Twelve games on the MAIN slate’s tonight with no Angels, Orioles, Pirates, Tigers, Nationals or Marlins. Early Slate thoughts Angels/Orioles should go over.  Love the Orioles 1-4 hitters. Nationals/Marlins is likely your SP stack…  Actually, it’s no doubt the SP stack on this slate Pirates/Tigers over   Here’s my quick take on the Aaron Judge peeking over to the side incident last night.  In case you missed it, in his 2nd AB the Toronto broadcast found it odd that he was peeking over to the side (towards the Yankee dugout/1B line) right before the pitch came and it immediately reminded me of this famous GIF So here’s the deal.  The pitcher, Jay Jackson, has basically thrown only two pitches in his MLB time, 4-Seam Fastball and a Slider.  He had thrown 5 straight Sliders to Judge before the peek over and subsequent 2nd HR of the night by Judge.  So why in the world would there be thoughts about him “tipping” a pitch here if the guy is throwing the EXACT same pitch over and over, not to mention he’s a bullpen guy and only throws two pitches — one of which is a f’n 4-seam Fastball. Judge claims he was peeking over at his bench chirping and that is certainly plausible and I’ll buy it.  But I also do not doubt that teams are trying to predict the pitch that a guy is throwing and in the case where it’s a reliever that the hitter certainly didn’t study for he might want some help from the bench of 1B coach about “what could be coming”. With the pitch clock in place now, Judge can’t step out and casually have time to look over at the bench, he’s gotta do it faster, and they gotta process things faster.  Ask yourself this, if a team KNEW that with historical data a pitcher had NEVER (or less than 2%) thrown the same pitch 3 times in a row, wouldn’t that be HUGE information to know? I remember a scout in NFL talking about how in the early 2000’s there was an NFL Defensive Coordinator who had NEVER blized on consecutive plays all season long — and this was early December.  That type of analytical information is MASSIVE to gain and what the analytics departments should be spending their time on, not “hey this guy hits X about 08% better than pitch Y, so we […]

WEATHER MIL @ STL – Storms throughout the day, but clearing enough that they would be likely to play without delay. CIN @ COL – Not as bad here, but could get some pop up storms.   My big whiff yesterday was Mitch Keller, who I have been pleased with all season but felt he wouldn’t dominate back to back starts.  He did, he is so legit and for real this year and in many ways is this years Dylan Cease.  So after that miss yesterday, I am going to … yep, take a gut feel stand here today, and do it with three guys who each can serve up some homers with the best of them, but also to me have the perfect setup today, except two of them are on the road FREDDY PERALTA Freddy is the first one I look at tonight and the benefit for him on the road is that St. Louis hasn’t been great at home and is coming off the Sunday Night Baseball travel scenario. Reaching for 7-10 strikeouts is not a big ask in my mind.  Peralta should handle the secondary batters on this lineup just fine. Will have to monitor weather here, I would prefer the game to start in a delay than to start and then delay obviously. MERRILL KELLY I had Hunter Greene wrote up initially but will go with the more secure Kelly.  While we could try to argue he won’t get strikeouts, I see the Athletics really struggling right now and just want to take a secure 7 inning clean start. ALEK MANOAH No doubt in my mind that the pitch clock has bothered Manoah, but the guy gets amped up for the Yankees and the whole stadium should be amped up all series long.   There are a ton of teams that are in okay spots today and this is one of the hardest slates to breakdown in quite some time. My build will be to go with a balanced approach tonight across various spots. MARINERS Teoscar Hernandez, Jarred Kelenic Two elite level picks in Teoscar (Fenway dominator) and Kelenic (great matchup off a day off) to go along with some cheap bats throughout the lineup. The Red Sox bullpen is the real weakness here, so if they can do enough damage on Houck then this will turn into a 7-8 run spot. TWINS Byron Buxton, […]

