KBO DFS: Sat May 9th
Saturday – 4AM EST Slate for KBO DFS WEATHER There is some rain possibly coming through for the games on Saturday, four of which are taking place outdoors. If four of the five games are cancelled then I am 99.9% certain that both FD and DK have policy on which the slate doesn’t run with just the one game. But if you are worried about rain affecting the pitchers, your game in a dome is between the Eagles and Heroes. But enough of that, let’s check in with our Korean Weather DFS touts who are claiming all the games wont play … PITCHING Since we are towards the back end of the rotations on the 5th game of the season we have a TON of min priced pitchers taking the mound today on DraftKings. This guy, however, is not one of them. As you can see this is what we call a Taylor Swift vs Kim Kardashian slate. We have two Tae’s, which mean it’s a Tay-Tay slate and we have not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE. Yes, FIVE KIM’s…. So because I don’t feel like googling Taylor Swift, we are going to do a breakdown on a Kim you might not have ever heard of … Kim DeJesus I had never heard of her actually, but when I saw the picture I realized that her name is actually Kim DeJesus Christ…… She is an actress, known for Dhoom 3 (2013), Sullivan & Son (2012) and Happy Ending (2014). But better yet, for those of you who CORRECTY GUESSED that she is married to former Major Leaguer – David DeJesus then you win a prize! Also, how could someone so shitty as David DeJesus hitched this? So yes, she starred in a movie called …. Happy Ending. OK Then. Moving along now….. Arms to Consider Tae-hoon Kim (SK Wyverns – $6,500) … He appears to be one of the better pitchers on the slate as he has a nice 27% K rate against BOTH RHB and LHB from the past couple of seasons. The 29 year old overall has the best numbers on the slate for pitching but also faces a Lotte Giants team who is playing VERY well to start the season and is full of RH bats in their main lineup. This is also a stadium that I project out to be a good hitters park so I think the $6,500 price tag is fairly accurate considering he has the metrics of someone who should be around $9k. Oh, and he is the baseball card picture above…. Tae-in Won (Samsung Lions – $6,000) … Samsung had to win eventually and they did that last night back at home. Now can we do the unthinkable and roll out a winning streak? I like the chances with Tae-in Won, someone who I admit I had never heard of before this morning, but reading up on him he’s a nice young arm with some good velocity as well. The strikeout’s will be enough against the Tigers who have a few guys north of 20% in strikeout rates. Yong chan Lee (Doosan Bears – $8,700) … Yong-Chan is the highest priced arm as you can see but going up against the Wiz in his home ballpark — which is a decent spot for pitchers — is a valid reason to consider paying up for the veteran. That is essentially all the nice reasons I can think of to play him, but don’t worry…. Should be fine. HITTING Doosan Bears … The Bears have a decent lineup so far against RHP with a heavy set of lefty bats projected at the top of the lineup. They’re definitely priced up based on a good start to the season offensively but the focal points are Jae Il Oh (.307 AVG, 14 HR vs RHP) and Jose Miguel Fernandez (.353 AVG, 13 HR vs RHP) in the 2-3 holes if they are there. From a value perspective you could consider Joo Hwan Choi ($2800) as he has a very low strikeout rate compared to the others and offers a little value in the middle of the lineup should he start there. SK Wyverns … The team I wanted to follow the most coming into this season get to go into the best stadium for offense rated by yours truly (unofficially of course). Expect them to be popular given they are strong road favorites here as well. Against LHP Jeong Choi destroys, as he is known as probably the best 3B in the KBO and has been appropriately high owned through the first few games. This is a spot where he should definitely come through as Won sam Jang gives up .246 ISO to opposing RH bats. He’s very good aginst lefties but no so much the RH bats. The Wyverns likely will have 4 of their 5 key bats in the middle as righties today. After Choi, Jamie Romak and Jong Wook Ko are my favorite bats. I don’t think Won sam Jang will pitch deep so the lefties can be used safely here as well. Others: Dinos Lefties POSITIONAL ONE OFFS Catcher: Se Hyuk Park (Bears), Kang Nam Yoo (Twins) First Base: Jae Il Oh (Bears) Second Base: Jose Fernandez (Bears), Min Woo Park (Dinos) Third Base: Jeong Choi (Wyverns), Jin hyk No (Dinos) Shortstop: Su Suk Ha (Eagles), Dixon Machado (Giants), Jae Ho Kim (Bears) Outfield: Jong Wook Ko (Wyverns), Dong Min Han (Wyverns), Jamie Romak (Wyverns), Sung bum Na (Dinos), Jae Hwan Kim (Bears) DONGERS CLUB CHAIRMAN: Dong Min Han – OF – Wyverns He has been white hot starting the season with 3 HR through 4 games including a double dong game back in the 2nd game of the season and one last night. A lot of folks may overlook him going up against a lefty today but we expect Won sam Jang to leave the game quickly
