We have a full Friday slate and the Dodgers/Marlins are playing a series this weekend down in Miami with tonight’s game being omitted from the main slate – thankfully. We’re also running a Surprise Friendly Dongers Club Appreciation Contest on DraftKings.  There are no rules, just enter a lineup tonight, next Tuesday and next Wednesday.  Details on a prize to follow. https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/130773915 So many fresh and exciting match-ups tonight, like the Reds/nationals or if that doesn’t get you going then maybe Tigers/Rangers can?  Ah, who am I kidding, I am very much in love with this set of games we have tonight.  It’s a good 3 lineup type night and there’s a lot of viable spots to consider. Let the Stars come out and play WEATHER Tampa at Boston – Thunderstorms likely delay the start but the game should get in. [spacer height=”10px”] The two highest priced pitchers on DraftKings tonight are from New York (Cole & Bassitt) and they are both facing two horrible offenses in giant pitchers parks and I see no reason either fails. The Nationals have called up prospect Cade Cavalli to make his debut.  He is a former college pitcher so take his immediate minor league success with a grain of salt, but I am optimistic he can pitch decently today.  For $5,000 you can definitely do worse, but for about $8,500 and some cheap bats you can probably do much better as well with your second SP. GERRIT COLE With nobody in the stands, Cole should be able to finally deliver up to his contract value out in Oakland tonight.  After a long rough stretch look for the Yankees to come in and take care of business with a sweep of Oakland and tonight they do it behind Cole’s 7 innings and 0 ER allowed. CHRIS BASSITT Another scenario where we have a bulldog pitcher vs a horrible offense tonight.  Should be able to get through 6, working around the Ryan McMahon heater and probably strikes out 8 along the way. JUSTIN STEELE Good teams make adjustments when they see a pitcher the second time in a week and he dominated them.  The Brewers, however, are not a good team. [spacer height=”10px”] MY CONTRARIAN PICK FOR SP1 SHANE BIEBER Cleveland and Seattle should be a great series all weekend and possibly a playoff preview.  We have two great bullpens and tonight two RHP who […]

Six games with no weather issues tonight [spacer height=”10px”] JACOB deGROM With just six games you could take the method of saying, hey, if I just fade this one guy I’ll be perfectly fine.  All I need is to be cute and have … you know what, you should just stop right there and put down the crack pipe. There’s no reason to not use deGrom on DK tonight. AARON NOLA Nola on FanDuel can be justified, he should finish close if not near deGrom and is much cheaper.  I love playing both of these guys together and just flipping the bird at the free square guy below.  Why?   Again, just look at the Reds lineup, there’s strikeouts throughout here tonight and when we are looking at our second pitcher tonight to find someone who can get 10 strikeouts and the opponents they’re facing we have to ask ourselves, where do we go now for Nola’s 10th K? Oh, oh, oh, where do we go now? Fairchild Where do we go now…. Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Ooooh, Where do we go now… Stuart Fairchild of Mineeeeeeeeeeeeeee for the 10th K tonight from Nola. You can blame @Wiserman for this horrible pun.  Actually it’s pretty damn good. JAMESON TAILLON I would use just about anyone against Oakland right now.  Thus, JT is kind of a free square out in Oakland. [spacer height=”10px”] PHILLIES Alec Bohm, Garrett Stubbs, Jean Segura After a good start last outing from Justin Dunn I will not double dip on him tonight vs the Phillies.  Yes, there are probably 4-5 strikeouts here but the walks should be a concern tonight which could lead to a big RBI might for the 5 or 6 hole batters in this lineup, maybe even get lucky with Jean Segura finally? With Stubbs 6th, Vierling 7th and Zimmer 8th, that’s your aisle that you are shopping in tonight for value. ORIOLES Anthony Santander, Adley Rutschmann, Cedric Mullins, Kyle Stowers Either Lance Lynn muscles up and pitches a 9 inning shutout or he is giving up 5 ER on 3 homers.  I’ll side with the homers in Camden on a warm night with the wind blowing out. [spacer height=”10px”] CATCHER Garrett Stubbs Adley Rutschman Kevin Plawecki [spacer height=”10px”] FIRST BASE Jose Abreu – 4k is a bargain on a slate where paying for 2 high end SP is such a […]

College Football season is back. If you are a long time Daily Ambush Member then you know this is one of our favorite products that we have and this year the Dashboard, Optimizer and Tools are going to be expanded even further with more data and a focus on collecting injury and lineup information in […]

Here are my thoughts on the short 3 game afternoon slate today. [spacer height=”20px”] STL @ CHC Waiting on weather information in Wrigley, looks like there will be some rain and wind blowing out. All in on Arenado after getting tossed last night. Have to like Gorman as well and Nootbar/Carlson to round things out. CLE @ SEA Worth noting that 15 of McKenzie’s 20 homers allowed have come on the road and obviously most vs RHH. This bodes well for Julio-France-Haniger the most here with Suarez being very good vs RHP this year too. I like Seattle a good amount and this game overall a good amount. LAA @ TB The most viable SP game stack spot in my mind. Sandoval should be the top scoring pitcher once again today (not saying much given 6 options) and if Rasmussen can not have anyone on when Ohtani homers that would help him be a fine SP2. [spacer height=”20px”] Short slate strategy Sandoval/Razz SP stack Cardinals Mariners Cubs/Guardians [spacer height=”20px”] HR Picks 5k+: Arenado 4k+: Ty France 3k+: Nootbaar

