The Daily Grind: 5-1-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. One month in the books
2. Thin Thursday Stacks
3. Tomorrow
4. Table

1. One month in the books

A new month, but the same old grind. Let’s celebrate Uno de Mayo with a win, shall we? Of course, we can’t all win, so let’s just reserve first place for me.

Arbitrary end points are a good place to stop and take inventory. I finished the month up $527, which is to say I did well but I shouldn’t quit my day job. If you remove my biggest outliers, I’m up $27, which is decidedly less impressive. I’ve been working on new secret sauce, which I now realize sounds rather dirty. It’s not the kind of sauce I can share directly with you, but I can tell you it involves projections, dollar values, park factors, and a whole lot of data entry.

2. Thin Thursday meets Tres Doubleheaders

Early: There wasn’t an early round until three teams scheduled double headers. FanDuel does not have early games, so there’s that.

The Dodgers finally, finally, FINALLY face Mike Pelfrey. Scan back over the past two days if you need more info on Pelfrey.

The Red Sox will see lefty Cesar Ramos. I’m not quite sure what to expect of Ramos, but his velocity is down, he’s not whiffing hitters, and he allows a ton of fly balls. Stack righties.

Bud Norris allows enough fly balls and home runs to be exploitable.

Late: Here’s where we find the real action.

New York’s Hiroki Kuroda has shown signs of skills erosion. He still puts plenty of balls on the ground, so he won’t be too prone to the Mariners lefty-heavy lineup.

Homer Bailey has a 6.15 ERA and 3.12 xFIP. He’s still posting the same strikeout, whiff, and walk rates as last season, where things have gone awry is with a .416 BABIP and 29.2 percent HR/FB. He’s a candidate for positive regression, but if he’s throwing too many cookies or tipping his pitches, he might give up a couple more home runs at home today.

A game between Kris Johnson and Red Patterson will produce entirely unexpected results. I’m referring to the game between the Dodgers and Twins, since it’s not obvious by the pitcher names.

How many days have I been saying to target Felix Doubront. It feels like at least five in a row…

The Rockies are at home against Bartolo Colon, which I think is worth a try. He’s a fly ball pitcher after all.

3.Tomorrow, tomorrow

Pitchers to Start: Brandon Morrow has featured good control in three outings and terrible control in two. He’ll pitch in PNC Park tomorrow, which is a good thing. If he’s throwing strikes, he can be one of the top pitchers of the day. If he’s not, he’ll be a disaster.

The Marlins have been squatting on overachieving pitchers the last couple days. I’ll still take a flier on Josh Beckett in Miami.

Mike Minor sighting! He’s not available, is he?

Pitchers to Exploit: The game between Danny Salazar and John Danks could be home runny. Danks has produced very good results, but call me uninspired by his 5.33 xFIP.

The Rays get another shot at lefty Vidal Nuno. The Yankees rotation is suddenly in a shambles, so Nuno will get a chance to settle in as a starter.

Ricky Nolasco versus Ubaldo Jimenez has the makings of a long bullpen game. Nolasco has suddenly forgotten how to generate any whiffs. Meanwhile, Jimenez has forgotten that pesky thing called the strike zone.

Mariners lefties might be active against Brad Peacock.

Hitters (power): Perhaps Josh Satin will play against Jorge de la Rosa? Perhaps not. It’s a guess.

The Brad Miller, Kyle Seager, Justin Smoak trio might be worth engaging.

Brian Dozier’s cropped up in a couple leagues for me. You can also try Chris Colabello, Jason Kubel, and Josmil Pinto.

Logan Forsythe and Sean Rodriguez are lesser options for power.

Maybe Josh Reddick is still on your waiver wire. Unless your league is very shallow, it’s time to pick him up.

Hitters (speed): If Will Venable is ever going to do anything this season, it should be against Bronson Arroyo.

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.

Minnesota will be cold with a 30 percent chance of rain today. They’re playing the Dodgers, so they have to get these games in today. The rest of the league is finally dry.

The Link. The weather application stopped working after the first three cities today, but the rest are somewhere in the four to eight range. It’s either a hitters park or a pitchers park today, there’s nothing in between.

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