Dongers Club

Saturday’s are for the ScoutArmy!

DraftKings has 2 extra games on their Saturday slate today, which, in all honesty is pointless IMO. We have NINE good games starting at 4pm, but there’s two extra ones at 2pm (Baltimore @ Minnesota and Cincinnati @ Chicago) which I will include in this write-up for you to evaluate from.

WEATHER

It’s perfect

PITCHING

STUDS

There are five guys on DraftKings who are all within the same general price range and it’s interesting how they’re arranged on the pricing in order of Severino, Snell, Paxton, Morton, Kluber from high to low. Where as on FanDuel Severino is 1800 more than Snell. The pricing will drive ownership, it shouldn’t drive our decision on which one is the best play, and thus here’s my breakdown on how I see them today.

I started by doing doing 3 DK lineups today to get one of each of these three guys. Each one will have a stud arm on them. Here’s the breakdown of the 3 studs I would consider in order of preference from 1 to 3…

Blake Snell … The Mets are near the bottom vs LHP and Snell’s been given a long enough leash that I don’t worry that much about him being pinch hit for too early. He’s thrown over 100 pitches in 12 of his last 16 starts and only failed to go 6 innings three times in that stretch. He has had three rough road starts — 2 vs Yankees and 1 vs Orioles — definitely not the same match-up here against the Mets. Outside of Wilmer and Frazier, there’s not a ton that I would be scared of and I’m gonna guess he strikes each one of them out at least once. He’ll be very popular on FD with the price discount but nothing to get cute with fading there because the other guys have some big names.
James Paxton (vs Charlie Morton) … These guys are neck and neck together. I like the matchup for both as Paxton gets Colorado and should handle Blackmon/CarGo/Desmond/LeMahieu with ease. Morton gets the White Sox and we know how weak they are in general vs anyone who throws the baseball with the intent of getting hitters out. So here’s the tie-breaker. Paxton’s ump is Marty Foster (good for Paxton) and Morton’s ump is Angel Hernandez (usually bad for SP). There’s you difference maker. Paxton over Morton.
Corey Kluber … Kluber has not looked right leading to speculation that something is definitely wrong here. But that’s not my fear with him. It’s that LiC is on a roll lately and I got a hard time dealing Kluber against Joyce, Lowrie, Olson, Fowler and a Khris Davis who is more overdue for a double dong day game than a 9 month pregnant woman. Too many lindmines here for me to rank him #1. He’ll pitch better today though and for that reason I’ll have a third lineup that begins with Klubot.

MID RANGE & SP2 Choices

Steven Matz … Matz even with Snell is something to consider rolling today. His price is too low on DK for what we can potentially get out of him.
Carlos Martinez … Pitching better finally and should get lots of run support today. Risky, but worth pairing with Matz or JT
Jameson Taillon … You’re gonna see an example of people being sheep today I bet. And by that I mean JT will be < 2% owned simply because he’s facing a Phillies team that put up 17 runs last night — where as everyone was on JT earlier this year when he played Philly and struggled big time with his command. The Pirates need desperately for JT to go deep today and there’s nobody between him and the studs above that I trust today, so he’s the highest priced SP2 I would roll.

LONGSHOT

James Shields … I’m fading Houston and he is my favorite PUNT pitcher today. Gimme a 12 Shields on DK and I’ll be content.

FADES

Luis Severino … Law of Averages. Severino hasn’t given up a run in his last two starts. He will today. And for that reason, we have a 13k pitcher on DK who isn’t gonna hit 30 points in my mind. With the other guys going, there’s no need for me to force in Sevvy today….
Charlie Morton … See above.

HITTER CORES

CHALK FAVORITES

Indians … They roll at home and Edwin Jackson isn’t someone we should fear them flopping against. Ramirez, Lindor, Edwin the usual suspects here, but look for some value around the 7-hole hitter w/ the Indians.
Brewers … I don’t love picking on Anibal Sanchez as he’s been really crafty, however Shaw and Yelich both stand out today and it feels like Jesus Aguilar is homering every game off a right handed pitcher.