Sunday Afternoon & Showdown slate thoughts Rangers (Heaney) vs Athletics (Rucinski) Giants (Webb) vs Diamondbacks (Pfaadt) Padres (Weathers) vs Gonsolin (Dodgers)   Showdown Cardinals (Mikolas) vs Red Sox (Kluber) WEATHER Roof closed in Arizona, great weather in OAK/LA.   Afternoon Slate Lookie here, Logan Webb finishes off the week with a day game, but in the roof close environment of Arizona it might feel like a night game for him.  That’s the top spot for me to trust pitching today, and I would think Pfaadt will have a good start for Arizona, bringing this one up as the top SP gamestack on a short 3 game slate. The wild card for me on this slate is Andrew Heaney if he can roll out a 30% K rate today he’ll score well at $8800 on DraftKings, but I have no desire to go there personally. As for Tony Gonsolin, who the model will like based off mostly his 2022 data, I would avoid going there just yet as well. Logan Webb (SF) Brandon Pfaadt (ARI)   Showdown There’s absolutely nothing about Mikolas vs Boston and Kluber vs the Cardinals which we really want to roll with, but of the two Kluber should have the better chance of being used as a UTIL/FLEX.  Neither should be your captain on DraftKings.   Afternoon Slate We go back to a day game in Oakland for our top exposure today offensively.  Texas is a good team to stack even with Corey Seager remaining out.  Semien-Garcia cost you a good amount, but the upside Jung, Lowe, Heim bring for their price makes it a solid build. Rangers Dodgers … If Ryan Weathers would pitch more than 2 IP then LAD wouldn’t be #2.  But with good weather here they should be on radar given how well most of their lineup is hitting right now. Athletics … 9 RHH vs Heaney today, that’ll do well enough Padres   Showdown Top Bats Rafael Devers – MVP/Captain Pick Paul Goldschmidt Nolan Arenado Masataka Yoshida   Best Showdown Value Justin Turner Triston Casas Lars Nootbar   CATCHER Will Smith … +500 xSLG vs LHP Jonah Heim   FIRST BASE Nate Lowe Jesus Aguilar   SECOND BASE Marcus Semien … Can save $ with Brad Miller here too Jake Cronenworth   THIRD BASE Manny Machado Max Muncy Josh Jung   SHORTSTOP Only Thairo Estrada is likely to hit near the top of […]

Happy Mother’s Day out there to all the Mom’s.  Including the Philly Phinatic’s mother, who has had to put up with her crazy son for far too long.  Sadly the Phillies are not at HOME today, which means the Phinatic’s Mom won’t get pulled into her son’s crazy Mothers Day Stunts.   Slate Notes DraftKings has kept the Mets vs Nationals game on their MAIN slate today.  The game is going to be played at 4PM after they finish the suspended game from yesterday — which should have never been suspended in the first place. FanDuel does not have this game, because they release their slates late and had time to remove it, which is the right thing to do as we should just remove all Nationals home games from DFS forever going forward. WEATHER No issues   LOGAN GILBERT You give me a good RHP vs the Tigers and I am interested, and now you give me the emerging Logan Gilbert vs them with Javy Baez’s little ‘heater’ over and some massive K% upside here and I am very much interested. Some might say ‘hey there arent any aces going today’, they’re wrong.  The Mariners true ace is on the mound and should go 7+ today in Comerica. HUNTER BROWN After starting the season (and his career) white hot, Hunter Brown had back to back games where the Giants and Angels touched him up a little bit for 13 hits, 6 walks, 6 ER over 8 2/3 combined innings.  Nothing horrible here, and nothing to expect him to not have the upside his arm talent displays. This is a chilly game today in Chicago and the only lefties that present a threat are Benintendi and Sheets – in other words — none. KYLE GIBSON Gibby should not have a big strikeout game today — because that just isn’t who he is.  He also should not get hammered today by Pittsburgh even though Carlos Santana FOR SURE is someone I can see doing some samage. His $7300 price on DK is viable on a pretty bleak SP2 slate.   Other pitching thoughts … Yes, Mitch Keller is for real, but I am not going against Baltimore today.  He wont top 20 DK fpts and is 9600 there while not being a better option than Gilbert on FD either. Braxton Garrett and Luke Weaver in the Sunday South Beach game makes […]

