The Daily Grind: 4-19-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. How to make good chile
2. DFS stacks
3. Sunday picks
4. TableTimeTM

1. How to make good chile

A fantasy player must keep up their strength, for which a hearty bowl of chile is often the answer. Also, just like chile, The Daily Grind is a life experience. You’ll need a big pot, about three hours time, spices, meats, tomatoes, onions, beers, two cans of tomatoes, two cans of beans, and various odds and ends.

I start by boiling a salsa. I use just my tomatillos, onion, garlic, and habenero. Cook until the tomatillos get mushy or until your tomatoes expel all their water. I prefer tomatillos. While doing that, sear whichever meats you chose in a separate pan. The meats should be heavily seasoned and/or marinated.

Combine your meats with your salsa base. Add a stock cube of your choice along with your preferred spices. Some unusual ones I like to use include chocolate powder and cinnamon. Add about 3/4 of one beer. Add one normal can of tomatoes and one can of black beans. Never use kidney beans, they’re for shmucks. The first can of black beans will dissolve into a hearty thickening agent.

Simmer a long time. Until it starts to look thicker. Add more beer as needed. You’ll need to work through at least two beers for the chile. You can drink however many you want. I use Guinness for its deep, bold flavor. You’ll find pisswater beers don’t add much more than water. You can add a second can of tomatoes or tomato paste at any time. The paste is useful in case you either didn’t get enough tomatoes or they lack flavor. With about 20 minutes left, add the second can of black beans. These will stay mostly whole.

Spices are important, but I wing that part. As a final recommendation, a bit of sugar, lemon, and red wine (or red wine vinegar) can really round out the flavor. This is like putting salt in your cookies, you just want the barest hint in there. I usually use half a lemon, a couple small splashes of wine, and a generous pinch of sugar.

You were waiting for me to explain why chile is a relevant analogy for some fantasy baseball phenomenon, weren’t you?

2. DFS stacks

Early: There are seven games in the early stack including just one of our top three stadium picks for the day. That belongs to Boston, where Felix Doubront is opposed by Bud Norris. The Orioles righty stack should be prominent in your early lineups. Doubront isn’t whiffing anybody, which kind of kills him as a starter.

I enjoy using certain Indians against left-handed pitchers. Ryan Raburn is an example. Mark Buehrle has been sharp to start the season, but there’s always a clunker in there somewhere.

Kevin Correia at Bruce Chen would be more runtastic if the Twins and Royals had a better offense. That said, the Royals have a few sweet swinging lefties while the Twins can load up righty.

Edwin Jackson is off to a slow start again. Way too many walks.

Late: Wandy Rodriguez will face the Brewers. Watch Carlos Gomez go yaya on the first pitch of the game.

Colby Lewis is tough to handicap, mostly because he is a smoke and mirrors guy. Sometimes the mirrors break and the smoke dissipates.

Who is Michael Bolsinger and do I want to stack Dodger lefties against. Why yes, I do.

Not only are Kyle Kendrick and Jordan Lyles good picks to stack against, thunderstorms may force some early bullpen action. Usually I avoid any rain game, but in this case it looks like any interruption won’t halt play.

3. Sunday picks

Pitchers to Start: Yordano Ventura is absolutely not available in your league, which is too bad since he’s opposed by Phil Hughes tomorrow. If I’m wrong, stop reading and pick him up.

Robbie Ross has some decent stuff, but he only makes the “to start” section because there is a distinct lack of options. Use only at extreme necessity.

Jesse Chavez is growing in popularity. He has a good chance to win against Brad Peacock.

Robbie Erlin is fairly talented plus he’s a lefty at Petco – always a good thing.

Pitchers to Exploit: Carlos Carrasco didn’t make it all the way back from the war. Maybe the bullpen is a better place for him.

Hector Santiago is fringy. That is all.

Seeing that Brandon Maurer will face Kevin Slowey elicited the following reaction from me: *cringe*

Don’t take a stab at David Hale. People are going to tell you to do it, but don’t. Trust me. There’s no need to load up on Mets, I just wanted to warn you.

Oh boy, a bullpen game in Tampa Bay. Too bad this one isn’t being played in New York. Vidal will weave a few frames against Cesar Ramos. Even if both pitchers do well, there’s a lot of bullpen innings to exploit.

Carlos Villanueva is part of tomorrow’s exploitathon.

The aforementioned Hughes is eminently exploitable. As is Peacock.

Hitters (power): Dayan Viciedo will gain the platoon advantage against Ross. He’ll probably bat cleanup at a home run hitters park. Perfect.

The Rays will start some right-handed batters, which probably includes Logan Forsythe.

I’m tempted to recommend Marcell Ozuna despite a lack of platoon advantage. Screw it, recommended.

Perhaps David Murphy can catch up to Brandon Morrow’s heater.

Hitters (speed): Ooh the Rajai Davis platoon advantage is open for business. Huzzah huzzah.

Gerardo Parra is very available. He’ll face Josh Beckett.

Norichika Aoki’s ownership is declining, so you might be able to snag the Royals leadoff man against Hughes. Billy Butler is also becoming more and more available.

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.

There is a chance for thunderstorms in Colorado, but the rest of the league is free from disruptive weather. Several stadiums will be chilly.

The Link. Three stadiums are go! Truthfully, none of them are worth falling over yourself to use. However, Denver and Arlington are always great places to collect home runs. That won’t change all season long.

Keep in mind, the color coding is just my helpful opinion on the best and worst places to collect home runs. Red games will often have plenty of home runs. Green games may go completely homerless. If that’s going to bother you, perhaps try gambling on something more predictable like the weather.

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