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The Dongers Club – Mon, August 10th

SLATE INTRO Tough way to end the week with the pitching debacles and injuries that we had yesterday and I take full blame for not rolling out a GIFtastic article last Friday like I should have. That’s on me. One continuing piece of advice is to note how many teams are using DEEP bullpens right now and the hitters have no clue what these guys are throwing most of the time. The Indians/White Sox game is a great example and here’s a list of the White Sox bullpen arms who had pitched in the 5 days leading up to last nights game: That’s a crap ton of arms. So this idea that you shouldn’t have looked at at 7 inning only game yesterday gets a little diminished when you consider how random the bullpen variance is right now, no? At any rate, it will settle out at some point but we gotta remain focused on two things. Who is locked in right now and thus players we are seeing consistently get on base or have good At Bats. Who has no clue right now, but when they might be showing signs of breaking out. These are your daily hitting choices and you MUST be looking at things through the lens of an entire series. Honestly, that part is no different than any other season. Worst bullpens on this slate as of right now: Seattle San Diego (strength is in the back end, this should change though) SF Giants Texas NY Mets Best bullpens on this slate as of right now: Dodgers Athletics … Dominant Rockies Tampa Bay Milwaukee WEATHER Quiet and clear This is a very mediocre pitching slate today. Nobody who pops out as a clear cut must own but lots of guys who are kind of right down the middle in terms of being able to offer some value. A good evening to take a risk or two for those of you on DraftKings with your SP2. Kyle Gibson After getting destroyed early in his last game against Oakland he settled down and got through 6 solid innings with 9 strikeouts mid last week before his bullpen blew the game late. The Seattle Mariners come to down and they are near the bottom statistically in most categories when we sum things up. It is only 91 today which makes me wonder if they’ll ever open the roof down there. I doubt it. Well shit. They just opened the roof. All in fellas. All in. Let’s see how this plays out.. Dallas Keuchel Maybe Keuchel is just an AL guy? He’ll be getting a Detroit team who had two magical days in Pittsburgh and then cooled off as expected yesterday. Keuchel is good at getting a ton of ground balls and the Tigers will gladly give him all of those today. Never a huge strikeout pitcher he is coming off an impressive 8K performance against the Brewers last week and that will give some folks hope. Don’t fall into that trap, if you get 5K from him you’ll be happy, but 7 Innings is a strong possibility and he’s a fantastic DK play today sitting at $7800. Outside of the Box Logan Webb Houston obviously is struggling having just played the Athletics in Oakland, but with Springer banged up and still no Yordan Alvarez the luster that they have as an offense does have to settle in as losing a hit does it not? At only 6 foot tall, Logan Webb does a very good job of mixing up his pitches and that’s a major plus for the pitcher when the opponent doesn’t know you very well. I expect the Astros struggles to continue and will be playing the Giants to win this game as well. Really expect Logan Webb to have a nice sneaky performance and would look at him as a third option today. Guys I am not using Dustin May: Yeah, you go right ahead and use him against Tatis and company. Randy Dobnak: Sorry but he feels like his first name should be Larry. Anywho, the Brewers look Verrrrry tempting to pick on every day but this is not a game I would touch Dobnak in. The bats… The bats are waking up. We have two PRIME hitting spots tonight, mostly Coors Field but a couple others which leap out. These four teams are not ranked necessarily in order and I continue to promote spreading out ownership across 3 to 4 teams ( not 8 one offs) but each lineup should be about 3 teams as the core. Trust the rankings by position at the bottom for my preference at each spot. L.A. Dodgers Justin Turner, Joc Pederson, Cody Bellinger Mookie is feeling it quite well right now and it’s only a matter of time until Bellinger had a stud game. But when we see Luis Perdomo on the slate the players I love to use are RH bats who are sitting between two lefties. What would be an ideal lineup to me today is some form of L-R-L-R-L-R, but good ole Dave Roberts probably doesn’t do that. The reason for this with Perdomo is everyone see’s he struggles with getting hammered by LH bats, but after he gives up a double to one and has another on deck, he’ll be shitting his pants having flashbacks of Nolan Arenado beating the shit out of him while Justin Turner steps in and hammers a 2-0 slider out into the parking lot. Worth noting: The Padres bullpen is very good on paper but carries a high 5+ ERA coming into this game. Most of their strength is on the backend, so if it gets out of hand early they could punt it. Arizona Diamondbacks Starling Marte, Ketel Marte, Eduardo Escobar The rule I have the most success when it comes to Coors Field is play 0 to 4 batters there and not more when we have a normal