No Cubs home game this afternoon and two games on the 6pm Senior Citizen’s Slate, so we are smaller than usual on this Friday the 13th – but we have 13 games.  So break out all the jinxes and superstitions you can handle tonight.  Does this mean it’s a heavy narrative weekend?  We’ll soon find out. [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER All games are good to go!  Very good start to the weekend.  What could possibly go wrong? [spacer height=”20px”] This is one of the most balanced and normal pitching slates we have seen in quite a while.  There are 11 total pitchers who are 8k and above on DraftKings, six of them being 9k or more and three of them being 10k or more.  So what if I told you that out of those 11 there would be a minimum of seven (7) who would hit 20+ DK Fantasy Points tonight and out of those 7 that four (4) would be in the 9k and above range. Your answer should immediately be – okay, I will swim in that spot to take the path to getting 50+ points from my pitchers and worry about mixing in the hitters afterwards. And I would say, Yes.  Good job.  Now get me a beer. MAX SCHERZER Max Scherzer should absolutely just love pitching in Citi Field on Friday the 13th in the Mets Black Uniforms against a young lineup.  You know how the other night you were thankful you had Justin Verlander against the Twins?  Similar spot tonight but with more strikeouts. LOGAN WEBB Here it is…..  Guys…. Over here!  I found it.  It’s the Logan Webb start we have all been waiting for.  Webb is very strong against RHB, which the Cardinals offense is mostly reliant upon and one of those is Tyler O’Neil which is Irish for 0-4 with 3 strikeouts.  The Cards and Webb just met last week in San Francisco, when Buster Posey had to be all special and have his ceremony before Webb took the mound.  It lead to a rough start for Webb in a warm afternoon and I bit the bullet on his less than dominant start. But if you look closer at how he pitched, there was a lot of promise and whenever Hitters/Pitchers see each other twice in a row I tend to go with the side who struggled more the time before.  So Webb […]

We should at least have two more four game slates as tonight’s games are all 2-2 series, so let’s root for them to go 7 strong GAME THOUGHTS RANGERS vs PENGUINS All series long I, along with others, have been chasing the Igor shutout game.  Boy could they use that tonight as that’s really the […]

We should at least have two more four game slates as tonight’s games are all 2-2 series, so let’s root for them to go 7 strong GAME THOUGHTS I am sticking with my original picks on all these series, so don’t expect anything, “Wild” tonight if you will from me. CAROLINA vs BOSTON Sticking by […]

What you need to know about today’s schedule construction: DraftKings has removed scoring for the Houston/Minnesota game as it is now Game 2 of a double-header following the resumption of last nights suspended game.  I was under the belief previously that FanDuel would keep stats from suspended games but I guess they just want to keep changing things up and everyone finished with a 0 from last night.  That is really annoying because the old rules were that if the game resumed within 24 hours, the stats count, but alas, we move on…. This is just a 4 game FanDuel slate (until they realize the HOU/MIN situation) and DK is 3.  So really, it’s not that great and neither is tonight’s breakdown either. It’s a snoozer of a Thursday, but we can make it a banger… [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER All games will play without issues related to weather. [spacer height=”20px”] TAIJUAN WALKER With the Nationals going off on Megill last night and Walker coming off a short start vs the Phillies he should actually come at a nice ownership discount on both sides today even with it being a short slate.  I like the Mets bats a good amount and we don’t need for Walker to give us too much for him to be among the top arms on either side, so 5 innings, a few strikeouts and the win will suffice. BEAU BRIESKE I wouldn’t laugh if you went James Kaprielian but to me he has limited upside against a lefty heavy Tigers lineup (most likely).  Where as Beau gets to face a Bad Oakland team who just had a good hitting day yesterday.  Plus the Tigers always do well in their Thursday home games.  Lets go Tigers! [spacer height=”20px”] NY METS Look for Lindor and McNeil to have big games for the Mets today while Marte/Nimmo make good sense here too. Frankie Lindor Jeff McNeil Brandon Nimmo Starling Marte Cardinals Cards will be the uber chalk play. I don’t think they go off for 20 runs or anything wild like that but Pujols is our sneaky 1B pivot off Goldy. Albert Pujols Tyler O’Neill Harrison Bader Astros (FD Only) Can only get these guys on FD and have to wait to confirm the lineup but they should hot the Wonder boy Josh Winder. Yordan Alvarez Michael Brantley Alex Bregman CATCHER Thomas Nido [spacer height=”20px”] FIRST BASE Albert Pujols Pete […]

