This will be the only Dongers Club article today as I break down the 11 game DraftKings 2PM slate and I won’t even bother figuring out what the science was at FanDuel which aligned a 2pm, 3pm and 4pm slate for them but I assume the science changed along the way to cause it. The Mets and Cubs are playing two today with the first game on this 2pm Main slate and we have two young pitchers as Max Meyer is making his debut for the Marlins, while MAXIMO Castillo is pitching for the Blue Jays. [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER Braves at Nationals – Storms here.  Good luck. [spacer height=”20px”] This is a very good list of pitchers today with two massive chalk guys.  And I think they are very justified chalk, so it is what it is. JUSTIN VERLANDER Finally an 11k pitcher on DK, and as soon as the Marlins are back on a Main Slate I’m sure Sandy Alcantara will be the next.  Of course, we have an 11k pitcher because he deserves to be 11k and with Max Fried having some weather concerns I will be fine with Verlander chalk after Houston lost last night. MAX MEYER I did not expect the Marlins game to be in our DFS lives today and hey look it’s their top pitching prospect Max Meyer starting and I am writing him up??  Yes, I am.  Two reasons for this, number one he is actually good and not some random call-up who was having a good season in the minors.  Two, he fits in perfectly with Verlander on a slate where it’s pay up for SP1 and pay down for SP2.  And 2b, the Marlins have a strong history of their young pitchers doing well in debuts. Here’s the quick run down on Meyer, he has graded out with two 70+ pitches, one of which is a slider that projects to be among the leagues best and a pitch frame similar to that of Dylan Cease.  The Phillies are bottom 10 in the league vs RHP sliders and so seeing him the first time if he keeps the ball in the zone early he will have a good game. [spacer height=”12px”] Other Pitching Thoughts After those guys it’s a long list of eeeh, kinda like guys for me today Ranger Suarez … The forgotten man, who has pitched better away from home […]

Tonight is the final Dongers Club Contest Round for the 1st Half Close out. Tonights Contest Link:  https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/128879577 There is no rule for tonight but there is a BONUS if you have a solo owned HR from a player, in which case you get 10 points (for each homer) that the player hits.  This means if you roster a player and nobody else does, then you get that bonus. We are also DROPPING your lowest score.  So if you have a dud or a 0, you aren’t dead.  Here are the scores with the penalties for not following rules along the way notated. WEATHER The Baseball God’s would not let Rob Manfred screw up the final Friday before the All-Star Break as we have a day game in Wrigley and then a 13 game main slate, which is skipping over the South Beach game starting in the Senior Citizens window between the Phillies and Marlins.  Somewhere Jose Urena and Tommy Joseph are having a moment, but then maybe 0.2% of you will get that reference so we move on. Oh, Weather.  Right. All games play and all games are Humid, bet some overs tonight. [spacer height=”20px”] The Cliff Notes for tonight include the return of Nate Eovaldi for Boston and he gets his whipping boys the Yankees in his return, this time in New York and I was cursing the shit out of my dumbass watching the Yankees lose to the Reds last night and then realizing they play Boston tonight.  Worst bet I’ve ever made fellas.   Okay, so maybe betting the Lions that one time was worse. We have one Zack and one Zach but they are not facing each other tonight, thankfully. We have the Pirates in Coors, which is way cooler than Orioles in Costco. Robbie Ray is on the Road, but Friday’s with Robbie Ray most definitely sounds like a bad show on the Oprah Network. We got ourselves a Tyler, a Drew, a Hunter, two Jose’s, one Luis and the best pitching friendship you will find between Madison and Yu – which sounds like a show on Nickelodeon or a really bad chick flick featuring Reese Witherspoon.  Although can a chick flick featuring Reese Witherspoon really be bad?  I don’t think so.  Just as long as it doesn’t include Ryan Phillipee but if it does and it includes Sarah Michelle Geller then okay fine, I […]

