WEATHER Rain will come in at the back-end of the Orioles and Phillies home openers today, but both games should get in and complete. Cold and Ugly in Chicago for the Twins and White Sox game.   Not prime milkshake weather, so I doubt the attendance is much to speak about. Christopher Sanchez (DK: $9000, FD: $9900) … Sanchez is likely going to be the Phillies #2 man by the end of the season.  Back him with confidence against the shitty Rockies. Kris Bubic (DK: $7700, FD: $6200) … Bubic is back to a starting pitcher now and it’s wild to think he is the one of the young Royals from 5 years ago that made it this far as a starter with the org (although Singer was close but used as trade bait).  Nobody has ever questioned his whiff ability, it’s a matter of him keeping the ball in the park as a starter and pounding the strike zone early.   With the Orioles and Phillies playing their Opening Day’s today in decent hitting weather (pre the storms) those are the primary spots that should be looked at as neither is facing much stiff competition on the other side.  I would lean the Orioles with Schwarber as the one off from Philly & then after that look at Kansas City or Milwaukee over the likely chalky Twins in cold Chicago ORIOLES — Westburg, O’Neill, Mountcastle Should score a bunch early.  Mountcastle and O’Neill definitely going to celebrate the wall moving back in slightly as well. ROYALS — Witt, Pasquantino, Canha One interesting school of thought here.  The Brewers obviously got hammered in Yankee Stadium over the weekend and everyone talked about the bats.  But Milwaukee pitching led the league in pitches below 90 mph to start the season.  Yeah, you hang em, they bang em.  Sure, not all curveballs, but you get the jist here.  It’s worth dropping a few dimes on this being a Milwaukee problem and not a Yankee thing. PHILLIES — Schwarber, Harper Gotta have one Phil today.  Could see the game going under though.   CATCHER Should get some value here.  Expect Ryan Jeffers as chalk for the Twins in the 3-hole vs Perez Ryan Jeffers Adley Rutschman Salvador Perez   FIRST BASE Ryan Mountcastle Vinnie Pasquantino Bryce Harper   SECOND BASE Jordan Westburg Bryson Stott   THIRD BASE Hate everything about 3B on this slate […]

I was thinking of doing something drastic and taking off Sunday’s which once were my favorite day and of late have become a drag.  Then I saw deGrom, Ray and Tomosuki pitching today and here we are my friends.  We have site synchronicity on this fine Sunday, so enjoy that as well. I’ve seen a decent amount of chatter already about juiced baseballs being back and it’s not just from the gambling/DFS crowd.  This shouldn’t be a shock.  Of course MLB would want scoring and attention to their sport to be high at the start of the season as this is when everyone is going to try and pay attention and will be interested in attending games early before going along with their lives.  Expect it to remain random and then around the 5th of April we’ll start to get into that 1-2 week stretch of smashing unders.  I’ll grow concerned when Scooter Gennett hits 4 HR in a game. WEATHER Angels at White Sox:  Slight chance of storms in the afternoon. Twins at Cardinals:  Chance of delay here.   Despite deGrom being back there’s no temptation for me to use him.  I think the price on him is fair but the length concerns are real and while Boston hasn’t really gotten going yet, they’re still dangerous enough to not really feel like that’s a must own spot. We have Aaron Nola day game and on the road once again, something that usually has some risk associated with it.  Warm weather in DC with the wind blowing out.  If it was May, I would trust Nola’s upside more, but Washington’s gonna be decent vs RHP and not LHP, so we avoid it here. Today is a slate when I just go with guys who are basically what we would normally consider ‘Sunday Sleepers’ TAJ BRADLEY (DK: $8200, FD: $9600) Hard to evaluate Del Boca Vista Park so far as these two offense are just battling it out for who can suck the most through opening weekend.  Gotta think Bradley has as good of a chance of anyone at having a big strikeout day. MICHAEL WACHA (DK: $7800, FD: $8200) Sounds like Jose Ramirez could sit out today if Cleveland plays it safe.  A big help obviously if so and there’s reason to think Bibee is chalky making his debut today after a sickness scratch on Opening Day, so pivoting to […]