And now for the MAIN slate this Wednesday evening. Mets at Nationals Rays at Angels – 4PM Local start.  Expect Shadows and 2 good pitchers going. Athletics at Tigers – Fan promo night.  Show up to the game and receive $20 just for coming out. Red Sox at Braves Astros at Twins – Leave it to Minnesota to screw up weather Orioles at Cardinals Blue Maggots at Rangers [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER Astros at Twins – Rain coming in this evening, will they play through it or wait?  They have a day game tomorrow so a big chance they PPD and play 2 tomorrow. Starts in Delay = Fade Starts on time = Play Either way I have one play in that game. [spacer height=”20px”] It’s a pay up for pitching, but contrarian still kind of night. SHANE McCLANAHAN Shane makes for a good SP game stack or pivot off Ohtani.  The one weakness the Angels do have at times is that the secondary pieces in their lineup drop off against LHP.  Anyone else find it interesting that McClanahan is $1400 more than Ohtani?  I know he has been great, but they are baiting everyone to take Ohtani and someone else at SP2. IAN ANDERSON This is a game I would invest in for a contrarian arm but full disclosure I definitely could be on the wrong side.  Eovaldi has been boom or bust while Anderson has been much more steady and I would prefer to attack Boston with his change up than Eovaldi attacking Atlanta with gas all night. All the warning track outs tonight for Anderson! TYLOR MEGILL One reason Megill is pitching so well is that he has held opponents to just a 20% Line Drive rate this season. The Nationals come in with some good recent numbers which keeps his rating on the model down but long term this is a lineup that should strikeout more than the 18-19% they have lately and I expect that Megill will finish in the 25% range today — which projects to be about 6.5-7 strikeouts. If he can finish exactly on 6.5 that would be damn impressive and we should just shut it all down for the Aliens to come in and put us out of our misery.  That and he for sure gives up a homer to Soto [spacer height=”20px”] Cardinals I am definitely going back to one of […]

Either it’s a sign of the apocolypse or my eyes are telling me that we have three slates today with site synchronicity between DraftKings and FanDuel.  An incredible miracle on this Wednesday if I do say so myself. What’s next, the stock market is going to go up? Alright so the first set of 4 gamers includes Brewers at Reds Dodgers at Pirates Jays at Yanks Guardians at White Sox [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER All.  Games.  Play. [spacer height=”20px”] Oh, so this is why we should have not registered our contests for this slate.   Ouch. JOSE BERRIOS This is partial process of elimination and partial me thinking Berrios will actually have a good strikeout game today.  I am strongly considering a SP game stack with Taillon and hoping for 30 combined fantasy points, which on this slate, looks very strong. VINCE VELASQUEZ I don’t always use Vinnie Velasquez, but when I do it’s on an afternoon Wednesday in May.  I really just made that up but do you remember his incredible like 10K performance vs the Padres years ago?  That definitely is NOT what we are getting today yet he is pitching decently for the White Sox and I want no part of Adrian Houser throwing up in Cincinnati, so here we go. RYAN PEPIOT Pew-Pew starts for the Dodgers today, making his debut in PNC park against the Pirates.  What kind of lucky man is this?  I don’t expect much here, but I also don’t expect a blow up which makes him definitely viable. [spacer height=”20px”] Brewers vs Reds 12-7 final score, likely the Brewers because Vladdy G, because in this decade nobody who has a singular letter at the end of their name does anything positive when it comes to Baseball — especially G. In all seriousness, 80+ degree temps, small ass ballpark,  load up on this game. Both sides! MIL:  Rowdy Tellez, Christian Yelich, Kolten Wong CIN:  Brandon Drury, Stephenson, Naquin [spacer height=”20px”] Dodgers The LA Dodgers on an east coast get away game is about as sure of a win + over as they come.  Freeman and Muncy should get overlooked with a lefty starting but they are prime plays. Freddie Freeman Max Muncy Trea Turner [spacer height=”20px”] CATCHER Tyler Stephenson Will Smith [spacer height=”20px”] FIRST BASE This is worth playing two lineups today.  Tellez is arguably the most “obvious” play on the slate, but Freeman is […]

AT&T Byron Nelson That’s two weeks in a row we’ve had the winner in the write up!  I’m taking credit for calling it too – whether you agree with me or not: Max Homa ($8,600) – It appears that “West Coast Homa” has figured out that his game transfers nationwide.  He has not missed a […]