KBO DFS – Fri May 8th
As we all continue to anxiously wait for MLB to return, we continue to have baseball in the form of the KBO, which I’ve actually enjoyed to be honest. The tricky aspect of our new-found DFS sport will continue to be lineup confirmation coming in the very early morning hours. With that said, here’s my view of the Friday, May 8th slate. Today’s Games Yellow Highlighted Team Is Favored Away Pitcher DK $ Home Pitcher DK $ KT Wiz Hyeong Jun So $4,000 Doosan Bears (-190) Hee Kwan Yoo $8,500 Hanwha Eagles Min Jae Jang $8,500 Kiwoom Heroes (-170) Seung Ho Lee $8,000 SK Wyverns (-120) Seung Won Moon $8,200 Lotte Giants Kyung Eun Noh $6,500 LG Twins (-115) Tyler Wilson $7,800 NC Dinos Jae Hak Lee $9,800 KIA Tigers (-145) Drew Gagnon $7,000 Samsung Lions Chae Heung Choi $5,000 Pitchers Tyler Wilson (LG Twins) We want pitchers that go deep and show damage control. Strikeout upside is a bonus, of course and Wilson has all of the above-mentioned traits. As long as Wilson doesn’t have a shortened pitch count (he was in quarantine for 14 days thus starting the season late), we can expect the righty to pitch deep. Last season in 30 starts Wilson tossed 185 innings with a 6.7 K/9. The season prior over 26 starts he posted a 7.9 K/9 over 170 innings. He’s kept the ball in the ballpark over his first two seasons in the KBO as well, thus, limiting damage. Seung Ho Lee (Kiwoom Heros) 20-year-old Seung Ho Lee had some rocky outings early on last season but ended up tossing 14 quality tarts an allowed just one earned run over his final 18 innings of the year. While the K upside might not jump off the page here, consider that Lee is in a good spot as a favorite for a good offensive team it seems in the Heroes. Drew Gagnon (KIA Tigers) Former Met “great” in the majors, Gagnon (was not actually great in the majors over his two seasons) is a 29-year-old who did have some success in the minor in the Mets’ organization. In 2019 at triple-A he held opponents to a .230 batting average in 15 starts spanning 88.2 innings with 107 strikeouts and 17 walks and had a WHIP of 1.07. The year prior at the triple-A level when the Mets’ affiliate was still playing in the Las Vegas (the PCL) where the ball flies and all of the stadiums are bandboxes, Gagnon’s numbers, although inflated considering the circumstances, were still respectable as far as peripherals go over 157.2 innings. At $7,800 for a pitcher, who’s team is favored, expect him to be somewhat popular but an arm to consider nonetheless. Batting Targets Doosan Bears The defending KBO champs facing an 18-year-old in his league debut seems like a good spot to start with bats on this slate. Doosan has scored 14 runs over there last two games while pounding out 14 hits in their last game. Jose Fernandez (1B/2B), Jae il Oh (1B), and Jae Hwan Kim (1B/OF) have all gotten off to good starts this season and are the projected 2, 3, and 4 hitters. Jae Ho Kim (SS) is a good value at $3,300, has five hits in his last nine at-bats, and was in the six-hole in the Bears’ last game. Kiwoom Heroes I’ve been on the Heroes train quite heavily early on and it’s been both successful and gut-wrenching. Facing Min Jae Jang who has some strikeout upside but the propensity to get into trouble with traffic on the bases as last year he suffered from a 5.43 ERA in 22 starts and was able to toss just seven quality starts. Kiwoom was the best offense in the KBO last year by far and I expect them to start flexing their muscles much as they did in their first game when the recorded 11 runs. Byung Ho Park (1B), Ha Seong Kim (SS), and Keon Chang Seo (1B/2B) are three bats to start with Seo being a great value near the top of the order. Jung Ho Lee (OF) is another bat in the middle of the lineup, but consider that he’s not a big power-bat rather a high-average doubles guy with some speed. Definitely someone worthwhile in a stack as he’s the three-hitter for Kiwoom. One-off Bats C: Sang Ho Chung (NC Dinos) 1B: Dae Ho Lee (Lotte Giants) 2B: Min Hyeok Kim (KT Wiz) 3B: Jeong Choi (KT Wiz) SS: Sun Bin Kim (KIA Tigers) OF: Sung Bum Na (NC Dinos), Hyung Woo Choi (KIA Tigers) Good Luck!!