WEATHER No major issues.  The Pirates/Orioles game will be waiting for rain to clear out early but will have a fine evening window to play Baseball in. Chase Field roof is closed.   ZAC GALLEN Roof closed and Gallen at home.  Can we go ahead and pencil in the 24-26 DK fpts now?  Yes, yes, we can. DYLAN CEASE Everyone has been bashing Cease this season, but I will continue to remind everyone that he is the new Trevor Bauer.  What I mean by this is he is a pitcher who does not mind working into deep counts and going 100 pitches through 5 innings simply by setting up the hitter to where he can get them put away after having them guessing as to what is coming next.  He does it more with location than anything else, and so this results in hitters who eventually get to see him more and more having better success against him.  Thus we’ve seen him struggle with teams in the AL Central more and more.  Today he gets a Houston lineup though which he can handle somewhat better.  And unlike some early games this year in Chicago, the weather is not really setup for this to be a high scoring spot.   ROYALS Melendez, Pratto PHILLIES Stott, Turner, Harper PADRES vs DODGERS If this was early April or late September I would be cautious with potentially having shadows in this game.  But this time of year L.A. is gonna be more of a spot where the ball flys out of the park with no shadows and a 4PM local start time. Not sure we will find a good build to full stack this game, but Nelson Cruz and JD Martinez could have a nice ‘remember me’ setup today.   CATCHER Salvy Perez JT Realmuto Austin Nola   FIRST BASE Nick Pratto … Going off what could be a chalky Pasquantino today because I love Pratto vs Houser.  He should get something down and in that he can drive into the RF seats. Carlos Santana Nelson Cruz   SECOND BASE Brice Turang Bryson Stott Adam Frazier   THIRD BASE Manny Machado Max Muncy Brian Anderson   SHORTSTOP Willy Adames Xander Bogaerts Trea Turner   OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore MJ Meldnez … The days of MJ at catcher are done on DK, so he is OF only now Bryce Harper Christian Yelich JD Martinez   […]

Eight (8) games early today, five of which will start before 4pm and then of the three games at 4PM, one of them may start later. We do NOT have site synchronicity today though, the games which are in that 4PM window are not on FanDuel and neither is the 3PM window game, this means these spots are FD only in their mid-day slate. Braves at Blue Jays Cardinals at Red Sox Mets at Nationals Rangers at Athletics WEATHER Mets at Nationals:  This is the only real delay/PPD risk game out there today, but they have a window where they will get the games in after they wait out any rain.  I expect a possible short delay and then they play. Of note, there is a stadium which I think plays way above the publics expectation today and that is Oakland-Alameda Coliseum.  We have historically profited with day games in Oakland, and it’s upper 70’s with decent humidity in Oakland today. Everything else is seasonable.  Roof probably open in Toronto, and TBD in Miami.   Holy Toledo, Batman!  We have some serious decision making here with regards to some top end pitching going. Nick Lodolo is not going today for the Reds – he is out and thus they are going with a modified opener/bullpen game. Sandy (Alcantara) Because of his early struggles all the Sandy algo’s are broken here which have his price down at $9,000 on DraftKings.  The only thing that prevents him from throwing 9 IP today is that recent usage over his last two starts and maybe around 95 he hits that wall, but 95 could actually get him through 8 IP against Cincinnati. Hayden Wesneski Hayden better than Bryce Miller.  He is $2400 cheaper.  I love him long time today.  Did I just write a Haiku?   Haiku Wesneski!  Getting off topic here.  Just to go on a quick rant, if you want to be a guy who can start for a while in this league you need one of two things.  You need a quality third pitch or you need ridiculous tree trunk sized legs like Spencer Strider and the most dominant heater in the land.  Well, Bryce Miller, everyone’s darling for the Mariners right now has just one pitch but someone like Wesneski is actually going to be here for a while.  Today vs the Twins he gets a lineup which is hitting just .152 […]

Friday, May 12th – Dongers Club Main Slate We got ourselves a nice big 13 game slate tonight, almost a full 15 gamer but the Tigers and Marlins wanna get their games over even faster and are on the Turbo slate. Some bad weather unfortunately tonight as well WEATHER Angels at Guardians – Rain, early PPD possible Astros at White Sox – Rain, early PPD possible Cubs at Twins – Rain, likely plays Roof open in Chase Field, but will be closed on Saturday/Sunday.   The weather really puts a wrinkle in some cheap options tonight. CORBIN BURNES Yes, the Royals going into Milwaukee could prove to be a solid spot for a team who ranks top 5 in almost every hitting statistical category in the month of May. And then you kinda pause and realize that this still young lineup might be above their heads right now after facing the Athletics and White Sox and will come into this spot vs Burnes ready to swing and swing and swing and miss and miss and miss.  This smells like the long awaited 12 strikeout game which people have thought Burnes would have this season. Should the Royals be chalk?  No, but they should be a good value team that people look at, and yes I firmly believe Pasquantino can take Burnes yard, but they’re still gonna rack up the strikeouts today.  Book it. JOHAN OVIEDO The legend of Johan has the most upside among the cheap SP.  Baltimore has a 30% strikeout rate vs RHP in the last week and in this park he needs to handle the lefties, which he has done just fine this season. MARTIN PEREZ Someone on this very website wrote about the Athletics going back down offensively and folks back home in a Friday night game this has all the makings of “they’re not gonna get a hit”.  Now, it is Martin Perez, so the strikeouts could remain low here, but at $8300 if Perez can give you 7 innings of 0 ER ball?  You take it.   Other SP Thoughts Dustin May … Some risk with both May and Snell since they literally just met 6 days ago, this time they’ll be in LA and I trust the home SP who has no doubt had better stuff in 2023 (which is no disrespect to Snell, May has just been on point).   Just 1 HR […]