WEATHER No issues tonight. [spacer height=”20px”] FRAMBER VALDEZ Look for the Angels to once again rest Trout and once again be a good strike out boost for Framber Valdez.  They don’t do anything after the Show from Ohtani it feels like and Valdez pitches very well away from home. CORBIN BURNES This is a very appealing game between Rodon and Burnes and I don’t think you make a wrong call with either stud but I also dont see how Valdez fails and Gausman should be fine as well.  So there’s not much edge to be gained with these two other than Burnes on FanDuel where I think he gets passed over with his high price tag and still finishes as the top scoring pitcher. KEVIN GAUSMAN Gausman is coming off extended rest so I would imagine that there could be some limits on how much he does tonight, but he’s going to see a watered down version of the Royals lineup which is not exactly saying much these days.  He should be the highest owned pitcher tonight and he should be just fine. KUTTER CRAWFORD Crawford went 5 1/3 vs Tampa and got 8 strikeouts with a 31%+ CSW rate in that game.  The Rays likely adjust tonight and take less strikes but that is okay because Crawford has shown he can get plenty of whiffs on all his pitches in the big leagues and Tampa without Franco definitely has some whiffs in them. [spacer height=”12px”] Other Pitching Notes … Nestor Cortes and Martin Perez started the season off hot and have been struggling recently.  I would look for both to have a better outing tonight than their recent form, kind of like when the stock market says hey look, I rebounded from a stretch of multiple -3% days with a +1.15% gain! [spacer height=”12px”] CUBS Alonso, Lindor, Escobar … Happ, Wisdom Something about Mets vs Cubs really stands out to me as a series which is going to be high scoring and full of drama.  Maybe it’s the ghost of Daniel Murphy haunting the Cubs or maybe it’s something else.  Just have an entry on this series all weekend for me. BLUE JAYS Bichette, Kirk, Gurriel Jr A great move yesterday by Toronto to fire Charlie Montoya.  In my opinion there were two managers who really hold their teams back, Montoyo was one, La Russa is the obvious other.  […]

I will post the Dongers Club Contest Standings by tomorrow and a reminder that the final round is this Friday. No weather issues for the 9 game main slate tonight. [spacer height=”20px”] Holy cow, we have the who’s who of top end pitchers going tonight, including Cristian Javier (not a top end guy really) getting the Angels again for another 300 strikeout night. LUIS SEVERINO I have the highest confidence in Severino tonight coming off a good start where he just didn’t get a ton of strikeouts.  That should revert back to the mean today vs the Reds who are starting to show signs of their early season K rates and should go down quietly today vs the Yankees.  Thank you for the win last night Cincy, now take your L today.  What’s wild here is that there are 5 pitchers higher priced than Sevy today, that’s how good this slate is for pitching. ZACK WHEELER One of the best fastballs in the game gets a team who loves to hit fastballs.  Advantage the pitcher in my mind because he will get plenty of swings early in the counts and should always be pitching with 1-2 counts rather than 2-1 situations.  Big potential for Wheeler to do what Berrios did in this series last night with a huge K game. SHOHEI OHTANI Home game Ohtani has a boost without Yordan Alvarez in the lineup for Houston.  He’s great at home, he’s arguably the hottest pitcher on the planet and he has been decent vs Houston historically.  Yes, the Kyle Tucker homer probably still happens here but Ohtani can get K’s from Altuve, Pena, Yuli and the law firm of Meyers and McCormick the first time through the order which puts him on our list. AARON CIVALE Hey cool, the White Sox went and scored a bunch of runs in the nightcap game last night.  I dare you fuckers to try and do that again Chicago, go ahead, let me see what you got.  That’s what I thought.  Load up on Civale value at $5400, he can mow down these boys like he did the Royals on Sunday. [spacer height=”12px”] San Diego Padres Cronenworth, Machado, Voit, Alfaro The over under in Coors Field is lower tonight than the first two games and thank you for that Vegas.  If Chad Kuhl somehow makes it past the third inning tonight I would be […]

