After a weekend of doing well with slightly contrarian SP1 options I look for the offense to get going from my picks this week.  There are 10 of this early week series which start off tonight that includes no Coors Field today and no games before 7pm either, which is very nice (for today).   WEATHER SF/CIN:  Chance of rain here lingering to cause a delay, but the game will play. MY THREE PITCHERS Logan Gilbert (DK: $9800, FD: $9900) … The Mariners are one of my top teams in the second half to watch and a big reason will be their SP carrying them.  If that’s going to come to fruition then my belief that Logan Gilbert is their true Ace of the staff must start off strong.  He’s been good vs LHH with a 25% strike-out rate and has three pitches that get a 30% whiff rate on the season.  If you ask me who finishes the night with the most strikeouts, Gilbert is my pick, and he will need to go 7 IP again to outlast Sonny Gray on the other side, who also should pitch well. Paul Blackburn (DK: $6600, FD: $7400) … I wouldn’t encourage using Blackburn on FD mostly because Gilbert is under 10k and has 50 point upside there.  However, the Red Sox annual trip to Oakland is an annual fade of their offense for me.  No matter who the players are they tend to go into the Coliseum and go ice cold.  Blackburn did make an appearance facing 7 batters in one inning against Boston a week ago, but again I lean heavily on the park shift going to his advantage tonight as he has been good (enough) at home. These two guys are my locked in 1-2 punch on DraftKings with honorable mention for Sonny Gray & Matt Manning. Nick Pivetta (DK: $7300, FD: $7000) Back in the starters saddle tonight once again and likely not with an opener before him.  The shift into a big park should help Pivetta here as well and I would imagine he’s another popular pick for many today.   OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS Promotions … Grayson Rodriguez is back in the bigs with the Orioles.  I expect him to pitch extremely well in the second half, but see no point vs the Dodgers. The Pirates are promoting Quinn Priester, a 6’3 RHP who has a mediocre sinker.  […]

Overview This week the NASCAR Cup Series heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire. The track called the “Magic Mile” is a 1.058 mile slightly banked asphalt oval track. NHMS is similar to Richmond and Phoenix Raceways as far as characteristics go. Last years winner Christopher Bell led 42 laps. He was […]

10 Game Sunday Main Slate today on DraftKings, and a bonus 11th Yankee/Rockies Coors game on FanDuel.   WEATHER We should be all clear today.  There is a chance that the games in Baltimore & Philadelphia are delayed slightly but will get played. Wind blowing OUT at Wrigley Field to RF   Every pitcher who is going today obviously has had 1+ week off, if not more.  I would expect some first inning runs allowed, Yu could definitely Sei I like the runs in the first inning.   MY THREE PITCHERS Zach Eflin (DK: $10,000 / FD: $10,500) With his low walk rate and the Royals likely not walking at all today there is a great chance Eflin will go into the 7th inning following the double-header on Saturday and get this game over with quickly before evening storms roll into town.  If Perez sits then we’re gonna possibly get a shutout performance here too. Martin Perez (DK: $6,000 / FD: $7,200) Put this one down into the ‘Sunday Sleeper’ category with Perez at home vs Cleveland looking like a tough K% upside spot, but one where the veteran getting plenty of rest off a dumpster fire start vs Houston is prime for a good rebound. Max Scherzer (DK: $9,400 / FD: $9,600) Going against my Sunday Citi Field OVERS narrative as this game has been moved back to 5:30 PM start time to avoid weather issues.  Both Max and Bobby Miller are in play for me, with Max being the one who SHOULD be lower owned because of how bad the Mets offense is right now, but I like him to pitch well in this odd start time and send the Dodgers away on a get away with a loss.   OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS Houser will pitch well for Milwaukee and at $5700 won’t burn you for his price. Same deal with Kyle Bradish   FAVORITE CORES … Diamondbacks:  Evan Longoria, Lourdes Gurriel Kikuchi vs the Diamondbacks is a match made in heaven if you wanna be a load up em, stack away guy.  The Longoria double in the 1st inning to clear the bases might look like you are golden, but it’s the Solo HR in the 5th which really puts this stack over the top today. Rays: Brandon Lowe, Josh Lowe Singer was pitching so much better priot to getting destroyed by Cleveland before the all-star break and […]