KBO DFS – Thu May 7th
Quick question. What the hell happened to April? Am I the only one who just suddenly had that feeling of — wait a minute, we missed something? Anyways. Day two of the KBO is in the books and it’s onto
KBO DFS – Wed May 6th
Alright folks, we broke the seal on this KBO DFS experience and I am right in my comfort zone with a negative from a pitcher and a sneaky homer stack that paid off from the Giants with the nWo trio of “Ah Seop Dixon Dae-Ho” an official Dongers Club play that had 2 HR out of it. Personally I fell short in the $180 tournament I played as Hyun Jon Yang really Hunged On my Yang with a -2.85 beat down for 10k+. So much for that failure. But some positive results with known quantities such as Hyun Soo Kim and Dixon Machado having great first nights. The one very pleasing thing was that Warwick Saupold did what I expected he should do and at his cheap price that was quite the steal on DK. The biggest downsides to this? The time of day and of course — LINEUP INFORMATION! It was past midnight last night and I eventually zonked out right before getting confirmation one way or the other about the Chairman 1B play of the day not playing. Information with the KBO is gonna be hard to come by and we have to accept that is the major risk here. Another reason to avoid doing one lineup into the multi-entry spots where you can off-set the risk by doing multi lineups. I am okay with that risk but the other wild card here is that now we shift into the 5:30 AM EST start times. If that was 6:30 then I think we’d see a MAJOR boost out of this sport, but 5:30 means getting up at 5 am or do what I plan on doing and drink a ton before you go to bed and hope to wake up at 4am to have to pee. Some finds so far from last night include a recommendation to follow @dfskbo who was all over the lineups last night coming out. Not sure who that is or if they’ll continue with it, but all I keep hearing is that “we are in this together” so yes, we can share some information around with everyone else as we all learn about KBO news updates together. Random Player of the Day Why is he the player of the day? Well, upon building out depth charts and learning the rosters hist name obviously jumped out to me. I can’t not look at it and see it pronounced as “Oh… You Suck!”. Imagine the tough career path that this guy has. He’s living out the dream of playing professinal Baseball and doing it only for roughly 38k per year. A true dedication indeed. Upon doing some research on him I found that there was also an Oh Yun-suk, who is a different person that played for the 2004 South Korean Olympics team. But back to THIS Oh YOON-suk, he is a first baseman for the Lotte Giants and wears #4 (as you can see above) and attended Kyunggi High School which is the oldest modern high school in Korea, located in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. A few facts about his high school because it’s far more interesting than his professional baseball career It is an an all-boys school that has a counterpart all Girls school which is Kyunggi Girls’ High School. As mentioned it’s the oldest modern high school in Korea and was established by edict of the Emperor Gojong in April of 1899! Emperor Gojong reigned over Korea from October 13th of 1897 to July 19th 1907. He was the next to last of the Joseon dynasty monarchs, which ended in 1910 Back to the high school, it has had some notable alumni — including nobody that I have ever fucking heard of… So in short… Oh Yoon-Suk is a very appropriate name for this guy. His Dongers Club Nickname from this point forward shall be …. Tommy Joseph! Today’s Games Favorites are in BOLD. Away Starting Pitcher Home Starting Pitcher HAN Eagles Joon Seop Im (4000) – LHP SK Wyverns Ricardo Pinto (4000) LOT Giants Jun won Seo (5100) KT Wiz Will Cuevas (7300) NC Dinos Mike Wright (7700) SAM Lions Ben Lively (6300) DOO Bears Young Ha Lee (8900) LG Twins Eun Bom Song (4000) KIW Heroes Eric Jokisch (8500) – LHP KIA Tigers Aaron Brooks (7200) Three Totals of 9.5 today: Bears/Twins, Eagles/Wyverns and Giants/Wiz Pitching Notables Nine of the pitchers going today played in the KBO last season. The one exception is Ben Lively! Yes, happy Ben (no relation to Blake) Lively day. Lively has spent time in the MLB with the Phillies and Royals mostly as a starter at the big league level and is not exactly an electric arm we should rush to roster today — or ever. William Cuevas is another known name with lots of MiLB experience and some big league time as well with the Red Sox and Tigers. Most of his big league time was as a September call up in 2018 so I put a lot more faith into his 2019 KBO numbers which were decent as he pitched the whole year (13-10, 184 IP, 135 K and a 3.62 ERA / 1.17 WHIP). He had four starts against Lotte in 2019 with two really good ones and one horrific game where he went 4 2/3, allowed 11 ER on 15 hits. Yes, that is being read correctly. The Giants have added Dixon Machado as well this year, so I’m not loving Cuevas today. You will notice that DraftKings has Min Woo Lee listed as a RP. That’s because he has been a reliever appearing in 66 career games in the KBO with only 10 total starts (6 of them last season towards the end of the year). He appears to be good to throw 90+ pitches but draws an extremely tough match-up against the Hereos today. UPDATE — We also have a couple replacement/spot starters in E. Song and R. Pinto at min price filling in. I
KBO DFS – May 5th
Hello…. How’s it goin? Things I did not envision myself doing in 2020 Watching Kirk Cousins beat the Saints in a playoff game Writing a KBO DFS article. Yet, here we are… What is the KBO? Korean Baseball Organization of course. The league was formed in 1982 with six franchises and now currently has ten teams. You’ll notice that most of the teams are owned by corporations (i.e. Samsung) within the KBO but they do have some kinda cool names that you can latch onto to follow along. Here’s everything you need to know about the KBO — or at least what I have learned so far … The Good It’s Baseball for crying out loud There’s a ton of impressive bat flips at times Prior to last season the league was hitter friendly with well known juiced baseballs. It remains to be seen if they keep the balls from last year which brought offense down. The Bad Everyone is named Chen, Wang, Kim or Lee it seems. The games are between 1am and 5am EST time. So here in America, we’re likely not watching a ton of the KBO live and for DFS this is our biggest challenge as we might not see lineups until very late at night. I still haven’t had a real haircut and between cutting my own hair and having my wife do it, I have quite the flow going right now The Whatever Games can end in tie’s! After 12 innings I believe the game would be called a tie. ESPN is broadcasting one game a day. Contest Selection You are on your own here, but remember the less people and the higher $ the entry the better your chances of winning. You know, like t he $180 DK contest that is only 103 people, pays out 21 spots and 5k to first…. Just saying…. May 5th Slate Technically the games are May 5th no matter what time zone you live in, so that’s what we are going with. I should also point out that it is Cinco De Mayo and we should no doubt roll out as many inappropriate narratives based upon the players name as possible. However, I’m pretty sure that all the Kangs and Chen’s and Yang’s and Baek’s are not celebrating Cinco De Mayo. But Jose Miguel Fernandez is in my book. DraftKings was first to the show, so they get the priority on the write-up in terms of pricing information (for now). I say for now because — well, picking two pitchers from 5 game slates is always dicey. Away Team Pitcher DK Price Home Team Pitcher DK Price Hanwha Eagles Warwick Saupold 6,500 SK Wyverns (-140) Nick Kingham 9,000 Lotte Giants Dan Fricken Straily 7,600 KT Wiz (-145) Odrisamer Despaigne 7,600 NC Dinos (-145) Drew Rucinski 9,100 Samsung Lions Jung-Hun Baek (LHP) 6,400 Doosan Bears (-145) Raul Alcantara 8,600 LG Twins Woo-chan Cha (LHP) 6,200 Kiwoom Heroes (-140) Jake Brigham 