The Dongers Club – Sat, Aug 29th

A quick recap on last night and boy oh boy that was a nice Friday with the bats. Unfortunately there were about 3 or 4 pitchers who I decided not to roll with that went off and that kept me and us from taking down tournaments last night. But ignoring those implied run totals once again paid off as nobody had the best spot on the slate — Cleveland.

No specific trends to point out today other than to keep an eye on these double headers and how teams respond after them. We have more today which means the main slate is shorter than it should be but in a way it might benefit us as lots of games could have rain issues in the afternoon.

Main slate tonight locks at 7 PM on both sites and will have the same amount of games — which is only six and does include the Coors Field game.

The Houston and Oakland game is NOT going to accrue stats because they decided they wanted a Friday night off last night and used that as their protest game.

Side note: I might be the only one who felt this way, but I really felt like all the MLB players were refreshed last night. It’s almost like they have been so drained by the COVID testing and lack of fans in stadiums this season that they mentally needed the break more than anything. It sounds stupid to say this but the pause of not playing games and them focusing on something other than Baseball kind of acted like an all-star break or mid-way pause for them in this short season. Even though the amount of games is less, it’s definitely taken a mental toll on lots of players being crammed in so quickly.

WEATHER NOTES

WAS at BOS: Light rain in Boston today could really make this slate different as they can easily push it to tomorrow and try to play two without any rain concerns. My hard rule right now is that if they game starts in a delay — STAY AWAY and if the game starts on time then it will be fine. Got it? “Delay, Stay away. On Time, It’s Fine”. That’s as much as we can do to simplify what has been a challenging weather season given the new DH rule.
Coors Field is nicer today than last night, should be back to a really go do hitting environment for HR’s.
All other games are good and we have three roof’s to monitor.
- Chase Field (Earlier start time on Saturday nights so they could wait longer to open if they do)
- Miller Park (Likely open)
- Texas (TBD, if they do open, big boost for hitters here)

Dylan Bundy

Just going through the games real quick looking for an option and it was like, no, no, no, no, OH. Bundy. Kind of like duck-duck-duck-GOOSE. That is not to say that Bundy wasn’t a favorable option, as much as I was going in order of the start times on the games and saw nothing that looked promising from the jump. Bundy on the other hand does look promising even against a Seattle team who has been decent offensively prior to last night. Bundy got over that expected dip from his incredible start as his last two games saw him get roughed up in a day game vs San Francisco and then come back last Sunday and pitch better in Oakland. Tonight, he’s getting a worse lineup in Seattle and with limited other choices will certainly be the highest owned pitcher today. I see no reasons why we shouldn’t just take the Bundy 20 points on DK and 40 on FanDuel and move on.

Brett Anderson

This is another default play as Anderson gets the Pirates who grade out as one of the worst hitting teams on the slate (Texas is the worst IMO). Anderson is a soft contact lefty and Pittsburgh really lacks any raw power against LHP as only Bell, Reynolds and Stallings carry an ISO that is close to .200 and all are below it. Further-more, Pittsburgh probably rolls out Gonzalez/Tucker at the top of the order today which should start the game off with strikeout-strikeout and Anderson can likely get through six innings with 6 strikeouts today and pick up another W. The Pirates came out and gave the Brewers fits in Pittsburgh and the Brewers seem to be taking this series as it’s back in Milwaukee. He wins, and he gets you good results for SP2.

No outside the box plays today

Diamondbacks / Giants

Mike Yazstremski, Brandon Belt, Starling Marte, David Peralta

The D’Backs are finally hitting again and while they probably don’t destroy Cahill they should do enough damage on him to get into the Giants bullpen for an added bonus. For San Francisco, they’ve been sneaky good against LHP but in this case get Luke Weaver for the second time in a week and I like the odds in their favor against him. Yaz is due to break out again and Brandon Belt should be the second Giant you look at. This is a great game to pivot off Washington/Boston if that one has rain issues.

Nationals

Trea Turner, Asdrubal Cabrera

Assuming they get this game in I have to like the Nationals considering they’re drawing the SP who I thought was gonna go last night. Instead Boston rolled out Martin Perez and obviously it was the same exact result I expected. The one guy who gets a nice boost back today though with Mazza going is Trea Turner and on a slate with Trevor Story being a solid play — you can take a gamble on DK going with Turner, although FD it would be advised to try both. Meanwhile in this same game for Boston the Red Sox have Mitch Moreland who sits on Anibal’s change-up and has had great success against that type of pitch and specifically against Anibal.

Rockies

Trevor Story, Garrett Hampson

Story on a Saturday at home vs a LHP? Sign me up. Morejon is fastball heavy and has been hit hard by righties despite finding a way to overall have decent numbers vs them. That changes today as both Hampson and Story should lead things off with a bang.

CATCHER

Absolutely nothing to like about catchers tonight.

Stephen Vogt
Omar Narvaez
Austin Hedges

FIRST BASE

Moreland has hit Sanchez well and always hits guys like him well in general. Belt is a favorable play from San Francisco.

Mitch Moreland
Brandon Belt

SECOND BASE

We like Marte more vs a LHP but this is a bad position today and with some favorable value at catcher, first and OF (depending on your site) then you can look to take one of the better plays here instead of punting it.

Ketel Marte
Jake Cronenworth

THIRD BASE

Not a position I love. Not rolling Arenado could be dangerous but a better fade than other spots IMO. I would rather have Story or Trout if paying up for a hitter.