Value   SECOND BASE Joradn Westburg Enrique Hernandez Zack Gelof   THIRD BASE Max Muncy Alex Bregman Isaac Parades   SHORTSTOP Jeremy Pena Joey Wendle Ezequiel Tovar   OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore Nolan Jones Mookie Betts Jorge Soler Kris Bryant   Nolan Jones – OF – Colorado Rockies – Chairman of The Dongers Club Ryan Mountcastle – 1B – Orioles Will Smith – C – Dodgers   TODAY’S BETTING ANALYSIS Good Over Upside — Meaning these have best potential to go way over… Dodgers/Orioles Rays/Rangers   Good Under Upside — Meaning best potential to be a 2-1 or 5-2 type game. Red Sox/Athletics Marlins/Cardinals   ML Targets Rockies  

Broken down by pricing tiers, Mark Farris outlines his favorite PGA DFS plays on DraftKings

The Giants/Reds game will resume today around 4:40 PM and then they will play the normal game after that.  They are tied, but I would assume that the first game is done and lineups immediately posted for the second game, although there is more storm potential right around the time they are looking to resume.   WEATHER Lots of potential storms here to monitor, but all pretty low PPD risk, so I would say all clear tonight.   This is a very risky SP slate tonight, we’ll see good performances but they should be more of a contrarian type. MY THREE PITCHERS Lucas Giolito (DK: 9300, FD: $10k) This should be a low scoring game in Queens tonight and Carlos Carrasco for just $6200 on DK is a good SP2 chalk to pair here with Giolito for a game stack.  Something not common on a big 14 game slate, but worth noting as an option.  Giolito gets the lean though, as I trust his depth into the game more — he should go 7 innings, limit the Mets to 2 ER or less and have a 6+ strikeout spot. Patrick Sandoval (DK: 7500, FD: $7100) It’s me, picking on another NY team and yeah, this one is really bad right now.  Sandoval has been very inconsistent in 2023, but when he gets a shitty offense like this he should capitalize with lots of GB outs and some depth tonight. Daniel Lynch (DK: $6300, FD: $7500) Two young lefties against two bad offenses tonight in Kauffman Stadium.  Skubal might have the better ratio of Strikeouts overall but his ceiling is really limited due to just being a third start off the IL this season and the Tigers taking it easy with him right now.   OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS I am still a believer in Alek Manoah and his 0 BB 8 K performance no matter who it was against is the first encouraging sign to see the mental block start to wear off for him.  The pitch clock most definitely was a big cause of issues, so too has been the pitch calling from the catcher, and I hope Danny Jansen is catching him tonight and we’ll get a solid outing from Manoah. Bailey Ober has a 28.3% strikeout rate vs Seattle and I thought you should know that.  Plus the Mariners are consistently among the worst K teams in the […]