The Daily Grind: 4-13-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Snake Bit
2. DFS Picks
3. Monday at Yahoo (and other standard sites)
4. Guess

1. Snake Bit

Sometimes it feels like nothing goes your way. That’s how this season has been for my consultee. Through the first four or so days of the season, he took the lineup I sent him and tinkered it from good to mediocre. We still made money, but less than we would have. He learned from those days and went with my lineups in toto for the next week. Unfortunately, we only won on two of those days (one of them was a big win, but he mostly entered us in 50/50’s that day so it didn’t matter).

Yesterday he got tired of losing and decided to field his own roster. I sent him a lineup that was heavy on Indians with Adam Eaton and Conor Gillaspie to boot. And I said “this is a great risk-reward play for tournaments, just don’t enter any 50/50’s.” He texted back that he didn’t like the roster and would use his own, so I entered a bunch of tournaments and made a sixfold return.

I’m not saying he should take my advice blindly. He shouldn’t. I’m only pointing out that he’s had terrible timing when it comes to following my advice. Maybe you’re in the same boat. Hang in there. Remember, hone your process in low cost games and only start gambling once you have a proof of concept.

2. DFS Picks

Day games. Fighter of the night games. Set your lineups early. (Hey, I’m not a song writer).

Early: The Rays are forced to throw reliever Cesar Ramos to the wolves. Lucky for them, Alex Cobb didn’t need much help yesterday, so the Rays are well positioned for a bullpen game. The scoring might actually be underwhelming, but this is Great American Ballpark we’re talking about.

The ball is going to fly today at Baltimore, which makes both offenses valuable stacks. You want righties from the Orioles and lefties from the Blue Jays.

Philadelphia has friendly hitter conditions too. Henderson Alvarez and Kyle Kendrick can give up their fair share of long balls. I might use this game as a sleepy stack.

The risk of storms isn’t too high in Texas, so you can probably stick with the Brett Oberholtzer stack.

A couple starters you might actually want to use (besides the usual suspects) includes Wacha, Hudson, Colon, and Vargas.

Late: The lone night game of Ivan Nova versus Felix Doubront could be a real slop fest. Unfortunately for FanDuelers, you have to set your lineup about seven hours before first pitch. If you want either stack, then you have to guess at the lineup.

3.Monday Traditional Fantasy Picks

It’s a nine game slate tomorrow, so let’s start adding hitters.

To Start: Robbie Erlin has potential. And he’s at home, which is a plus. He can allow an outlandish fly ball rate, which isn’t the best for keeping run scoring to a minimum.

I’m riding Jesse Chavez while he’s hot (phrasing?), but I fully expect the floor to drop out eventually. Mike Trout is the only big threat in this lineup.

If something’s wrong with Jordan Zimmermann, then the decidedly average Brad Hand becomes a sneaky pick for a win.

To Exploit: Roberto Hernandez is a fly ball pitcher in a park that can punish fly balls. The Braves are a feast and famine team, so you might get a pair of home runs or almost nothing. Who can say.

Hector Santiago is going to face a lot of right-handed hitters tomorrow and he’s been far from sharp in the early going.

Hitter (power): Chris Johnson isn’t your prototypical power hitter, but he does bat cleanup most days and Hernandez is a fine matchup.

Sean Rodriguez and/or Logan Forsythe could be useful against Wei-Yin Chen.

Chris Heisey will almost certainly bat near the top of the order against Wandy Rodriguez.

Hitter (speed): Ramiro Pena works as a cheap middle infielder if Andrelton Simmons is still out. (Simmons is in the lineup today)

Abraham Almonte is a good power and speed play against Robbie Ross. Almonte is a switch hitter but a natural righty.

Craig Gentry should get some play with a lefty on the mound.

4. Table

The table below indicates which stadiums have the best conditions for hitters today. The color coding is a classic stoplight where green equals go for hitters. The weather conditions are from SI Weather’s home run app. A 10/10 means great atmospheric conditions for home runs. A 1/10 means lousy atmospheric conditions.

Watch out for thunderstorms in Chicago. That takes one of the best parks out of play. And in case that weren’t enough, Texas could also see scattered storms. Postponement risk seems especially low for the latter game.

It’ll be cold in Minnesota. What a surprise. Or if you happened to read our weather study, maybe not a surprise at all.

The Link. If you’re inclined to avoid possible storms, there are still six green light stadiums available today. This is what the chart will look like in the summer.

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