Week 3 of the CFB season kicks off with a 10 (Ten) game MAIN slate on DraftKings at Noon. This slate does not feature two games which have been PPD due to COVID challenges. The games lost are Charlotte/North Carolina and Houston/Baylor. This slate also features the mighty Citadel and Austin Peay. Fun times. So […]
The final normal Friday of this short MLB season is here. Next Friday will roll into the final weekend of the season when most teams will already have a playoff spot secured with the expanded playoffs and we have 12 games on the slates tonight as there are once again some double-headers going on around the majors. SLATE NOTES I see no rain issues tonight, so no PPD worries because of that The Mariners/Padres game is being played in PETCO park tonight even though San Diego is the road team. HAPPY FRIDAY Zach Plesac The Indians snapped their losing streak in a big way last night and should once again do so against the only team they seem to know how to beat consistently — Detroit. Plesac is consistently a 6 to 7 inning pitcher for the Tribe as he does a good job at not walking hitters and once again should project to a 7 inning start tonight. Kyle Hendricks Two years ago this was a high scoring series between the Twins and Cubs in Wrigleyville in the dead heat of the summer with the wind blowing out. We’ve basically got the exact opposite of that tonight with heavy winds blowing in and mid September weather. Hendricks is the preferred side. Also Consider Max Fried: 6 innings, 7 strikeouts, 2 ER tonight for Fried. Not convinced he gets run support though. Rich Hill: Lacks the upside of the guys above, but good pitching conditions and he matches up well against most of the Cubs lineup Zac Gallen: Sleeper to bounce back tonight. Has struggled lately but I can see the D’Backs upsetting Houston tonight. You should take a simplified approach down the stretch to building lineups. 3-3-1-1 is all I am going to be doing from here on out if possible. This means, two teams with 3 players and my favorite two one offs from the secondary teams. Tampa Bay Rays Brandon Lowe, Mike Brosseau, Joey Wendle, Randy Arozarena Rays in Camden Yards against Alex homer Cobb. That loud noise you hear is Mike Brosseau singing and dancing in his hotel room outside of Pratt Street. Brosseau, Brandon Lowe, and Joey Wendle all look great here but in reality the Rays are your random homer team tonight. Lowe is on fire and whenever Tampa plays the Orioles the birds seem to screw up. […]
My quick thoughts on the Bengals vs Browns tonight GAME WINNER Cleveland Browns -6 Look for the Cleveland Browns to have a major bounce back after getting hammered by the Ravens on Sunday, they just overall looked out of sync and made sloppy pre-season like mistakes. They should play much better here tonight and […]
Results, not excuses. Another bad night last night which really makes it three in a row and a rough stretch this past week and a half. As great as the first 7 weeks of the season have been I know some are looking around and going W.T.F! When they see Dylan Bundy posting a -1 and the Yankees backup catcher hitting 3 HR. Stick with the process folks, the first 7 weeks were not a fluke but we do have the challenge of MLB teams cruising into the playoffs and thus the variance is increased dramatically. If shit don’t change tonight, I’ll be cracking some heads tomorrow in the Dongers Club. Shane Bieber There is zero Baseball analytical advice that one can give as a negative about Shane Bieber today. Yes, the wind is blowing OUT over 10 MPH in Comerica, but it’s below 60 degrees and quite honestly the Tigers won’t be able to exactly put the bat on the ball enough to make that matter at all. So the only logic on not playing Bieber today is either you don’t have the patience to creatively come up with a lineup that fits his high but not insane salary — or you want to just gamble and hope he gets lit up tonight. I mean… You are going to play the Showdown NFL slate right? Soooo, you do like to gamble? Make your choice though, because I am not going to tell you not to play him just to be cute. He should roll on Detroit. Seth Lugo If you want to be contrarian on DK tonight, I would do it by going against Aaron Nola instead of going agaisnt Shane Bieber. The Phillies offense is up and down with plenty of guys who will swing and miss as four guys are over 25% in their strikeout rate vs RHP on the season. And what if I told you that Lugo had a higher Swinging Strike % this season than Aaron Nola? Tempting, I know! Framber Valdez Don’t love him as much as Lugo today to be honest but Framber when he starts off well can have a great game — the problem can be that early inning 30 pitch count challenge. Risky, but a cheaper mid range alternative tonight. Guys I am not on Aaron Nola … Always a better pitcher at home, but I can […]
