The Daily Grind: 5-23-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. From yesterday’s comments
2. Daily DFS
3. Saturday, Saturday
4. Table

1. From Yesterday’s Comments

I received a couple good questions yesterday, including one I’ll repeat for the edification of all readers. Reader Muppets asks:

Do you lower or raise your expected value by playing in GPPs:

1)one “strongest”/”favorite” lineup x5 entries

2)one “strongest” lineup with adjustments x5 entries (1-2 diff players per)

3)x5 entries of nearly entire different lineups (i.e. for today: full COL/SFG stack, full BOS/TOR stack, full PHI/TOR stack, full PHI/SFG stack)

My advice is as follows. You have to take the tournament payout structure into consideration. At FanDuel, the top 10 percent cash. If you use option #1, you have a 10 percent chance to get a bunch of money, option #2 is a partial hedge where your odds might be between 10-20 percent to cash, and option #3 dramatically increase your odds to cash, but at the expense of lesser return due to bum lineups. FanDuel tourneys also pay a lot to the top contestants, so option #3 usually is best. One top finish knocks out a LOT of busted entries.

At DraftKings the payout is more widely distributed with less money going to the top contestants. There, I use option #1 in conjunction with either #2 or #3, depending on the day. I tend to mix up my pitchers more than my hitters.

2. House Themed Daily DFS

It’s all late tonight.

T.J. House is both untested and untouted. Look at Orioles righties against the left-handed House. The Indians stack against Bud Norris isn’t a bad idea either.

The Blue Jays seem to have found former Twins starter Liam Hendriks. The Athletics have plenty of lefties to house Hendriks at the Rogers Centre.

The Detroit Tigers face Scott Baker in their House of Neutrality. Baker has morphed into an extremely contact oriented fly ball pitcher. Basically, he’s Aaron Cook but with fly balls. If you haven’t heard of anyone succeeding with that profile, it’s probably because it hasn’t happened.

I’m pretty sure Homer Bailey is fine, but Great American Ballpark could be nicknamed the Homer House. The Cardinals aren’t repeating 2013’s magic, but they still possess a good offense.

The Yankees are a little banged up, but that’s no excuse to let Hector Noesi off the hook at U.S. Cellular Bandbox. I’m not out of House quips, but I don’t know how to fit one in here.

The Seattle Mariners will see Brad Peacock in their House of the (Never) Rising Sun.

Not making the cut were “We must protect this house,” House, M.D., weighted-ball proponent Tom House, and former lefty specialist Brian Shouse.

3. Saturday Slaw

Pitchers to Start: Tomorrow lacks for waiver starters. The closest thing is Dallas Keuchel. He’s a top play against the Seattle Mariners, but he’s also 60 percent owned on Yahoo. The M’s are overloaded with lefty hitters, so they struggle when southpaws take the hill.

Pitchers to Exploit: Ubaldo Jimenez has passed my eye test through his last few starts, but as we know, Camden Yards is a great place for power. The Indians are extremely left-handed.

Go chase down all right-handed batters scheduled for the Vidal Nuno versus John Danks contest.

David Buchanan makes his debut tomorrow for the Phillies. The 25-year-old isn’t really considered a prospect. He might be an adequate swing man.

The good news for Jacob Turner is he has his walks under control. The bad news is he still lacks strikeouts, and he’s getting mashed.

Jaime Garcia and Tony Cingrani have to survive a tough ballpark. They’re both recent returnees from the disabled list.

Hitters (power): Yangervis Solarte, Alfonso Soriano, Gordon Beckham, Paul Konerko, Dayan Viciedo, and maybe even Tyler Flowers look like strong power plays.

Drew Stubbs may start against Mike Minor. Or he may not, it’s tough to predict.

Lonnie Chisenhall recently had a day as the cleanup hitter for the Indians. Maybe he’ll return to that role against Jimenez.

Hitters (speed): Jonathan Villar has a nice platoon matchup against Brandon Maurer.

Norichika Aoki is a solid play against Matt Shoemaker.

Gerardo Parra may leadoff against Zack Wheeler.

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.

The Mets game has a 60 percent chance or rain while the Phillies currently sit at 30 percent. Keep an eye on those games if you plan to use them.

The Link. After several days with limited green stadiums, we have a plethora of options. Happy hunting.

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