9,300 Kia Tigers Hyeon-jong Yang (LHP) 10,000 The Giants/Wiz game is the highest total at OU 9.5 – every other game is 8.5. As you can tell, the Odds here are pretty much random with nobody higher than -145 and nobody lower than -140 favorite. Source: William Hill Sportsbook. QUICK GAME NOTES This is just for the Opening Day, as we get into the season more and we get used to what the actual lineups look like we can project better the positional breakdowns. The below team codes in ()’s are reflected how they show on DK when selecting from the player pool. Eagles (HAN) vs Wyverns (SK) You might recognize both of these pitchers (Saupold vs Kingham) as this first game on the slate has two guys with MLB experience. Neither was very good in the Majors and both RHP struggled big time against LH hitters. Kingham most recently in 2019 had 19.1 K% against RH batters and a 16.3 K% against LH batters. He failed to keep the ball in the MLB parks as well giving up 11 HR over 55 IP and never pitched deep into games as he faced a maxium of 23 batters in one game during the entire 2019 campaign. I highly doubt we see him pitch deep in this first start either – for $9,000 and combined with the fact that he is likely popular due to name he is a clear fade on DK. As for Warwick Saupold – he’s tempting given that he did pitch in the KBO last year and routinely went 6+ innings with a high pitch count and fairly reasonable metrics. By metrics I mean basic stats as we’re really scraping to find any advanced metrics such as ISO and even handed splits — so we take what we can for now. But Saupold is someone who may not deliver a ton of strikeouts and has the worse team on his side but he’s a nice underdog to take on opening day for $6500 as an SP2. Eagles Bats: Jared Hoying (OF), Eun Wong Jung (2B/3B), Yong-Kyu Lee (OF) Wyverns Bats: Dong-Min Han (OF) Giants (LOT) vs Wiz (KTW) It’s Dan Straily against Odrisamer Despaigne pitching in Korean and guess what? Holy hell, bad Marlins pitching from two to three years ago for $5,000 Alex! Now, we do have to be a little tempered here because of the fact that they’ll be facing lesser competition over in the KBO — but let’s also not go all crazy and think this turns into a pitchers duel. Good hitters park it appears as well and we have a solid hitting target from this game in Baek-ho Kang, a young potential star who was rookie of the year in 2018 at the age of 18 and followed it up last year with increased batting AVG but a big dip in perceived power down from 29 HR in 2018 to only 13 last year. But again, the ball was doctored down for power last
SIM Dongers Club – April 6th
Ask and ye shall receive. I have heard some positive feedback thus far and because I enjoy writing about any form of Baseball I’ll keep up with some brief articles on the simulated contests — even though they are FREE and most will mock them (including me). I am really interested in doing some type of $ contests for the sim games. Not every day and I won’t be writing an article every day during the sim process but who knows maybe we can get something going where we have a 20 man $5 entry with top 3 prizes paid out? If you want to be included in the side pool then click this link to sign-up for me so I know. I hope to get something going by Wednesday of this week – if not sooner. TODAYS SLATES One thing that was going to be of interest to me in Baseball this year for DFS was how the DFS sites handle the increase in more 6pm EST start times. We have two today along with two afternoon games and they naturally put all four together on an early slate. That said, if this was a paid contest I bet we would have three total slates. For the Early 2 PM Contests, the four games feature one solid SP match-up between Clevinger (CLE) and Berrios (MIN) in Target Field, or the simulated version of target field at least. Which to me, should still be a good RH park for someone like Franmil Reyes, but lots of switch hitters on both sides here and it’s not a fantastic spot for either SP in my mind — but Clevinger should see a