Strategy We’re looking for drivers that are going to simply survive to run the duration of this race as there are 150 laps making dominator points somewhat relevant. Cup drivers Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, as well as dirt aces Stewart Friesen and Jonathan Davenport highlight the field. Note: This article is prior to […]
SLATE NOTES We are BACK baby! Site Synchronicity. Six games early at 4pm with another six games at the 7pm MAIN slate. This will cover the six early games Reds at Phillies Royals at Giants Marlins at Mets Athletics at Rays Rangers at Cubs Red Sox at Tigers WEATHER All games play without issue. Free samples at the COSTCO Warehouse in Tampa also known as Tropicana Field. BRADY SINGER I am looking forward to another season of folks attacking Singer with lefties. He should have the strikeout game that Keller didn’t have until late in the game yesterday and the more he too expands his trust in his third pitch (Change) the better he will become. Singer’s got no limitations depth wise and I don’t think the Giants hit at home like they did on the road. MARTIN PEREZ This one didn’t leap out at me when first going through the options, but as I look at his K projection on the model and go through the Cubs lineup more and more I see Perez having enough strikeout potential that he can out do Springs as my SP2 option. The Wrigley Wind isn’t an issue today either so as long as Perez has his command I see no reason not to like him. JEFFREY SPRINGS Springs projects to have a 35% strikeout rate weighted by pitch type against this Athletics lineup and there’s no reason to not expect what he has shown us so far in 2023 (Spring & Regular) to continue vs a weak offense. Also expect to pitch well: -Tanner Houck — Lasted 5 IP, 70 pitches in his first start of the season. Don’t believe he pushes beyond 6 & 85 at best today. -Kodai Senga — The Marlins just saw him so that knocks him down for me. PHILLIES Trea Turner, Alec Bohm, JT Realmuto Trea Turner hasn’t been quiet to start the season, but it does feel that way in DFS terms. He is always someone I loved against a LHP for HR upside, and the chances he also runs here are pretty good. Throw in the right splits for Bohm as Lodolo only gives up contact to RHH and we’re looking at a good 1-2-3 stack. RAYS Wander Franco, Isaac Parades, Brandon Lowe All they do right now is win, win, win. If you want to fade the hottest team […]
SLATE NOTES Just a five game MAIN slate on a Friday night and it’s because of how Opening Day schedules roll now, so we’ll let it slide. Padres at Braves Cardinals at Brewers Nationals at Rockies Blue Jays at Angels Dodgers at Diamondbacks Athletics at Rays (FanDuel Only) WEATHER SD/ATL: Storms/rain coming in here as the evening moves along. I believe they’ll start the game and try to get it in, but a quick reminder on how I approach weather games (I feel like I’ve said this 2 million times now). If you are the type who will get upset that a rain issue hurts your lineup then use this model. If the game starts, you can play it. If it starts in a delay, you fade it. It’s that simple. Games rarely start and then get PPD. LAD/ARI: Roof Open Nobody. I honestly like, nobody. If you are on FanDuel, Zach Eflin is your guy there. On DraftKings, I think they’re all gonna get hit a little bit. So lets pick on the worse offense on the slate, shall we? MacKenzie Gore Gimme arm talent vs a mediocre lineup even in Coors Field. Gore can give you enough production tonight with a 5 2/3 inning, 6 strikeout performance. I wouldn’t count on him holding on to the win today but the upside is certainly there. And yes, if you wanna be wild like me and gamestack with Jose Urena, I approve. Clayton Kershaw If there were multiple other top end pitchers I trusted then Kershaw would not be listed here. But the veteran will find a way to get through the D’Backs lineup twice and finish with a respectable score. All of them except Coors? It kinda looks that way to me except this is a heavy one off type slate with lots of individual players I like. I would avoid the Padres/Braves game for starters not just because of weather but I actually do like Martinez/Shuster to be efficient and would push Martinez if I knew weather would not be a risk on him. Cards vs Brewers Arenado, Goldy, O’Neill, Contreras … Winker, Tellez, Adames Arenado and Goldy are about to enter into the 2023 chat room as they go into one of their favorite road parks while Jesse Winker gets to have a big fat ass smile on his face going up against the Cards and […]