Some people have been drafting since the Super Bowl, but then some people need help in this world.  For the normal folk, we are now entering into the real fantasy football draft season and it’s time to look at who my targets are this yearr. I don’t dive into giving full rankings of all players.  […]

[spacer height=”10px”] WEATHER No issues, roof likely closed in Houston though due to slight rain chances. [spacer height=”10px”] NOBODY There is no pitcher tonight who is my #1, gotta have guy today.  Here’s why … Shane McClanahan – 11,000 for a pitcher who is over his innings limit and has started to slow down while also being the chalky go to guy tonight is not where I want to begin.  I stand by what I wrote last night about the trend we are going into despite Verlander uh, well, going 6 innings and not allowing anything Framber Valdez – Should navigate a bad Twins lineup tonight just fine, but does not have the K% upside that JV did have in his back pocket and is also over 10k for a guy who will get 17-18 DK fpts. Brady Singer – Hit a wall in his last start, he should see a good amount of lefties and so yeah, I’ll be honest I want to use Singer tonight but I think he’s got a dead arm now. Zac Gallen – A very hot pitcher right now coming off three tremendous starts.  They were also the Pirates, Rockies and Giants and yeah the Royals aren’t exactly the ’27 Yankees here but I also am making a gut call stand here and saying its no Gallen night. [spacer height=”10px”] So we gotta find someone out of hte remaining options and it’s very dicey my friends. MILES MIKOLAS The Cubs have really hit a funk the past few days and Mikolas should go a little deeper tonight after a 2 game tilt yesterday.  He will be clean and not fancy but clean and simple is fine with me today. Expectation is Mikolas can match Gallen/Singer/Framber. JOSE BERRIOS Take a look at the Boston lineup.  It’s horrific….  Berrios definitely has his problems at times but usually likes warmer weather and should be comfortable with that tonight in Boston.  Although I think this game in general is a lower scoring dud for the DFS plays. [spacer height=”10px”] DODGERS Freeman, Muncy, Turner, Bellinger Might look like I am riding off their 10 run out burst last night but with Adrian Houser coming off the IL and warm temps out in LA I would start here for some offense from both sides tonight.  Houser is terrible vs lefties, bad on the road and should not be able to […]

Six early games with FOUR of them being west coast games [spacer height=”10px”] WEATHER No issues [spacer height=”10px”] I am making a stand with just two guys today.  There’s viable options beyond these two and that’s nice and all, but you don’t come out on a 6 game early slate and write up 5 pitchers and then act l ike you are actually saying something for the readers. If you want to know who else is pitching, then pay attention when you set your lineup or go read some implied run total horse crap. I’m not actually yelling at any of you, you are all great.  I’m just yelling. LOGAN WEBB This is straight up comical at this point.  I need someone who has less of a life than me to go out and figure if Logan Webb is breaking the record for most day starts in a season this year.  This will be his 26th start of the season and I am pretty sure that 15 of them have been day games. At any rate, Webb is too good of a pitcher to not do well against a 1 man team in the Detroit Tigers.  That one man is Riley Greene beating the shift in the first PA of the game and then doing nothing else. COLE IRVIN A battle of lefties is likely to be a chalky SP2 spot today and on the other end you have Jesus Luzardo making his return to Oakland. My first instinct was to beware of the day game impact in Oakland as it gives a big boost for offense generally but there’s very little in the Marlins lineup that I can buy into doing well against Irvin who does great at home. [spacer height=”10px”] I think the year was 2016, it was definitely 2015 or 2016 that much I know.  It was a random Wednesday in August and the Rockies had a home game.  I honestly don’t recall who they were playing and I’m sure if I look it up I can find it but it wound up being one of those 14-11 type Coors games. Ah, yes, I found the game.  Wednesday, August 17th, Rockies 12 Nationals 10.  It was Gray vs Strasburg who gave up a touchdown to Emmanuel Sanders in the first inning. Funny thing about that game?  Gerrardo Parra, who would later become a Nationals folk hero in […]