I will post the Dongers Club Contest Standings by tomorrow and a reminder that the final round is this Friday. We have a four game early slate and then the MAIN slate article later tonight and no weather issues on this early afternoon slate.  The four games includes Game 1 of the Mariners vs Nationals double-header with the same pitchers as scheduled last night. These are the four games and this is my quick take on them Mariners at Nationals – Offense Mets at Braves – Data says the two veterans get hit but gut says they pitch well enough to avoid heavy damage Brewers at Twins – Offense Tigers at Royals – God help me …. [spacer height=”20px”] BRADY SINGER The Tigers passed over Singer in the draft (for good reason to be honest) and he has always pitched his best against the MoTown Kittens.  His career record is 12-18 but he is 4-0 against the Tigers who he just mowed down a couple Sunday’s ago in Detroit.  He’s also been much better historically in day games and really has a lot of other good factors in his favor today. TARIK SKUBAL Baby Robbie-Ray as I call him has had his struggles this season but showed signs of really turning the corner his last start out.  With a short slate and the other games being good for offense I like the path of taking the SP gamestack here and expecting Skubal to once again have a K+ per IP in this outing. Next best options: Charlie Morton – He has dominated Lindor and Alonso is looking forward to the Home Run Derby right now. [spacer height=”12px”] Seattle at Washington This was one of my favorite games last night and the humidity in a day game today is going to feel even warmer.  So we start here and we lock in Eugenio Suarez and Juan Soto and then move on from there. For Seattle Julio Rodriguez is getting the early game off, but that’s not an issue because we have lots of OF we like on this slate and for a stack build Jesse Winker fits in quite nicely instead.  Play Ty France not Carlos Santana in this stack. For The Nationals, they are the team I think who wins this game and Soto-Cruz-Bell are impossible to fade if you play the Nationals. [spacer height=”12px”] Milwaukee at Minnesota Joe Ryan […]

THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP If I could stop tournaments on Saturday the last two weeks, I’d be about $5K richer.  But, that’s DFS Golf and it’s a 4-day sweat! The Scottish Open was a good lead up to what we will see this week – that is if you get up early enough!  The Open is […]

Round 3 – Dongers Club Appreciation Contest.  Click Below To Enter Tonight’s Rule:  You cannot use a pitcher 9k or higher in the contest! https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/128781026 News & Notes:  The White Sox and Guardians have a DH today with the second game not being on FanDuel’s slate.  Neither site has forced us to Pirates-Marlins for the second night in a row either so it is 13 games on FanDuel and 14 on DraftKings. UPDATE:  Try this link if the above one isn’t working of DM me on twitter @steve_renner [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER SEA @ WSH:  Slight storm chances between Mariners and Nationals but the game will play.  They did after all play in a monsoon a couple years ago when the Mariners last came to DC. BAL @ CHC:  Wind out to RF but under 10 mph CIN @ NYY:  Storm chances [spacer height=”20px”] We are now into Hurricane Season and so it figures that everyone down in Tampa is boarding up because of the return of damaging storms and people coming into their city to cause havok. Of course I mean Chris Sale returning to the bump and being down in Tampa today where who knows what he will destroy after he gives up a 2-out grand slam to some random Ray like Yu Chang.  Normally if Sale were Sale I would lock and load him vs Tampa, but not yet.  Not yet…. I then think we have a big mix of big name arms who are all going to just go out and do their job today without getting ripped up but also not dominating with a 10k performance.  This list includes Cole, Strider, Cease and Webb.   Cease is the interesting ones as we might try to get a good read on that 2nd game of the doubleheader and I think it is to both his advantage that he is going in the 2nd one after Beiber is pitching for Cleveland in the first one. I am once again not on the Strider train, so you can probably assume he will throw up 20 strikeouts after my horrific fade of him last week (which actually wasn’t that bad because my guys did great, but, well, he did much better clearly). The rest are all blah and all okay, but on tonight’s slate.  Blah and Okay is exactly what we want. [spacer height=”20px”] DYLAN CEASE (DK: 9,700) Cease has the […]

Welcome to Monday, our best day of the week this season by far, no?  I would say yes.  This is of course the week before the All-Star Break and so you’re going to see some teams who might check out mentally a bit early but also historically this is a higher scoring week. [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER No PPD risk today.  Very warm games in St. Louis and Cleveland [spacer height=”20px”] I am guessing that we will see Brayan Bello chalk again.  He gets to go on the road vs a weak Rays lineup in what is typically viewed as a pitchers ballpark, but the Red Sox are no doubt losing this game tonight and I’m not taking a chalky young SP just yet.  Plus you don’t need that salary $ relief tonight. MAX SCHERZER A battle down in the ATL between two Max’s (vs Fried) and the Scherzer K upside against the Braves is double what Fried can do vs the Mets in my mind.  Atlanta continues to be one of the higher swinging strike teams as they offset that by hitting the ball hard when they do make contact. Max has no restrictions tonight and I am confident he pitches well. ALEX COBB These teams just met down in Chase Field and it was a bad but not horrific start for Cobb.  He had to deal with Joey Bart catching for him out of the blue and I didn’t like that swap but if Bart starts again tonight I think we could see better performance from Cobb at home. Usually these re-matches go opposite the second time and thus Cobb should have less early inning issues today. MERRILL KELLY I am right back on this match-up from a game stack perspective.  Both guys went 6+ last time and both can do that again in a better park and the Giants just don’t hit for much power at home in night games this season. [spacer height=”20px”] OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS … Max Fried could be okay if he can get good defense behind him, which he usually does.  But the Mets to me have too many guys who can go off in a nice park shift for me to expect him to be clean. Game 2 of the Tigers/Royals double-header could prove to show some pitching value.  Daniel Lynch is back but is not on my radar with potential limits around […]