SLATE NOTES We went an entire week through the season and all was just fine on the DFS front as we had synchronicity between FanDuel and DraftKings on the slate configurations. DraftKings has given us a 6 game Early Slate that locks at 4pm, which this article is covering. Then a main slate at 7pm with five games which the next article will cover. Meanwhile, on FanDuel they are back to their ways with a Very Early, Afternoon, Early and then Main slate configuration. Just pure brilliance. So as always, we go with the larger slate config as the primary source of information in the article and in this case that means DraftKings and these games: Reds at Phillies Yankees at Orioles Astros at Twins White Sox at Pirates Royals at Giants Mariners at Guardians … Every team now plays every team at least once, but you still play your league teams twice. So why are they finishing up their season series before April 15th??? WTH Man. WEATHER All games play, nothing significant of note. Zack Wheeler Probably popular vs the lowly Reds, who aren’t as good as they’ve started but also not as bad as everyone thinks. Wheeler might have warning signs, but I recall him having those warning signs the last two seasons as well and then he turned it on very quickly. This is an elite strikeout matchup with 8+ strikeout potential. Brad Keller Nobody will touch this one, but us. Keller made some changes with the help of the new pitching staff and some time at Drive Line (“He Went to Drive Line!”) and is expanding his arsenal as well with a new Curveball this season which he used 25% in his first start vs the Twins. One big difference he has improved upon in the Spring was is his command which is huge against a team like the Giants who walks well and wants to work the count into their favor. His first start vs Minnesota wasn’t as clean with 4 walks, but I trust more what we saw in the spring than that one start here. We all saw the Giants just go bananas in nice weather in Chicago but back home in San Francisco this is a 2-run max offense and Keller should pitch well here and for another 2 starts before imploding on some mid-week afternoon game. PIRATES Oneil Cruz, […]
SLATE NOTES Thanks to the weather lords we have just a 4 game MAIN slate today, which locks early and runs into the late afternoon. Your four games that are on this slate today include Red Sox at Tigers – 1:10 pm Blue Jays at Royals – 2:10 pm Giants at White Sox – 2:10 pm Nationals at Rockies – 4:10 pm WEATHER Not warm in any of the games, temps below 60 everywhere and some wind again in all spots. 10 mph out to LF in Detroit. Not quite at the Comerica 14+ mph winds out level and we also get to see the new dimension changes at Comerica for the first time as they moved in CF/R-CF fences slightly. This used to be a great triples alley, so we might see a slight hitting reduction in that regard. Heavy winds in Chicago (South Side) again, but only mid/upper 40’s. Winds are up to 20 mph gusts out to LF With a four game slate we immediately move into short slate mode. Here are a few general tips for a ‘short slate’, which to me is anything 5 games or less. Game Stack and go. This includes SP game stacks as well, which is often overlooked as a strategy on short slates. Full team stacks work more often. If nothing else, you are just searching for the little offense which a slate may bring, and running into that guy hitting 7th who has the top score is going to pay off. Catchers. Why do catchers ALWAYS homer on a short slate? Choose your contests wisely. I would much rather play a higher $ 3-man contest and just play my contrarian build there where I only have to beat 2 people who are likely using the safe build instead of trying to be contrarian on a 4 game slate with 3000 other lineups who are also being somewhat contrarian. Kevin Gausman Yes, we can consider this a SP game stack with Jordan Lyles, but what fun is Jordan Lyles? After a boring poor offensive game last night where the ball did not carry we have even worse weather conditions this afternoon for both pitchers, so I expect another low scoring game in Kauffman and Gausman will get Melendez/Witt/Salvy all to strike out. Josiah Gray Off to Coors we go for a contrarian spot. The Rockies first home game […]
SLATE NOTES I am shocked, we keep the streak alive as both DK and FD have the same 9 game main slate today. WEATHER My goal here is to tell you the spots that you might need to monitor. I want to remind you once again that my belief is that more games will wind up playing than those which won’t and if a game has too much rain risk I won’t bother with a pitcher in the write-up on it. If a game starts in a delay, I fade it. If a game starts on time, I play it. So do not sweat the weather at 4pm in the afternoon when a game locks at 7:30pm and remember that the DFS sites will unlock a game which is PPD that never starts on time. Too many people try to overthink weather and there are 180 days of MLB DFS, so why the hell are you worried about solving the 3 nights out of those 180 slates when there might be a slight ‘edge’ on weather. Just move on and manage your time better. As for today… All games play. Wind blowing out in Chicago — Up to 20mph out to LF Warm in Washington DC Cristian Javier (DK: $8,100, FD: $10,000) The Tigers had their little fun in Houston last night, as they annually seem to do. Javier’s got a 30% DCPA strikeout matchup vs their projected lineup, the highest on the slate and also carries minimal risk potential. Jacob deGrom (DK: $9,500, FD: $9,900) It is possible that with Grayson Rodriguez being on the others side at min price (more on that below) that deGrom is not 80% owned. Throw in that the Orioles are legit really damn good and deGrom wasn’t really damn good in his first start and I would guess he is in the 20% range. Great time to buy into deGrom, who will get more comfortable as time goes on pitching in Texas and should rack up the K’s today. Shane McClanahan (DK: $8,800) No reason for me to be hard headed. Shane is without a doubt a good play against the Nationals even on a warm Wednesday afternoon in April. They’re bad and despite hitting Fleming last night and getting to see a LHP two days in a row they should not be avoided as a target to pick on given that […]
