The Daily Grind: 5-4-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Double Park Factors
2. Sunday Sauce
3. Monday Plays
4. Table

1. Double Park Factors

First an operational note. I have games on some Sunday mornings. I have to leave around 7:00 AM, so expect simplified output on occasion.

A commenter asked a few days ago about the park factors shown in FanGraphs Guts! It turns out they are halved, which I completely ignored. Home runs are actually increased a full 30 percent at Coors Field, etc. etc. Use this information to your advantage.

2. DFS

Early: Let’s try the Indians lefty stack against Andre Rienzo. Shall we?

If Erik Bedard and CC Sabathia weren’t left-handed, we might have a real bloodbath on our hands. On second thought, we might have a real bloodbath on our hands.

Dustin McGowan hasn’t been supplanted by Marcus Stroman just yet. Soon, but not quite yet. The Pirates benefit.

The aggressive Twins will see friend of the home run Miguel Gonzalez.

I’m happy on either side of the Brandon Maurer versus Collin McHugh contest.

Late: There are four games in the after 4:00 PM bin, sometimes there is a separate contest for them.

Dillon Gee must face the Rockies in Colorado, which makes him a modestly decent guy to stack against. On the other side of the matchup, Jhoulys Chacin makes his first start of the season. The Mets aren’t a prodigious offensive machine, but Chacin could come out flat.

More than likely, it will be best to target value picks.

3. Tomorrow

We have 13 games tomorrow, all of them in the evening.

Pitchers to Start: Zach McAllister is a special brand of decent. He’s often good to come off the waiver wire for a spot start, but it never quite makes sense to own him outright. With the right-handed Twins lineup at Progressive Field, McAllister has a few factors in his favor. Park factors.

Jon Niese is still relatively available and he’s still relatively good too. Pitching in Miami helps, even if the Marlins have been trouncing everybody.

Jose Quintana has a generous matchup against the Cubs, although he’s opposed by Jeff Samardzija.

Pitchers to Exploit: J.A. Happ is opposed by Kyle Kendrick. The game could yield any number of runs, but probably more than zero and less than 30.

Jeff Locke is making his return to the majors and well…I don’t think he’s very good. Neither did Triple-A hitters.

I think a lot of starting pitchers are really relievers in disguise. Some of them still succeed out of the rotation like Lance Lynn. Most are like Jarred Cosart. Tomorrow, he’ll face the Tigers.

With Michael Bolsinger on the hill for the Diamondbacks, look for some Brewers hitters.

Martin Perez and Jordan Lyles are both decent pitchers, but I bet against decent pitchers at Coors Field.

The Royals aren’t sluggers by any means, but Eric Stults is struggling against everyone. Use it to your advantage.

Hitters (rapid fire): Possible targets include Raul Ibanez, Danny Valencia, Justin Maxwell, Drew Stubbs, Brandon Barnes, Lyle Overbay, Marlon Byrd, John Mayberry, Juan Francisco, Anthony Gose, Lonnie Chisenhall, and David Murphy.

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.

A few of the games are cool and the Cubs night game will be in the 40’s. Cleveland, New York, and Boston will have a small chance for rain, and those games will also have winds gusting over 20 mph.

The Link. The grid is almost identical to yesterday, except now all the games can be targeted in the same contest.

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