WEATHER All clear. Roof open in Arizona SPENCER SCHWELLENBACH (DK: $8800, FD: $10k) 10k on FanDuel is a bit crazy on this Spencer S.  Maybe they got got confused which Braves pitcher it is.  I get there’s a ton of hype here but I wouldn’t pay for him on FanDuel that much. ROKI SASAKI (DK: $8500, FD: $8800) Home crowd will be a boost for him early.  I don’t think he’s gonna be much this year, but tonight I’m fine with it. BRYCE MILLER (DK: $7900, FD: $9900) Until the offenses in Seattle start going off we continue to feast upon this ballpark in night games & going with Bido as a double SP stack is not the worst idea either.  Lawrence Butler is a top OF today but that’s all. OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS … SHOTA/PFAADT:  The Roof is open.   RED SOX / RANGERS Casas, Story — Semien, Seager, Langford CUBS Suzuki, Happ, Hoerner, Shaw METS Lindor, Alonso, Vientos   CATCHER Miguel Amaya Will Smith Cal Raleigh   FIRST BASE Christian Walker Pete Alonso Matt Olson   SECOND BASE Jake Cronenworth Jorge Polanco Nico Hoerner   THIRD BASE Matt Shaw Mark Vientos Isaac Parades   SHORTSTOP Trevor Story Corey Seager Francisco Lindor   OUTFIELD – Tier 1 Seiya Suzuki Joc Pederson Marcell Ozuna Lawrence Butler   OUTFIELD – Tier 2 Ian Happ Brandon Nimmo   Corey Seager – SS – Texas – Chairman of The Dongers Club   TOP BETS Red Sox/Rangers OVER 9

Saturdays in the Spring.  The sounds of lawn equipment firing up early in the morning, birds chirping non stop, making pancakes and FanDuel rolling out as many slates as humanly possible to ruin the day. Fortunately they only did three today, but we did not get any site synchronicity as DraftKings opted for a GOOD early slate starting at 1PM.  It’s larger than the 7PM slate, but I have considered this to be early with 7PM being the Main slate. This article covers 1PM. WEATHER All clear.  We do have some wind going OUT in New York, Kansas City & Cincinnati.   Overall this pitching slate is fairly boring for massive upside plays, so we find ourselves gravitating towards the dont get blown up options. ERICK FEDDE (DK: $7700) It’s a shame these two teams can’t play 162 against each other.  I really cannot stand either lineup and won’t try to sell you that Fedde is anything more than give me a 12 on DraftKings and move along.  He shouldn’t walk many guys & will give us 6 innings. JOE RYAN (DK: $8800) I am 100% out on Joe Ryan, he has far too often been inconsistent but lets get this scar out of the way as quickly as we can.  On a yucky pitching slate I will opt to go with a double stack on SP from the same game.  The Cardinals lineup shouldn’t be one to not swing and miss, so I don’t see how he wont have 5+ strikeouts. OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS … Max Fried, Justin Verlander, Nestor Cortes and Jesus Luzardo all get the do not touch on their new team treatment.  I would say the same for Max, but you aren’t using Max against Baltimore after he complained about his thumb all spring.  Among these however, Luzardo is the best play because the Nationals aren’t going to be as strong vs LHP. Gavin Williams:  All eyes on Gavin Williams for me today.  He was the pretty boy hyped up in the Spring but I still have some “show me” questions if he can avoid nibbling whenever he gets tired in the 3rd or 4th inning of a game.   BLUE JAYS The tradition of Blue Jays home games on Saturday’s and them going off is due to come alive with Dean Kremer taking the mound for Baltimore.  Throw in Anthony Saturday Santander in his first […]