Results, not excuses. Another bad night last night which really makes it three in a row and a rough stretch this past week and a half. As great as the first 7 weeks of the season have been I know some are looking around and going W.T.F! When they see Dylan Bundy posting a -1 and the Yankees backup catcher hitting 3 HR. Stick with the process folks, the first 7 weeks were not a fluke but we do have the challenge of MLB teams cruising into the playoffs and thus the variance is increased dramatically. Gerrit Cole Cole is in rhythm right now and will get a ton of strikeouts tonight against Toronto. He has had two good starts in a row against the Orioles and while Toronto has a better lineup than Baltimore, they also strike out at a much higher rate which is reason enough to trust Cole for a fantastic start tonight. The Yankees need to win so he will go 7 IP. Jacob deGrom deGrom is one of two pitchers that have been steady almost every start this season, with Shane Beiber being the other one. You point to being in a better hitters park than normal, you can point to maybe a Phillie or two that scares you, but you cannot point to this being a bad deGrom start. Sorry, I won’t buy it. Dylan Bundy Bundy is mainly in consideration on FanDuel tonight due to the price structure of pitching on this slate. Good to see Calhoun get his 2 HR game in Anaheim out of the way last night, so Bundy can mow them down tonight. FADE Brady Singer He is going to be great, but the young kid is coming off the most pitches he has ever thrown and a near no-hitter. Avoid it tonight. You should take a simplified approach down the stretch to building lineups. 3-3-1-1 is all I am going to be doing from here on out if possible. This means, two teams with 3 players and my favorite two one offs from the secondary teams. Chicago White Sox Yoan Moncada, Jose Abreu, Eloy Jimenez This game should have fireworks in it. The White Sox profile extremely well against Odorizzi and Kepler/Cruz should murder Giolito/White Sox pitching here today. Love this game for offense overall but I would go heavier on the White Sox […]
Welcome to the Tuesday, September 15th edition of The Dongers Club and that sweet, sweet smell in the air is the smell of site synchronicity as we have a nice 12 game slate on DK and a nice 12 game slate on FD tonight. The weekend of NFL and College Football action was nice and all, but having the final two weeks of the MLB regular season without a ton of noise tonight is very refreshing. And then we notice that this slate features a visiting AL team who hits lots of home runs going into Coors, two mediocre offenses going into a divisional opponents ballpark against a pitcher they should beat up and the EPIC battle of who gives up more home runs in the first inning tonight, Madison Bumgarner or Juliooooo Teheran. If you aren’t excited for tonight’s slate then I am greatly disappointed in you my friends. WEATHER Even the Baseball God’s are enjoying tonight’s slate as we have cool autumn temperatures with zero precipitation challenges in any of the games. It’s quite a comfortable evening to prepare a nice balanced meal and open a fantastic Oktoberfest beer of your choice and settle in to watch the Royals and the Tigers!! Mariners and Giants PPD due to air quality. Not the deepest of top level options today & considering some good hitting spots, lets not spend up for both pitchers on DK today Jack Flaherty If the Cardinals are going to hold on and secure a playoff spot they are going to need Flaherty to step up and pitch like the ace he was down the stretch last season. He was roughed up two starts ago where he had a horrendous first inning against the Cubs but bounced back with a solid 5 inning, 6 strikeout, 2 ER start against the Tigers last outing. He gets one of the worst teams against RHP this season in the Milwaukee Brewers and this looks like the time to stretch him out to 6 or 7 innings tonight and secure us a top level score. Jose Urquidy Urquidy checks into the conversation tonight against a lefty heavy Texas lineup who projects to have a 25% strikeout rate tonight a pretty low .325 wOBA and a sub .200 ISO against LHP on the season. His price is diminished because he’s only pitched twice this season and has just 3 […]
NFL Week 2 Notes Chobani Yogurt week for Dom… Dom Steve Bengals at Browns (Up to 6,000 fans) – OU 46 Browns win, get back to basics. Chubb has a gigantic game. Chubb is a gigantic lock. Dom has a Chubb for Chubb Cleveland running attack, next game Cleveland plays they will be airing it […]