SNEAKY

Cardinals … It’s Shark in a day game. Need I say more? Love the Cards today. Jose Martinez and Pham better vs righties.
Tigers … People will shy away from them but they DESTROY lefties. Castellanos should be in your lineup today.
Twins … On DK they’ll go overlooked a little bit. Good hitting conditions here and they’re a better offensive team 1-9 than Baltimore, so give me their side. Rosario, Morrison and Escobar. They don’t go off without Escobar.

FADES

Houston … I never roll them heavy at home. There’s plenty of other options and they’re not gonna bat in the 9th.
Seattle … Offense is cold and no Haniger hurts.
Yankees … Do I think they hit Happ? Yes. Probably 2-3 HR. Good luck picking the right ones and they won’t double down in the late innings.

AMBUSH STACKS

So the trend of a team popping off for a couple touchdowns has continued and it’s about one team per day who gets it going early and then continues all game long against the bullpen. Usually it’s a road team as getting that 9th inning AB is always beneficial when chasing a team scoring double digits. So rather than just list the stacks that are obvious which we should play (done above), I’ll go ahead and ride this trend by looking for that one team each day that’s gonna pull an ole AMBUSH on their opponent

Atlanta Braves … Atlanta is really close to popping off again. They’re constantly getting guys on base and just lacking the clutch hit to drive them in. If any team ever needed to add a HR bat right now it would be them. Or maybe bat Acuna 5th? Maybe? Anyways, facing off against minor leaguer Aaron Wilkerson today I think is the cure to get them over the perceived “cold” streak that they have slid into at the end of this road trip. They pop off today on Saturday and then go quiet on Sunday, because Atlanta professional sports teams don’t score a ton on Sunday’s…. Freeman-Albies-Markakis and on DK the Catcher should come from the Braves today as well.

The Texas Rangers … So this team certainly has a good matchup in an underrated ballpark and decent but not amazing weather. Perfect. Fiers is fragile and a fly ball guy against a team who lives and dies with the fly balls. But it’s guys like Andrus, Profar and Mazara who will keep the line moving for Texas today which makes them someone that I see having that potential to put up a bunch of crooked numbers on the scoreboard today and they’re well below other teams in stupid projected run total.

POSITIONAL FAVORITES

CATCHER

Tyler Flowers/Kurt Suzuki … I expect Flowers to draw the start today
James McCann .. Tearing the cover off the ball right now and draws a lefty
Manny Pina

FIRST BASE

Prince Frederick Freeman
Jose Martinez
Ronald Guzman (value – Rangers stack)

SECOND BASE

value — odor, hanson, kipnis

THIRD BASE

Jose Ramirez
Travis Shaw
Jeimer Candelario
Matt Carpenter

SHORTSTOP

Marwin Gonzalez … Some of you may be sick of me listing him because he is cheap. Guess what, it has to do with the position depth and this is why blindly stacking doesn’t evaluate the landscape effectively. Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts. Right, when we have to pay up, we pay up. We don’t have to pay up here. So suck it….
Dansby Swanson
Elvis Andrus

OUTFIELD – Tier 1

Nick Castellanos … Day game vs a lefty. Underpriced on FD
Adam Jones
Nick Markakis
Christian Yelich

OUTFIELD – Tier 2

Thomas Pham
Eddie Rosario
Adam Jones
Nomar Mazara

OUTFIELD – Tier 3

Corey Dickerson
Matthew Joyce … Hi!
Jesse Winker
Kyler Tucker

Ozzie Albies – 2B – Chairman
Matt Joyce – OF … LiC
Jose Ramirez – 3B
Christian Yelich – OF
Nick Castellanos – OF
Jose Martinez – 1B
Dansby Swanson – SS
James McCann – C
BONUS ……………………… Adam Jones – OF

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