SLATE NOTES There are some more ‘early’ games today, and more of the 6:40 start times which I hope go away next season with faster games, but I doubt it. This leaves us with an 11 game MAIN slate on both DK & FD today and we are batting 1.000 on the season with site synchronicity. Tomorrow, however, will be the first true exam for the sites to figure out what to do with a slate that has a 12:35 game, six in the 1pm window, three in the 2pm window, two mid afternoon west coast games and the Jays and Royals at 7pm. But that is for tomorrow and so you can plan your mid week afternoon lunch plans when you wake up tomorrow. On to today, our first Tuesday of the MLB season and we look to see if more odd home run results happen like David Dahl and Ha-seong Kim going back to back to ruin the 4 leg dogs parlay. Or Seth Brown off Emmanuel Clase in Oakland on an April night, or how about this Jason Heyward guy for the Dodgers? What in the world is going on? It’s as if lefties are all homering now that the shift is gone, which makes zero sense unless pitchers were just approaching lefties entirely differently knowing they had the shift on and now they pitch them normal? Very weird, but also very small sample size… WEATHER Very good ‘warm’ weather tonight for April 4th. Two of the three games with rain are in domes that will likely be closed (Milwaukee, Texas) and the third is in St. Louis but my early read is they have a good window to get the game in so long as the early rain doesn’t drench the field too much, same with Kauffman Stadium… Rain Concerns Braves at Cardinals Blue Jays at Royals Tonight’s heavy wind game is in Kauffman Stadium – 22 mph winds out to LF, which also has a really good Dewpoint tonight. Max Scherzer (DK: $10,800, FD: $10,800) Max is ready, Max is fine. Max is going to get past Yelich and then ride his way to a 7+ strikeout performance tonight. Congrats to Milwaukee on hitting some dingers yesterday, they’ll be lucky to post a 2 spot today. Shane Bieber (DK: $10,500) Generally early in the season we don’t always go up and pay double […]
Broken down by pricing tiers, Mark Farris outlines his favorite PGA DFS plays on DraftKings
SLATE NOTES Eleven Monday games and all of the home teams on the MAIN slate tonight are teams who were home over the weekend as MLB made it so that most teams home Opening Day is going to be a weekday/afternoon type game later in the week. So yes, we begin one of the Dongers Club theories which is the teams who were home on Sunday and home on Monday usually do well to start their series, but it is early in the season so the impact of travel on the road teams probably isn’t as strong. WEATHER No, PPD risk tonight, a few games with notable weather spots however. PHI at NYY – Wind out to LF PIT at BOS – Wind out to LF TOR at KC – Wind IN DET at HOU – Guess they close roof here, but WIND out to LF ARI at SD – Heavy winds IN from left COL at LAD – Same Drew Rasmussen After Jeffrey Springs went off on the Tigers yesterday another Rays pitcher with his stock rising gets to face a bottom 5 offense today. Rasmussen is good vs LHB and should see a fair amount of them, although I honestly don’t know if we can really consider the Nationals ‘batters’. This is a single-A lineup which as long as you don’t walk them will have a hard time scoring this season and Ras usually doesn’t walk guys. Reid Detmers Most remember his no hitter from a season ago, and that was the good with Detmers, but at times the bad was also a negative number and less than 2 full IP. Detmers now has 30 full career starts under his belt and enters as one of the bright young arms in the game. I will continue to say that Seattle’s lineup is just average until they prove otherwise because I don’t believe in France and Suarez long term which leaves Julio and every 4th day Teoscar as the main hitters here vs a LHP. So if you wanna ride Geno, go ahead, I’ll take Detmers. Hunter Brown There’s some risk here. Historically the Tigers hit well in Houston, but this lineup is just so damn awful. Brown was scratched in his final spring start with back tightness, but appears all clear for tonight. He easily can hit 8+ strikeouts against this lineup even in limited work. BRAVES […]
San Diego State vs UCONN If you do not think San Diego State has a shot then you really need to pay closer attention. They’re built to defend against a team like UCONN and they generally match up with a similar style lineup and have a strong veteran group of players. I strongly believe SDSU […]