We are back, we are back, we are so back. WEATHER Look at Major League Baseball finally doing something good here.  They are utilizing all the domes early in the season and have games in warm weather spots.  No issues. Roof open in Arizona again tonight. YOSHI YAMAMOTO (DK: $9000, FD: $9500) I will forever be the head of the anti-Asian pitchers in their first year fan club, but I recognize quality going into the second year & Yoshi was good in his first year when healthy.  I don’t see why we wont be using quality pitchers against Detroit all season long.  They have just too much swing and miss in this lineup. MITCH KELLER (DK: $7900, FD: $9800) Hey!  The Marlins won a game yesterday.  Congrats fellas.  I’m not gonna lie though this one really scares me.  Keller is going to go one of two ways this season.  Either he just settles in and becomes just a guy or he implodes and is out of a job by August. OTHER PITCHING THOUGHTS … No Castillo for me.  He’s in the Kikuchi boat. I expect reasonably decent outings from Cease, Houck and even Springs.  None of them are strong enough to go ahead of Yoshi and Keller for me though.   RED SOX Bregman, Casas, Story Jack Leiter is being given a full time chance in the rotation which is good because that’s where he belongs over the bullpen.  However, it’s also good for us in DFS because he is still not ready and hasn’t been as dominant as his fellow college teammate Kumar Rocker at blowing it by guys in the spring.  Expect Bregman/Casas/Story to do some damage today. DIAMONDBACKS Smith, Moreno, Carroll Hearing the Chase Field Roof is operational and open is definitely one of the best things in Baseball.  Throwing Jameson Taillon into that mix just adds all the fuel we need for Arizona to drop 10+ tonight themselves.  Challenge is the production likely comes from the entire depth of the lineup. OTHER HITTING TARGETS DODGERS PIRATES   CATCHER Will Smith Yainer Diaz Alejandro Kirk   FIRST BASE Triston Casas Vlad Guerrero Jr. Ryan Mountcastle   SECOND BASE Alex Bregman Andres Gimenez Kristian Campbell   THIRD BASE Eugenio Suarez Rafael Devers Max Muncy   SHORTSTOP Bo Bichette Trevor Story … Just missed an oppo HR yesterday. Jeremy Pena   OUTFIELD – Tier 1 Shohei Ohtani Jarren Duran […]

Welcome to another MLB DFS season and while I am not one of those fools who would say “it feels just like yesterday we watched the World Series”, I will say that Spring Training really flew by this year. There’s a sense of optimism that I have for Baseball and DFS this year that I haven’t had since before the COVID season.  Which means if history repeats itself we’ll have some jackass catcher hitting two home runs in the final game of the night to cost me big, followed by the Nationals PPD a game with no rain to cost me big and then the best pitcher on the slate at 5% ownership leaving for cramps … yes, to cost me big.  Or, if you’re a glass half full history repeating itself kinda guy then we’ll have another pandemic or strike (*cough*, a lockout is already looming, *cough*) and we’ll have to dust off the ole KBO dashboard once again with all the Kims, Jangs and Wongs your heart can desire. We are going to possibly have the true return of a heavy stable of dominant ‘Ace’ pitchers on display this season.  Guys like Alcantara, Strider, McLanahan and hopefully deGrom returning to the dominance every few days is going to really increase the high end SP1 decisions each night. There’s always injuries (see Gerrit Cole) that will diminish the pool here, but as I noted last year at some point we’re into a phase now on ace pitchers where they’re back up to that strength level after missing the 2020 season and we can hopefully get some healthy aces for a good portion of the season. SLATE SETUP No synchronicity.  Welp, it wont be a perfect season for FanDuel and DraftKings, although credit to FD for getting what the slate should have been correct with the BAL/TOR and MIL/NYY games on the slate. WEATHER Looks pretty good honestly for an Opening Day as all games should play and nothing is freezing cold or any snow like we had a couple years ago. Angels at Royals:  Chance of pop up storms.   PAUL SKENES – (DK: $10,000, FD: $11,000) I am not going to apologize here.  A generational ace pitcher going against one of the worst offenses we have seen in a long time.  Sure, “its wrong” can dance all you want on your left shoulder but that wont stop me […]

Texas Children’s Houston Open We have a couple of weeks before The Masters so fields will be suspect.  However, this week surprised me a little.  While not fantastic, we do have several quality players this week – including Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. This week is going to be brief.  Picks and only picks.  I’ve […]

With MLB starting up this week this and tomorrow will be the last two regular season NHL DFS articles.  On any days with limited MLB over the next month I’ll look at the NHL slate to determine adding some notes in Discord. UTAH Barrett Hayton – Dylan Guenther – Mikhail Sergachev DEVILS Nico Hischier – […]

DUCKS A lot of teams are on B2B on this slate, the Ducks are not one of them.  I doubt we get more than 2 goals here, but for cheap value we really could live with just 1 and some good SOG results. Ryan Strome, Troy Terry, Frank Vatrano PANTHERS Aleksander Barkov, Mackie Samsokevich, Sam […]

UCONN vs FLORIDA The early start should help out the Huskies, but their only real logical play would be to try and shoot lights out because they’re not gonna be able to defend Florida for 40 minutes. UCONN:  Solo Ball, Tarris Reed FLA:  Alijah Martin, Walter Clayton ILLINOIS vs KENTUCKY Love the Fightin’s IL:  Kylan […]