We should at least have two more four game slates as tonight’s games are all 2-2 series, so let’s root for them to go 7 strong GAME THOUGHTS BOSTON vs CAROLINA Sorry but this one is not going 7 strong.  Back home the Hurricanes will win again in my mind and Antii Ranta is one […]

I do believe in this exact spot yesterday I referenced scoring going up for various reasons and we saw that especially out with the west coast games last night.  And to every jackass who didn’t play Rhys Hoskins last night, I simply ask. There are 12 MAIN slate games tonight as the Tigers/Athletics are playing a double-header early and Dodgers, Pirates, Brewers, Reds are all playing games for the Senior Citizens starting at 6:30 and not included on the main slates. There are two inter-league series going on as the Braves/Red Sox have their little “hey, we had the Braves first!” battle and the Orioles-Cardinals …. well, I can’t think of any relevance these teams have together.  In fact, this is the first time since 2003 that the Orioles have played at St. Louis.  I don’t know how that is actually possible, but supposedly I read that on the internet – so it must be true! Notable pitchers going on this slate include Carlos Cookies Carrasco, Patrick Corbin, Kate Upton’s Husband, Joelan Ryan vs the Astros, two Kyle’s, a Garrett and Maddy’s Son Jesus. We have a Corey, a Wade, a Reid and a Lucas.  There’s Antonio and Luis and then there is Alex, Mike and Aaron.  Robbie Ray after dark is closing things out long after Yusei Kikuchi and I say, hey let’s go watch The Mexican Brad Keller vs the Venezuelan Lefty Martin Perez. Oh, and today is Salvador Perez’s birthday [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER All.  Games.  Play. [spacer height=”20px”] JUSTIN VERLANDER There is something about Verlander against a young lineup that always seems to make him thrive.  We are back to peak JV and the Twins have a good amount of youth they are asking to play right now and Gary Sanchez.  Combinations which should benefit Verlander to reaching 7+ strikeouts tonight over 6+ innings and even with warmer conditions finally in Minnesota, he should be safe from heavy damage. MIKE CLEVINGER There will be other pitchers who probably have more total points tonight than Sunshine.  Guys like Nola, Wright, Ray, maybe Giolito, maybe even Luzardo, definitely not Kikuchi.  But the big difference is Clevinger’s price as an SP2 on DraftKings and the limited ceiling that I see all the others having.  Clevinger has the best opponent matchup w/ the Cubs and in his second start should go 80+ pitches to get through 5 innings with a K […]

I don’t want to jinx anything but I think the real 2022 MLB season is arriving this week.   Pitching is going to get harder, bullpens are going to get worse and offense is going to go up. That said, I did a full breakdown on how we need to adjust our measurement of hitting in the new dead ball era that you should go read and I think that it will continue to hold true.  But I cannot overlook three definitive things which are going to influence DFS for the next 3+ weeks or so. Bullpens have been reduced.  Teams have to trim down their rosters from the expanded extra limits in the first month. Hitters are getting into their rythym.  They have enough regular season + spring training PA to finally be in a good routine. Weather is much better. [spacer height=”20px”] WEATHER Weather should finally be nice this week and it’s about damn time.  All games play! [spacer height=”20px”] JULIO URIAS Gimme all the Julio Urias today. His recent game log chart has been trending towards a massive dominance game which he should be able to do against the Pirates.  This is the first game on the slate and I am very pleased that DraftKings did the right thing including this spot today.  Look for Dave Roberts to trust him to go deep here as well to buy another rest night for the bullpen and with how efficient he has been + the Pirates being his opponent, a 30 spot is not out of the question. AUSTIN GOMBER The entire world will rush to Carlos Rodon today.  That’s nice.  Yeah, Rodon vs the Rockies outside of Coors might feel like a no brainer spot but Austin Gomber is pitching extremely well and the weather/park in this situation is going to benefit both sides today. Gomber has managed to only walk 2 batters over his last 18+ IP and the park shift will help reduce any chance of a HR off him as well.  Load up on the Gomber as a contrarian Monday pivot off Rodon on DK. MACKENZIE GORE The Cubs are ice cold and Gore has shown he feels very comfortable pitching in PETCO Park. Chicago played the Sunday night game and then had a long trip out to San Diego where they bring in a 30% strikeout rate over the last 10 games and a .173 […]