Wednesday – May 10th – Dongers Club (Early/Main) I am calling this the MAIN slate today, because gosh darn it, it is the main slate.  It’s an early one a mid week Wednesday and a slate full of getaway day games. FanDuel is back to their old ways splitting things up with a short Very Early slate, then the Early slate, then their own Main slate.  This will be the only article today and it covers these games OAK @ NYY COL @ PIT DET @ CLE LAD @ MIL MIA @ ARI TEX @ SEA WSH @ SF TOR @ PHI HOU @ LAA WEATHER All clear   I see two paths today.  For one you can take the higher end SP’s that can get 20+ in Kershaw and Castillo and ride short bus stacks like the Pirates or you can ride the short bus on Pitching with Dick Mountain (Rich Hill) and … *gulp* Sean Manaea and load up on the what feels too good to fail high priced bats in the OF and one offs today. HIGH END ARMS Clayton Kershaw Luis Castillo Kershaw is coming off a tough start vs San Diego, now gets a much easier opponent in the Brewers, but they do have HR upside against him today so I do not think this is a repeat of that near no hitter he had vs the Twins a year ago around the same time.  Castillo is someone who tempts me the most today, the K upside is massive vs Texas, but so too is the risk here. MID RANGE / CHEAP ARMS Edward Cabrera Rich Hill None of the Diamondbacks hitters made my list of options today, and so we have a roof closed Chase Field game and a sub 8k Edward Cabrera who has a 31% whiff rate which could fool the Diamondbacks enough to trust him. Sean Manaea and Rich Hill are both getting weak offenses in get away spots.  Manaea will need to limit his walks vs the Nationals but should be able to do that and will win today, but there are too many metrics pointing to this game being high scoring with the Nats having some good options as well.  I had him on my short list and decided to pull him back to spare you that headache. Dick Mountain is going to get an up and down, but […]

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

Tuesday – May 9th – Dongers Club Bigger ten game slate, but lots of AWESOME games that are going to be in that 6pm window today which we will miss out on unfortunately.  Including Jays at Phillies and Mets at Cincinnati.  If you wanna dabble there, load up on the Mets. WEATHER Nearing 90 degrees in Kauffman Stadium which makes sense given how hot the Royals offense has been in terms of all the underlying statcast metrics.  Now they are finally putting the runs together as well. The only game tonight with some rain concerns is Padres at Twins, and we’re most definitely NOT using pitchers in that game so a little delay won’t bother us one bit.   Well, well, well.  Logan Webb is pitching in a night game today, what in the world is going on here?  I can’t wait for the 6PM EST notification that he has been scratched just to push him back to tomorrow’s day game. SHOHEI OHTANI One pitcher that Houston hasn’t figured out is Mr. Ohtani.  Yes, I am still loading up on Kyle Tucker on his annual destruction of Anaheim tour but the big question is can Ohtani reach 10K today vs Houston at home.  The answer to me is, yes.  His 34% strikeout rate vs RHH is going to come in handy today and should get the job done vs a team often perceived as not a strikeout team but has been middle of the pack of late. Don’t be shocked though if he winds up in a 1-0 duel with Framber Valdez here too.  Can’t stack both of them together but I most definitely see the pitchers dominating in Anaheim today. FRAMBER VALDEZ I looked long and hard at the 2nd tier of pitchers tonight to find a cheaper pivot off Ohtani and the answer is right in front of our face.  It’s Framber in the same spot.  If you wanna pivot off Ohtani, stay in the same game for a little leverage boost and trust that we get a lot of good ole ground ball innings where Framber pitches 8+ and finishes with a solid strikeout game.  The Angels haven’t been as bad vs LHP in terms of strikeouts this year though so that could limit his ceiling. GEORGE KIRBY Fine, I’ll bite here.  Kirby loves to just pound the zone and isn’t going to wal many batters.  The Rangers […]