The Daily Grind: 4-18-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. How do you set your lineups?
2. DFS Stacks
3. Saturday Selections
4. Sur la Table

1. How do you set your DFS lineups?

I’m curious. I almost always pick a pitcher and then fit hitters around him. Some rare days, there is an extra juicy stack so I pick the hitters first – today is one of those days. I guess there aren’t that many other ways to build a lineup.

2. DFS Picks

Early: Apologies to the Reds and Cubs today, but nobody is counting your game. It’s a shame, Alfredo Simon is interesting.

Late: I’m tempted to stack the Blue Jays and Indians game despite the cold weather. For some reason, I have a gut feeling the weather will hurt the pitchers more than the hitters in this one. Personally, I’m going to ignore my gut because it doesn’t jive with my process.

I like Drew Smyly, but he hasn’t proven he can last beyond five innings yet. The bullpen is the soft underbelly of the Tigers roster at the moment. The Angels also feature a decent (or better) offense.

Felipe Paulino is still starting. And the game is at one of our two “green light” stadiums. Rangers stack, I choose you!

Wait, the other green light stadium features Jonathan Pettibone versus Tyler Chatwood. Yes, please.

Matt Cain isn’t what he used to be, you can try patching in a few Padres lefties.

3. Saturday Picks

Pitchers to Start: Corey Kluber is still floating on the wire in some leagues. I’m pronouncing him back in black.

Roenis Elias is getting close to sealing up a permanent spot in the rotation. He’s a ground ball oriented guy who has recording a reasonable whiff rate. His strikeout rate has left something to be desired. He’ll face the Marlins tomorrow.

Tim Hudson, if available, has been sharp this season. Maybe make him permanently unavailable.

Pitchers to Exploit: I usually recommend using Felix Doubront, but he doesn’t seem like the reasonably solid pitcher of 2012-13. The Orioles could unleash a few righty bats on him.

If it’s not three degrees again, the Bruce Chen versus Kevin Correia game looks exploitable.

Carlos Villanueva has not been sharp in the early going. He must be very close to losing his job, although the Cubs can afford to be patient.

Brett Oberholtzer has been surprisingly effective in his last two turns, but I’m still betting the A’s can touch him up. Ending that sentence with “up” makes it much less creepy.

Carson Cistulli throwback special Colby Lewis starts tomorrow against an effective White Sox lineup.

The Dodgers will face Michael Bolsinger tomorrow. I don’t have any notes on Bolsinger, but I assume his 89 mph fastball isn’t going to fool anyone.

More exploits: Kyle Kendrick and Jordan Lyles at Coors Field. Kendrick’s never had a particularly sinky sinker, so the rarefied air could do him serious harm.

Hitters (power): Corey Dickerson might start. Or he might not. That what we get for trying to use the Rockies 35 man outfield.

Cole Gillaspie and Alejandro De Aza gain the platoon advantage. They’ll play in a nice hitters park with a good matchup.

Tomorrow features a lovely matchup for David DeJesus and Matt Joyce.

Chris Carter and Jesus Guzman will have the platoon advantage against Scott Kazmir.

I hope Chris Heisey starts tomorrow. He might not.

Hitters (speed): Ben Revere and possibly Tony Gwynn Jr. will have a lot of outfield to work with. If they can spray one in a gap, they’ll be off to the races.

I guess Charlie Blackmon fits in the speed category. He’s certainly tearing off steals through the first couple weeks, although his foot speed isn’t flashy.

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.

We have a bunch of cold games today throughout the Midwest and Northeast, but at least there isn’t any rain on the docket.

The Link. Cold weather and poor park factors leave us with two extremely obvious choices for offense today. I was forced to introduce an orange rating today because I couldn’t decide between yellow and red for a couple.

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