I very much likely these games that we have here tonight.  On FanDuel you will not be subject to sweating Albert Pujols and the special baseballs which are being rotated in when he comes up (its a joke, or is it?) to bat tonight in game 2 of the Cardinals-Cubs double-header. The schedule SP in that game are Jake Woodford (STL) and Adrian Sampson (CHC). [spacer height=”10px”] WEATHER Toronto at Boston – Hah.  Poor Red Sox.  It’s muggy/humid up in Fenway tonight with temps in the low 70’s and some stray showers around the area.  Game should play. Outside of that I see no issues, a couple higher humidity spots tonight but nothing which is really overwhelming. [spacer height=”10px”] I think we might have seen a trend starter last night with Max Scherzer and Edward Cabrera being two prime examples.  The first end of the trend, which is common this time of season, is that Ace pitchers who have playoffs in their future tend to slow down around this time of year and paying extreme prices on them isn’t always justified in late August and early September.  The other end of that spectrum are the younger pitchers who are up and trying to make a name for themselves without many restriction (Cabrera). Tonight we see Justin Verlander who has an ice cold Twins lineup which is likely without Byron Buxton coming into town.  I just don’t think we need JV on a massive slate tonight. Similar scenario for Tony Gonsolin and even though LA lost to Milwaukee last night, they have no need for him to over extend his pitch count tonight — but he should be good and all that. [spacer height=”10px”] All that said, I’m not ignoring guys just based off price and definitely value paying up today with so many value hitters to find. MAX FRIED Fried on the other hand is too hard to pass up vs the Pirates.  Fried is not someone who has to have a massive strikeout game to justify using him since he can go 7 or 8 strong with a bunch of quick innings when he is commanding the zone well.  Pittsburgh has been very strikeout friendly against lefties and Fried under 10k on DraftKings should finish with a score north of 25 points today. PABLO LOPEZ Pablo will face the three S’s today in Sean, Seth and Shea and they […]

Eight Monday night games to start this week off. [spacer height=”10px”] WEATHER Reds at Phillies – Rain that eventually moves out.  This is a case where I expect them to have a delay followed by them playing the game.  But I am not using Noah Syndergaard (PHI) or Luis Cessa (CIN) as pitching options so it’s only a matter of trusting the game plays for hitters.  Worth the risk. All other games look fine [spacer height=”10px”] A fairly blah and boring pitching slate but not one where you just blindly pick anyone.  Max Scherzer vs the Yankees is the headliner and since he is Max he will still garner ownership, but isn’t someone I believe is a must own at a high price point today. I am not going to be using Scherzer tonight.  If he drops his nuts on the Yankees then so be it. [spacer height=”10px”] JULIO URIAS The Brewers struggled with lefty Justin Steele in Chicago yesterday and now go into a park which helps lefty hitters more, so facing a lefty on the mound probably won’t play into their favor much and in this case, Jose Urias, is seeing them the second time in a row after going just 5 IP but not allowing a run in Milwaukee. He should get through 6 tonight and that puts him over 20 DK FPTS. EDWARD CABRERA The Marlins and Athletics series is going to be a fun one….  Things, nobody ever said.  I think that Cabrera’s nasty stuff can play well in Oakland tonight, the A’s obviously haven’t seen him and will probably chase a fair amount allowing him to have a 6+ strikeout game. Adam Oller (FANDUEL) The more I check out FanDuel for building a lineup today the less I like the idea of forcing in a pay up pitcher.  Another case where you might as well take the top dog in Scherzer if you are paying up there but I don’t think he is going past 42 fantasy points tonight and nobody in the mid range looks well either.  So I trim down to a cheaper option with Contreras/Odorizzi having potential strike out upside but also both are giving up 4 ER and that’s still a negative thing so common sense says no. How about a pitcher in a great pitchers park?  How about a guy vs a bad offense?  How about Adam Olly Olly […]

We only have a few Sunday MLB DFS slates left with this one being an 8 game early and 4 game afternoon slate on DraftKings. Today our lives have been blessed with the return of Eduardo Rodriguez, who likely opens for a few innings and then is checking back out.  Other lefties going today include Mike Minor, Justin Steele, Nestor Cortes, Ryan YarBRO and Kyle Freeland. Speaking of Kyle’s, there’s also Kyle Gibson who is facing Mets rookie Jose Butto. And oh yeah, Kohei Arihara is starting AGAIN! [spacer height=”10px”] WEATHER Potential Rain in these two games which impacts a couple of pitchers.   I doubt either gets PPD and certainly if either starts in a delay I am 100% fading. Angels at Tigers – Impacts Ohtani and that’s about it, rain should get heavier by 3pm. Reds at Pirates – Rain should be light, they likely get this in even though its a divisional game. [spacer height=”10px”] BRANDON WOODRUFF Wind is in and it’s not that warm here in Wrigleyville.  Can the Brewers actually avoid a sweep at the hands of the Cubs?  I figured both of the first two games would go over and they did, but this one feels like it has to be a Milwaukee 2-0 victory if anything today. Justin Steele (CHC) is a cheap SP2 who works in a game stack in this spot as well.  I can’t see McCutchen keeping his heater up through another day. ALEK MANOAH Who is getting the get right game here.  Is it Manoah vs the Yankees, whom he has dominated in the past, or the Yankees against Manoah who has been a little sluggish of late.  I lean heavily on Manoah to be able to manage Rizzo, Benintendi and Oswaldo Cabrera as lefties in this lineup. JOE RYAN Place a comfortable bet on the Twins to win today.  If Ryan can get through 6 innings finally then he has a top end potential today, but unfortunately he probably sits around 5 innings with 1 strikeout per inning.  This isn’t a deep slate with two games having some mid game rain issues and we’ll take an average outing from the 7k range from Ryan. [spacer height=”10px”] Sunday Sleeper Nobody.  What you see is what you get although Zach Thompson would be the one guy I think out performs his potential if the rain holds off there. [spacer height=”10px”] Other […]