There are two sets of double headers today with both having the second game on the MAIN slate.  Padres (Weathers) at Phillies (Walker) is one and the Rays (TBD) at Royals (Ragans) PPD make up is the other.  Technically there is a THIRD double header because the Nationals/Cardinals are resuming last nights game today as well.  The starters in the evening game there are supposedly going to be Irvin and Matz. This is a very difficult weekend to navigate if just trying to bank on one spot because some teams will just play cold all weekend and others will magically get hot mid way through a game as they get some consistent PA’s.   WEATHER Another ugly mix of spots out there, here are the games which all have risk tonight that need to be really checked closer to lineup lock.  I believe all will wind up playing. Marlins/Orioles – Dangerous batch of Storms Giants/Pirates – Should clear and play Padres/Phillies – Same Brewers/Reds – Same   My main focus with pitchers on this slate is to get two good ones into your DK lineup.  A novel concept obviously, but what I mean is the pay-up approach on both spots is the priority.  Naturally, the first inclination is to just use Spencer Strider, but banking on near 13k for SP1 and then another 10k for SP2 is not what I mean tonight, so thus Strider will be a fade for me as his pitch-type K% isn’t strong enough in this matchup to justify that cost.   MY THREE PITCHERS Framber Valdez (DK: 9,800 / FD: $10,700) Put the Angels on no-hit alert today.  A 7 day break for Valdez to re-charge and sans Trout his sinker action should tear up the Angels lineup.  If he can avoid a mistake to Renfroe, this could be an 8 inning shutout performance.  He’s definitely getting some run support as well. George Kirby (DK: $9,300 / FD: $10,300) Nice little offensive output for the Tigers last night, that’ll end today.  Kirby got to throw an inning on Tuesday in the ASG, which was nice to keep his routine going and should pound the strikezone vs Detroit giving him a long outing with plenty of point accumulation. Pablo Lopez (DK: $10,200 / FD: $10,900) Pablo was one of the hottest pitchers before the all-star break and he is beating lineups he should beat, which is […]

We kick off the second half of the MLB season and I already have two major beefs with the scheduler today.  First off, he has the Cubs at home on a Friday which is great, but why are the playing 8PM?  We can’t get these lowsy players out to the field for an afternoon game to bring positive energy to the people of Chicago to start drinking early in mid July? Meanwhile that’s not even close to the most mind boggling thing today.  Why is there a random Padres/Phillies game at 6pm instead of 7pm and thus not on the MAIN slate tonight?  Then why are they playing 2 tomorrow?  Huh?  Oh well, just lock in the Soto homers all weekend long folks.  +400 is a steal tonight. So all that said, a 14 game slate kicks things off for DFS.   SECOND HALF NOTES These are the parts of my articles you really should be reading if you are a long term bettor, I am always just looking at things through no biased lens when I tell you my thoughts going forward and over the next 2-3 months I am going to find myself leaning on these thoughts now as to how I think the rest of the season plays out. Here’s a few quick hits Pitching depth matters the most in the second half of the season.  Hitting will go off one night and then completely disappear into ‘Dog Days of August’.  This is where having depth in your bullpen as arms get tired and also in the rotation to prevent the bullpen from getting tired matters.  A team who has guys going 7 IP starting 4 out of 5 days is going to go on a tear.  A team who is patching it together as best possible is going to be in trouble. Someone is going to get on an insane (10, 11, 12, 13 game) winning streak in August.  I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw someone rattle off something like 18 out of 19 hot.   AL East: Boston is going to play well under .500 the rest of the season. New York is just not good.  I don’t think they can make a serious move at the deadline to change things around and I fear what would happen if Cole had to miss a couple weeks. Toronto should be able to make a surge […]

