The Daily Grind: 5-9-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Feelings and Process
2. Daily DFS
3. Tomorrow’s Selections
4. Table

1. Feelings

I’m not feeling well today, so I’m going to point you to another place on the internets where I talk about process. It’s important.

2. Today’s DFS

It’s all late.

The Orioles don’t have a dynamic stack of lefties, but Baltimore is a good place for power. Scott Feldman is due for some regression in his return from the disabled list.

The Angels are liable to take some big hacks at Dustin McGowan. This is another case where the left-handed options are minimal.

Jhoulys Chacin has some proving to do before I label him as back. Even once he’s back, he’s exploitable in hitter friendly stadiums like Cincinnati. However, the Reds lineup is not particularly scary after Joey Votto.

The Indians won’t play in a great park for hitting, but they will face a pitcher whose been less than stingy with the runs allowed. The chief culprits to his high ERA have been a walk rate above four per nine, too many fly balls, too many home runs allowed on those fly balls, and a .376 BABIP. Oh, I’m talking about Jake Odorizzi.

The Rangers have a couple lefties at the top of the order who will benefit from facing Clay Buchholz.

The Diamondbacks stack has NOT been a moneymaker this season. If you want to give it a try against Andre Rienzo, I would not blame you. I may take a stab as a way to get Jose Fernandez into the lineup. Wait, I didn’t say that. I’m totally not going to try to get Jose Fernandez into the lineup.

There are a couple notable Nationals who gain the handedness platoon against Tommy Milone. I will be using them wherever I can afford them.

The lefty skewed Royals face right-handed starter Brandon Maurer. I was discussing Maurer with one of my teammates last night. Specifically, we discussed how Maurer’s last night is not unlike Joe Mauer’s, yet they are not, in fact, the same person. According to peripherals, the difference between Maurer’s 6.92 ERA and 4.70/4.67 FIP/xFIP is a 58.1 left on base rate. Neutral is in the mid-to-high 70’s.

3. Saturday Sundries

Pitchers to Start: Jose Quintana has a friendly matchup against Diamondbacks at his unfriendly home venue.

Dillon Gee is in for a tantalizing experience against the Phillies. He just needs to avoid pitching to Chase Utley.

Zach McAllister will pitch in a great venue for displaying the craft of pitching. Also, it’s not like the Rays have the best offense in baseball.

Pitchers to Exploit: I think it makes a lot of sense to target right-handed Blue Jays and Angels tomorrow. Those lineups face Tyler Skaggs and J.A. Happ respectively. Mediocrity describes both pitchers, although Skaggs has a whiff of upside to him with an undertone of disappointment.

I don’t really know what’s up with Collin McHugh. I’m not buying, but the Orioles don’t really have anyone to use against him. On the other hand, I’ll eagerly stream against Miguel Gonzalez.

Right-handed White Sox should enjoy facing Wade Miley.

Go ahead and give Marlins righties a try against Eric Stults. Nothing’s stopping you except for Petco’s terrible park factors for right-handed hitters.

Hitters (power): C.J. Cron will probably be batting in the middle of the order.

Chris Carter and George Springer do not have the platoon advantage tomorrow, but they do face a pitcher who allows a ton of home runs.

Grab Jose Abreu off your waiver wire. He’s not there? Then get Gordon Beckham and Dayan Viciedo.

Marcell Ozuna and Casey McGehee are potential plays tomorrow, but don’t expect a long ball from either.

Hitters (speed): Marcus Semien also requests your attention.

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 risk of thunderstorms could affect five major league games, namely those in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Atlanta. Do your usual monitoring.

The Link. With six green games on the board, there should be no issue sticking with dry games. I prefer when the stadiums skew heavily to redder hues. I like when there are a few “best” plays revealed by my process.

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