Welcome to a light Sunday slate which is unusual this time of year but we have a good amount of late afternoon games and of course the Brunch game which this week has stolen away from us the battle of the Angels and Orioles sadly. Good news, Yankees vs Red Sox is on Sunday Night Baseball. Bad news, Yankees vs Red Sox is on Sunday Night Baseball. The Rangers and Twins game is only on FanDuel, I wish it was on DraftKings honestly today. [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER No issues, all games will play. [spacer height=”20px”] Pitching is kinda weird today and you should not feel like there is any one player that you “have” to have.  Sandy Alcantara has a tough spot vs the Mets and the Sunday Citi Field overs is definitely in play although his opponent Taijuan Walker is likely to be the chalky guy who could do well there. The game in Cincinnati is the smallest park on the slate and features two young pitchers who both look like they have favorable match-ups but definitely have risk to just not have their stuff today. [spacer height=”20px”] MICHAEL KOPECH I think Chicago wins today but it’s not their offense which I see carrying them.  Kopech hasn’t been dominant since June 7th when he shut down the Dodgers with 8K, 0ER over 6 innings.  The limits on him seem to be relaxed as well throwing 99 pitches two starts ago and the Tigers certainly aren’t known for drawing a ton of walks.  The wind is not an issue in Chicago and we have relatively low humidity here too so any long ball issues are out the window too. All total, I am willing to pick on Detroit here more than anything else, so Kopech is my top arm today by a nose. ERIC LAUER As great as Sandy Alcantara has been I am not expecting him to push out a 30 spot today vs the Mets, so Lauer is the only top end pitcher to look at.  He has always been someone I’ve felt is over-rated and probably isn’t worth 10k on most slates but the K% upside for him is definitely there if he can keep the ball in the park. SHANE BAZ When you have a 40% whiff rate on your 1b pitch (Slider) and your opponent (Cincy) has 7 of their 9 batters with 20%+ strikeout […]

I like Saturday’s like today where the majority of the games are all in the 4PM window.  There is a 4 game late slate tonight and I’ll cover any thoughts on that in Discord if I have any, just note they will likely be intoxicated thoughts. Wait.  So are these…. [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER Rain showers for Nats and Braves – Stormy weather mostly. Wind IN in Kauffman Stadium.  Big Help for McKenzie here. Assume roof is OPEN in Milwaukee Roof is still BROKEN, on the IL and likely in need of many booster shots in Arizona And when we look OVER at Citi Field we see a warm day game. [spacer height=”20px”] [spacer height=”20px”] BRANDON WOODRUFF This is Woody’s third start off the IL and his second in a row against Pittsburgh.  You may recall last weekend he went 6 innings on 94 pitches with 0 ER, 6 hits and 8 K against the Buccos in PNC Park.  In Milwaukee the stadium isn’t as pitcher friendly but it’s still good enough and he should get a good amount of run support this afternoon too. I wouldn’t expect a perfectly clean game though, so for his price on DraftKings and FanDuel he can be passed over for some other options without too much concern. But I am not saying you should just run away from Woody. FRAMBER VALDEZ Has not struggled with the Athletics this year at all and should not struggle with them today at all.  Should we expect another 9 inning dominant start like on May 30th?  Of course not, but anything under 7 strong innings from Valdez is what we consider “oh thats just Baseball for ya”.  So, lets not do that “oh thats just Baseball for ya” shit today, lets do what should happen please. TRISTON McKENZIE We are back on the T-Mac train for the second straight start.  He has owned the Royals and I have always found that KC strikes out more in home day games for some odd reason.  The potential is for another 7 strikeout game today PATRICK SANDOVAL The Birds are extremely hot and the Angels are extremely cold.  But that doesn’t mean that Sandoval cannot continue to start his big second half run today vs the O’s. [spacer height=”20px”] OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS … Everything in the data tonight says that Smeltzer and Perez get hit after a high scoring game last […]