The Daily Grind: 4-16-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Observations from yesterday
2. DFS stacks
3. For the normal guys
4. Three guesses

1. Observations from yesterday

I watched the early innings of Stephen Strasburg getting lit yesterday. He actually looked pretty good, the Marlins just aggressively jumped on anything near the strike zone and kind of straight. I switched out when it was 6-0 and there was more damage to come.

Yordano Ventura is nasty and the DFS crowd knows it. On FanDuel, Ventura was the only pitcher used more frequently than Strasburg. They were both around 25 percent owned. On Draft Kings, Strasburg was 50 percent owned and Ventura 66! percent owned (they use two pitchers over there).

I was confident Shelby Miller versus Marco Estrada would turn into a hit parade at some point, but it never happened. That cost me my DFS lineups yesterday.

2. DFS stacks

Early: We have just five games in the early column and they’re really quite easy to summarize. All five parks favor hitters, but your best chance for a slugfest might be in Baltimore. It’s the much ballyhooed matchup between Jake Odorizzi and Miguel Gonzalez. Granted, I’m the one doing the ballyhooing.

The game in Arizona could also produce crooked numbers aplenty, although Dillon Gee and Brandon McCarthy are both solid pitchers. I may even use one of them. It’s also the only game with fantastic weather today.

Last but not least, you can target Jason Hammel. The Yankees will be aiming at that short left field porch.

Late: It’s cold today, which means there aren’t many pitchers I feel comfortable stacking against.

Tanner Roark will probably be fine today, but it’s warm enough in Miami for the hitters to get some good swings in.

Just like with Roark, Tommy Milone is a thoroughly solid pitcher. He just happens to be throwing in a place and time where snow can’t form. He’s opposed by Tyler Skaggs. He’s been quite good through his first few turns, but the Athletics know how to work a platoon.

The good news for Jorge de la Rosa is that Petco field is friendliest to his fellow left-handers. By virtue of being lefty, he has a better shot to keep them from going yard. The bad news: he’s been quite terrible in the early going.

Both Paul Maholm and Ryan Vogelsong pitch in the most run suppressingest park in baseball. But they’re still Maholm and Vogelsong, so they’re stackable.

3. Vanilla fantasy picks

What do you want in your vanilla fantasy? Probably some chocolate.

Pitchers to Start: Edinson Volquez walks a lot of guys, except he hasn’t this year. At least not yet. Maybe Pittsburgh does have some kind of secret sauce for pitcher reclamations.

Pitchers to Exploit: A.J. Burnett has a hernia, so he might make for a decent target. Didn’t I say this yesterday?

If it’s not three degrees in Minnesota, Dustin McGowan versus Kyle Gibson has all kinds of run scoring potential.

Tanner Scheppers isn’t going to last too much longer as a starter and I’m beginning to think that Erasmo Ramirez might be a reliever too. We’ll see how this one turns out.

Speaking of relievers, injuries have forced the Rockies to give Franklin Morales another start. You might want to grab Adam Ottavino for a three inning relief appearance and possible vulture win.

It’s a big day for targets. And there’s Bruce Chen facing Scott Feldman. This is another game that might produce a few runs.

Hitters (power): Cleanup hitter Chris Colabello may enjoy facing McGowan. Jason Kubel will try to uppercut a few too.

Jesus Guzman and Chris Carter could be worth a sniff tomorrow.

Justin Smoak will be batting from his good side tomorrow. Get the cameras ready.

Hitters (speed): Chris Denorfia should be starting against Morales. He’s more of a batting average guy than anything else, but he can do a little of everything and sometimes bats at the top of the order.

Is Leonys Martin available? No? Too bad, he has a good matchup tomorrow.

Leadoff man Abraham Almonte looks useful against Scheppers.

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.

Thanks to yesterday’s inundation of rain, we have 16 games today. For the most part, we’re looking free and clear (if a bit cold) for most games. The Twins are expected to receive rain and/or snow today, so let’s take that game off the shelf. This is where we get to question why the Twins didn’t include a retractable roof with their new stadium.

The Link. I’ve never seen more than one 0/10 weather rating on a given day. It’s just not a good day for hitting. I also worry about pitchers in these conditions because it’s easy to lose a feel for your grips. While the conditions generally favor good pitching outcomes, you might see unexpected pitchers implode.

There are only three games that make for good weather targets today. One is an early game in Arizona. One is a chilly-but-not-cold game in Texas. The last one is in the Milwaukee dome.

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