Genesis Scottish Open I apologize for last week, but sometimes life gets in the way.  I doubt Renner wants to start paying me six figures so I have to do my day job.  I will always try to get you all something each week when I’m traveling, even if it is just some plays on […]

I know you will want to be betting the HR Derby, it’s a fun way to spend Monday night when there isn’t much of anything else going on in the Sports World.  Do not bother asking me about All-Star game DFS.  It’s a bingo card, it’s for fun, do whatever the hell you want with […]

Closing out the first half of the MLB DFS season with 10 games on the Main Sunday slate today.   WEATHER Cubs at Yankees – This and the game in Boston have some Thunderstorm chances with the %’s being much higher and longer duration here. All other games on the MAIN slate should play.  The worst looking one today is the 12:00 pm Showdown spot between Texas and Washington. MY TWO PITCHERS Jesus Luzardo (DK: $9,900 / FD: $10,300) On the narrative side you have the road Phillies coming off an early Saturday afternoon game yesterday with a 4 day vacation looming after today and they had all night in South Beach to sit around and do what?  I’m pretty sure Bryce Harper was sitting in his room staring at a candle with one eye until it went blind, Trea Turner had his VR headset on and was on level 7 of some Dungeons and Dragons type game while Craig Kimbrel sat quietly in the corner just staring at him plotting someone’s death.  The rest of the team?  Half of them hitched on with Alec Bohm and Edmundo Sosa while the other half went out with Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos…  The Bohm and Sosa group were passed out drunk by 11pm and are definitely not playing today while the Schwarber/Castellanos side, well, we can’t share what that group did but I doubt they ever went to sleep.  Yes, my friends, welcome to South Beach Sunday 2023…. Oh, on the analytical side, Luzardo has been fantastic at home all season, he carries a 32% K rate on LHH and a 28.3% K rate on RHH and should post a 7+ strikeout spot today…  Lock him in. Lucas Giolito (DK: $8,800, FD: $10,000) If you believe the Cardinals show up today then God Bless you my friend.  Even if they do, we’re not backing someone like Brady Singer here, so with confidence I would go Giolito on either site.   OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS I really like both Luzardo and Giolito today, and we have a good amount of depth on this slate. Guys like Nola, Ryan, even Eflin vs Atlanta are all going to pitch well enough that I don’t see them being blown up & I didn’t even mention Bieber vs the Royals who also should be fine.  So the upside in going to a ‘sleeper’ today just isn’t there. […]

Four games tonight and none of them are the best Baseball on TV, that would be the futures game.   WEATHER All fine.   PITCHER RANKINGS Going Strider means punting lots of hitting or pairing him with David Peterson, Taj Bradley or Michael Grove (who should be PLR tonight). My contrarian pitcher today is Blake Snell, lord help me. Framber is also back today and should serve up a Teoscar HR and then settle down Blake Snell Brayan Woo Spencer Strider David Peterson     TOP STACKS The only team to go full stack on tonight would be a contrarian spot with Atlanta and/or Tampa Bay.     FAVORITE HITTERS Atlanta: Austin Riley, Sean Murphy Tampa Bay: Luke Raley Seattle: Teoscar Hernandez Houston Kyle Tucker LA Angels Hunter Renfroe, Mickey Moniak, Jo Adell LA Dodgers JD Martinez, Miguel Rojas, Miguel Vargas NY Mets Pete Alonso San Diego Ha-Seong Kim, Fernando Tatis Jr     Fernando Tatis Jr – OF – Padres – Chairman of The Dongers Club Teoscar Hernandez – OF – Mariners Kyle Tucker – Astros Luke Raley – 1B – Rays   TODAY’S BETTING ANALYSIS Good Over Upside — Meaning these have best potential to go way over… Braves/Rays Angels/Dodgers   Good Under Upside — Meaning best potential to be a 2-1 or 5-2 type game. Mets/Padres   ML Targets Rays Mariners  

Strategy Pack racing will come into play with this race being treated as a super speedway, just like what we see at Daytona and Talladega. The drivers will go 163 laps for 251 miles providing a good amount of dominator points but also keeping in mind that typically at these types of tracks we need […]