good K game and he would be the choice of the two. My SP: Jordan Montgomery (NYY) – Should only go 5 IP even simulated, but process of elimination he edges everyone else. Marco Gonzales would have been a nice DK SP2 if we had such a thing. Favorite Bats: Indians (Lindor, Santana, Ramirez, Franmil), Reds (Moustakas), Brewers (Braun/Grandal), with a little Kepler (MIN) sprinkled in for good measure. MAIN SLATE PITCHING Aaron Nola (PHI) … Top SP on the board. Would have never played him in real life today though but simulation he’s the play. Chris Paddack (SD) … The Padres have been good between FanDuel and Strat-o-Matic simulations so far. So all the sims like their data obviously and I think most will lean Soroka over Paddack which is a mistake because Soroka shouldn’t strike many out. STACKS Not an obvious slate for hitting, so we should see some one offs do well again, but these are the best teams to do damage IMO Tampa … Good park shift and E-Fraud — Renfroe the main play with Meadows Oakland … Will get overlooked but how do we not pick on Julio the first chance we get? Olson / Chapman Kansas City … Fulmer probably has some pretty bad metrics in the simulation having missed all of last year and being rough before that. His good days are many moons ago and the Royals top of the lineup will do well. Mondesi/Whit/Soler/Dozier DONGERS CLUB Jorge Soler – OF – Royals – Chairman Hunter Renfroe – OF – Rays Kyle Schwarber – OF – Cubs Matt Olson – 1B – Athletics Gain Lux – 2B – Dodgers Matt Chapman – 3B – Athletics Bo Bichette – SS – Blue Jays J.T. Realmuto – C – Phillies
SIM Dongers Club – April 3rd
Supply and Demand Folks. the amount of a commodity, product, or service available and the desire of buyers for it, considered as factors regulating its price Listen, it’s not like we have 1,000 people asking for me to write an article on the MLB Simulation Contests on FanDuel but the Chairman — Hunter Dozier — did hit a 3% home run on the first day I did an article. So just sit back and go open a beer. It is Friday after all (I think?) and we have a Baseball DFS slate to break down here whether it’s for money or not, we have entertainment awards to go after. So press play on one of the Official Sound Tracks for The Dongers Club, let it play and enjoy the article. So like I said, what else are you going to do on this Friday besides sweat a slate that begins at 1PM and won’t end until close to 11:30 PM. How amazing is that? FanDuel is giving us an ALL DAY MAIN SLATE! Simulation life isn’t that bad after all because we’re one day into this stuff and Matt Adams does not appear to be on the simulation active roster, which is just fantastic news for all of us. More fantastic news for us, this slate has Coors Field on it — ok, that’s not the fantastic part. But this means we do get Nolan Arenado and I can just hope that the Simulated version of the GOAT is as Angry as the real version is. TODAYS SLATE … GIFtastic Breakdown WEATHER It appears the simulation does not give two shits about the weather. Unfortunately this means that the unemployment rate just went up as about 5 more DFS Weather Touts have filed unemployment. Luckily they can now go tout their models for push-up contests. Cleveland Indians (Carrasco) vs Detroit Tigers (Nova) I know this game is in Detroit but it just dawned on me that Ivan Nova should face the Indians in Cleveland this year and that brings me more joy than you can possibly imagine. Arizona Diamondbacks (Luke Weaver) vs Chicago Cubs (Kyle Hendricks) What in the world is this garbage? Just give me all the fantasy writer of the year awards right now folks. Im breaking down a Luke Weaver vs Kyle Hendricks Friday afternoon simulation game. Again, we need to get confirmation on the weather for the simulation but Im gonna have to assume that it’s all zero? Who the hell is on the Diamondbacks anymore? Ohhh, wait a minute. Is that Starling Marte in Wrigley Field or are you happy to see me? San Diego Padres (Joey Lucchesi) vs Colorado Rockies (Kyle Freeland) In the simulation that we are living