The Daily Grind: A Gray Day

I like to shift between gray and grey just to see if it makes people cry. Can’t really do that when it’s a proper noun.

AGENDA

  1. TDG Invitational
  2. Weather Reports
  3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
  4. SaberSim Says…
  5. Tantrums

1.The Daily Grind Invitational

Hscer grasped hold of a massive Mookie Betts performance. Pitchers, Jeff McNeil, and Max Kepler did the rest. Congrats and Leaderboard.

It’s a friendly seven-game slate on FantasyDraft tonight. Bring your friends. Seriously.

If you have not signed up for FantasyDraft, please use this referral link for tracking purposes. If I understand properly, by using the referral, you will receive a 10 percent return on any rakes you pay.

2. Weather Reports

Despite tonight’s grey theme, the weather forecast is bonny.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

Patrick Corbin ($21,100) sits atop the price list in a challenging but winnable matchup against Dallas Keuchel ($16,700) and the Braves. Both sides of this pairing look like par value. Keuchel has manhandled some weak opponents. We’ll see what he does with an actual quality offense. Corbin’s lone appearance against the Braves yielded a bland point total, but we shouldn’t hold that against him. He’s consistently defeated… *checks notes… damn, he’s faced the Marlins and Mets a LOT. On closer examination, Corbin has benefited from a friendly schedule.

Caleb Smith ($20,700) is quite clearly overpriced. It’s not that he isn’t a good pitcher, he just shouldn’t be in the ace-band. The biggest issue is a habit of making five inning starts. The Diamondbacks offense isn’t threatening so if you have some extra cash leftover, upgrading to Smith still makes some sense. Merrill Kelly ($15,800) is another par-value play at Marlins Stadium. The matchup is obviously lovely, Kelly just doesn’t pile up strikeouts and innings the way you want from a DFS asset.

Sonny Gray ($17,800) is hosting the Pirates in what looks like an easy win. He’s had very little trouble with his power friendly home venue, although I’m always concerned about home runs. The Pirates lineup is mostly clogged with ground ball hitters which further improves the matchup quality for Gray. He’s likely to earn the win bonus too.

Jaime Barria ($14,600) can be expected to record about a strikeout per inning. And, as long as he reaches five innings, he’ll probably nab a win bonus too. Barria has made far too many mistakes over the heart of the plate this season, resulting in elevated HR/FB and BABIP. The Tigers offense tends to be a little more forgiving of mistakes – especially against right-handers.

Well, that was short. I suppose you could get cheeky with a Kenta Maeda ($13,700) start at Coors Field. They’re certainly baiting us into trying it with this price. The last time I was baited into using Maeda at Coors Field, he didn’t even last five innings (he was still a reasonable value with a 12.75 point score).

Favorite Plays: Corbin, Gray, Barria

Stack Targets: Jordan Lyles, Jon Gray, Jordan Zimmermann, Thomas Pannone, Jimmy Yacabonis et al

4. SaberSim Says…

Corbin, Gray, Smith, Barria, and Kelly are the preferred arms. Obvious enough. Gray, Barria, Corbin, Zimmermann, and Smith are the value plays. Zimmermann projects to underpeform a typical mid-tier hitter. However, that’s also how he’s priced.

Cody Bellinger, Max Muncy, Mike Trout, Charlie Blackmon, and Joc Pederson lead the bats. Coors Field Activate! Johan Camargo, Danny Jansen, Ryan O’Hearn, Bellinger, and Alex Verdugo are the bargains. The entire Dodgers stack is quite affordable for a Coors game. Unfortunately, that also means they’ll be extremely popular in GPPs.

5. Tantrum

I wish other jobs allowed for these sorts of temper tantrums. He seemed to immediately say “yo, my bad.”

Nothing bothers me more as a pitcher than giving up runs on these fugly swings.

Best athlete in the league? Quite likely.





You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam

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Shauntell47member
4 years ago

Should be illegal to have that much swag. He’s just way too cool to play in this league, or that’s what Brian McCann would say I’m pretty sure.