This is the weirdest schedule configuration for a Monday I have ever seen. DraftKings slate will lock at 4:05 PM today with seven games on it, while FanDuel locks at 7:35 PM with three games on it. And I don’t blame FanDuel at all in this scenario, it’s just a weird configuration of games. So this is 100% focused on DK with a three game slate just not being of much interest to me. The problem? Three of the seven games on DraftKings are 7 inning double header games and there’s even a slight confusion on starting pitchers in a couple of them. But I think we have clarity now and we’ll track ahead. WEATHER Would be fitting with such few games today to have weather issues, but thankfully there are none. THE GAMES Pirates vs Reds – 7 innings Phillies vs Marlins Cardinals vs Brewers – 7 innings Athletics vs Mariners – 7 innings Braves vs Orioles Twins vs White Sox Dodgers vs Padres There is no reason to be concerned with going a pitcher in a 7 inning game, in fact the benefits of using someone in a 7 inning game in a great spot is INCREASED because as happened yesterday w/ Sixto Sanchez, you can get that 7 inning complete game bonus a lot easier & you remove any bullpen issues. Trevor Bauer Nobody is more likely to just take the ball, pitch all 7 innings and strike out close to 40% of the batters he faces today than Bauer. Pittsburgh usually plays well in Cincinnati, but they’re just not very good and didn’t do anything in getting shutout versus Kansas City yesterday. They will certainly be picked on by everyone today, it’s not that much benefit to fading Bauer in a short game where the CG bonus is highly likely since he always throws 100+ pitches anyways. Jesus Luzardo Another 7 inning spot but do not expect Luzardo to be as likely to get the CG here. Seattle has cooled off quite a bit and his talent compared to what his price is today is too great to pass up. I will note, this was one of the games I had questions on who starts the game that is on the DK slate as Mike Minor is the other likely Oakland pitcher in the second game, both should pitch extremely well today for Oakland […]
I forgot how busy my Saturday’s can be when NFL and CFB are both coming back. But I have a clear mind going into this Saturday night MLB DFS slate and Baseball is still King in my mind. Hey, how about that Mondesi streak? Goodness gracious man. Happy Mike Trout Saturday btw. Eight game slate tonight as the Giants and Padres are PPD due to COVID. Breaking news: Pirates/Royals risk of PPD because … of a shooting? That’s all I know. WEATHER All games play Roof closed in Texas It’s atrocious tonight. Zac Gallen Another spot where I do not want to actually use Gallen, but there’s literally no other choices out there. He won’t get blown up, but I don’t see a dominant outing coming from him today. Problem is on DraftKings you are having a hard time finding two pitchers to trust without including him. Dakota Hudson I have a low scoring game tonight between the Reds and Cardinals. Hudson’s pitching long enough so we can trust him. Update: I’m also considering just a game stack of SP in this game. Kyle Hendricks Always better at home, but RHP vs the Brewers are the play these days. They had their 19 run game two nights ago and I doubt they score more than 4 the rest of the month. Ok, that’s a bit extreme, but you get the idea. The guy in the picture above — play him. LA Angels vs Colorado Rockies With lots of decent hitting spots tonight, I am going Story and Trout and moving on unless it’s a nice value play. Righties against Barria. Pirates vs Royals Assuming this game does play it’s another doozy tonight. Hunter Dozier will go yard. Maybe twice? But explore the Pirates side of the house as well. Really liking some Colin Moran and *gulp* Josh Bell… Indians All the Franmil CATCHER Carson Kelly Salvador Perez FIRST BASE Josh Bell Christian Walker Jeimeri Candelario SECOND BASE David Fletcher Ryan McMahon THIRD BASE Colin Moran Tony Two Bags Rendon Kyle Seager SHORTSTOP Trevor Story Francisco Lindor Chris Taylor OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore Mike Trout Hunter Dozier Justin Upton – Remember him? Franmil Reyes OUTFIELD – Tier 2 Whit Merrifield Ian Happ OUTFIELD – Value Gregory Polanco Victor Reyes Tim Locastro Trevor Story – SS – Colorado Rockies – Chairman of the Dongers Club […]
Well I guess we are really going to do this. We are really going to put together all these thoughts and all these prognostications, use our MLB winnings or click on that promotional deposit link or maybe even spend all those CROWNS and FDP we have been saving up to play what is basically the […]