in they had snow today in Denver and it will be 45 tomorrow. So when this game finishes 3-1 then we know the weather is imported into the simulations and we can re-hire all those DFS Weather touts. Hot take: This game won’t end 3-1. Los Angeles Dodgers (Buehler) vs San Francisco (who gives a shit, we’re playing Walker Buehler on a Friday) oh shit it’s Jeff Samardzija in a day game Miami Marlins (Jordan Yamamoto) vs Atlanta Braves (Cole Hamels) Alright, now this is a weird one because I wrote up Hamels as being a flop this season and he’s obviously hurt in real life. Marlins should be a sneaky team in these type of spots this year and they’re dirt cheap with everyone being 3k or less. Villar-Anderson-Dickerson-Aguilar-Alfaro is better than you think. These aren’t your 2018 or 2019 Marlins folks. Tampa Bay Rays (Blake Snell) vs Texas Rangers (Lance Lynn) Commence Texas Rangers new stadium is a PITCHERS PARK. But these donkeys probably pulled the data from last years stadium instead. We have a glitch in the Matrix! Either way, gotta like the data on Blake Snell in this spot as he should strike out 10 guys. Houston Astros (Lance McCullers Jr) vs Los Angeles Angels (Dylan Bundy) The simulation does not know about the sign stealing. MY SIMULATION PICKS Sweet Jesus I still cannot believe I am typing those words. Ya’ll better have fun with this shit before I go insane.. Oh that reminds me. I am working on putting together something cool starting next Monday. I’m gonna basically let things digest through the weekend and if I still think it’s a viable plan then we’ll move forward with it. But basically it would involve everyone throwing in an entry into a World Cup style tournament where you have to post your lineup and then I’ll calculate the results based off the FanDuel simulation each day. So all you have to do is degen some money on a simulation and copy/type your lineup into something I setup to make it easy to do and then I’ll calculate it (or get a team to help me do it). If that sounds cool and I still remember this four days from now (whenever that really is, what day is it???) then we’ll move forward. PITCHING The theme for PITCHING today comes from an all time classic — Goodfellas. With the GIF below each pitcher adequately describing them… Walker Buehler … A simulation sure as hell wont stop me from using Buehler. Blake Snell … 10 strikeouts vs Texas is not a stretch, he’s ready to piss on them. Luke Weaver … Yes, I think he’s gonna do well vs the Cubs — dont like it? STACKS And today’s stack theme GIFs will be from the movie Stripes SAN DIEGO PADRES Absolutely we’re gonna donkey Fernando Tatis, Manny Machado and Sir Thomas Pham in Coors Field LA DODGERS Just go ahead and play Corey Seager and Joc Pederson — and then look the other way HOUSTON ASTROS Go ahead and be afraid to play the Houston Astros on the road because of the sign stealing shit. Yordan Alvarez
Sim Dongers Club – April 2nd
Thank goodness today isn’t April 1st, because nobody would believe this. But yes, there is simulated Baseball contests on FanDuel now. Before you ask, my response to your comment / question is … Whatever. I don’t want to hear the mocking that someone like myself would naturally be doing right now to someone (like myself) doing a fricken DFS article on a simulated sport. I’m here, and quite frankly I must admit that I’ve run out of Taysom Hill highlight videos to watch. Times are tough. FanDuel is claiming to do the simulation with numberFire’s custom simulator. While I don’t fully trust that and wish it was off the Strat-o-Matic simulations going on, we’ll take it for what it is and adapt as we go. Everything is free (including this article) on the site so cmon folks, just have fun with it. For God’s sake, there’s a DFS contest for COOKING out there. Side Note: Everyone should hit up @TheRobGeriak on twitter to have him start posting his food that he is cooking every day during this stay at home shit. The guy is becoming the next Top Chef. Here’s the games on today’s slate: Blue Jays (Anderson) vs Yankees (Tanaka) Mets (Stroman) vs Nationals (Strasburg) Indians (Bieber) vs Tigers (Boyd) Reds (Bauer) vs Pirates (Musgrove) White Sox (Keuchel) vs Red Sox (Perez) Brewers (Houser) vs Phillies (Wheeler) Mariners (Sheffield) vs Royals (Duffy) Athletics (Luzardo) vs Twins (Maeda) Orioles (Means) vs Cardinals (Hudson) For what it’s worth, these are all “day games” per the FanDuel timing. I’m not sure if they will simulate in real time or not, but it appears there is no late swap either way, so no need to worry about late swap theories at all. Here’s what jumps out at me for these games if they were being played in real life Strasburg day game but its not that warm in DC, so don’t bark up that tree Ryan Braun in Philadelphia — UPDATE: HE ISNT STARTING?!?#@?! WHO THE HELL IS RUNNING THIS SIMULATION?!@?#!@?#?!@#?!@#?! Questions I have on the sim Pay attention to how the sim uses bullpens — or even if we get that information at all. I say this because typically early in the year starting pitchers wouldnt go deep into games — but I dont know if the simulation will take that into account. If they are using a simulator like OOTP then it would. Same for defense/fielding. Weather likely isn’t a factor in simulation, but if it does, they have that listed on the FanDuel lineup page as well and ………… 13 MPH WIND OUT TO RIGHT IN PITTSBURGH. LiPNC is in effect. Cold and Rainy in Boston. 18 MPH WIND IN Philadelphia. So Braun’s homer will only go 403 feet. Strong winds out to right in Yankee stadium. 69 in Kansas City. Nice. Pitching Recommendations LOL @ Myself saying ‘Recommendations’ for a simulator. What a douchebag I am. Shane Bieber: The Tigers lineup is a little better this year with the additions of Schoop and Cron to the lineup, but it’s very RH heavy. Top of the lineup has two switch hitters in Goodrum and Reyes but Miggy-Cron-Schoop are the real concerns and Bieber should handle them. Danny Duffy: The Mariners suck, plain and simple here folks. He’s the cheap play for me — I like Luzardo but worry the simulation pulls him early. It’s worth noting that of all the famous remarks over the years I have uttered in the Dongers Club that it will be “the simulation pulls him early” which makes it way into the Smithsonian one day. Target Teams Yankees They are healthy in the simulation and against Chase Anderson the HR upside is strong for them at home today. Wish Luke Voit wasn’t batting 7th though. White Sox So I am going against the idea that weather is going to come into play here today because if this was a real game I’d avoid it with the weather in Boston being blah. But Martin Perez is an easy target for us in a good hitters park when weather is taken out. Yoan Moncada is a must own from White Sox today. SNEAKY Royals Hi. It’s Justus Sheffield. He is not good at the Baseball and Hunter Dozier is going yardo today. Orioles Nobody will play the Orioles today vs Dakota Hudson and I think the Orioles and Pirates are two bad teams that folks will pick on with pitchers and they would both be good leverage spots. Austin Hays was a sleeper for me this year, so lets get it going in the simulation to tilt the lack of real baseball. DONGERS CLUB Hunter Dozier – OF – Royals – Chairman Luke Voit – 1B – Yankees Yoan Moncada – 3B – White Sox Mike Moustakas – 2B – Reds — LiPNC Gleyber Torres – SS – Yankees Austin Hays – OF – Orioles Gregory Polanco – OF – Pirates Salvador Perez – C – Royals BONUS …………………………….. Eloy Jimenez – OF – White Sox Enjoy!! Or just keep drinking and maybe one day all of this will be over
The Dongers Club – ’20 Preview: Rookie (Pitching) Frauds
The title of this preview is a little misleading but that’s because I didn’t wanna have a long title that says “99% of DFS recommendations related to rookie pitchers that you have never heard of are complete fraud recommendations by
The Dongers Club – ’20 Preview: Top 10 Busts
We now move into the real 2020 Preview Articles and first up I’m going to go through 10 things that I am very cautious of in the 2020 MLB season. You can use this for seasonal drafts but also as