The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for May 3

Agenda

1. SaberSim Conditions
2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets
6. Factor Grid

1. SaberSim Conditions

Today is a good day to demo SaberSim conditions. Yesterday, I built a few stacks without any need to tinker. Today’s first draft lineup “stacks” Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista. The rest of the roster is just scattered stars and cheap pitching.

The concept behind conditions are simple. SaberSim reaches its daily projections by running a bunch of simulations. When you name a condition – such as Pitcher allows 5 or more runs – the system only includes the outcomes of the simulations where that’s true. You can input as many or as few conditions as you’d like.

For this example, I added four conditions – I picked Alex Meyer and Collin McHugh to allow over four runs. Junior Guerra and Luis Severino will allow over three runs. Here’s the resulting lineup.

This doesn’t need to be a stopping point. If we guarantee Jake Arrieta the win over Jon Niese, then he jumps to the forefront of pitching options. Obviously, there’s some serious trickle down involved with upgrading to his salary. We end up using terrible leadoff man Danny Santana. Yuck. Tomorrow, I’ll demo how to use exclusions to avoid guys like Santana.

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

Our contest ran for real yesterday after several miss-fires. User rpimble was the winner – I seem to recall him taking a free contest recently too. Congrats. The leaderboard is updated.

We’re going back to DraftKings today with a $2, 30 user game. Here’s the link. See you there.

3. Daily DFS 

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: The Tigers-Indians game is the cheese of the day. They start an hour before the more sensibly timed games. It’s too bad. Justin Verlander and Josh Tomlin are interesting.

Late: The remaining 14 games are part of the evening slate. Jake Arrieta ($12,100) is the toad of toad hall. He only costs $2,400 more than the next costliest pitcher on FanDuel (Sonny Gray, $9,700). If you think Matt Harvey is in the process of righting the ship, he’s cheap for an ace against the impotent Braves offense.

Speaking of impotent offenses, Michael Wacha draws the Phillies. Here’s the problem with Wacha – he has a bad habit of crumpling around the fifth or sixth inning. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone from a big cash to just missing the money because Wacha lost steam in the middle innings. Aaron Nola is a value on DraftKings on the opposite side of this matchup.

Some folks are on the Steven Wright bandwagon. I am not. I’m more inclined to target a few White Sox at home against him. Besides, Jose Quintana is probably more likely to win tonight.

In a tiny sample, the Dodgers have been one of the worst teams versus left-handed pitching. They’re opposed by Matt Moore who finally looks halfway decent. He’s posted over a strikeout per inning with a low walk rate. I think he’ll start to walk more guys and suffer for it. Still, targeting Moore at home tonight makes a lot of sense.

Tropeano is the bargain play of the day. I like the pick more on DraftKings where you can survive a mediocre five inning outing without a win. If you use him on FanDuel, you’ll need six innings and a win out of him.

Stack Targets: Junior Guerra, Chris Young, Matt Wisler, Eddie Butler, Jon Moscot, Alex Meyer, Jon Niese, Andrew Cashner, Justin Nicolino, Martin Perez, Luis Severino, Chris Tillman, Collin McHugh

4. SaberSim Observations

Well, it’s more or less what you’d expect – Arreta is top of the pile. Harvey and Wacha are surprisingly close to him in overall projection. Harvey benefits from a very high likelihood of a win. Tropeano is SaberSim’s sixth best pitcher. Combined with his tiny price tag, he’s a huge value.

Mr. Sim thinks we should be picking upon Perez and the Rangers. My only reservation with that is the Rangers deep and talented bullpen. Perez only needs to survive five innings to have done his job. Other stacks include the Giants, Orioles, Astros, and Angels.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets

Pitchers to Start: Tyler Chatwood may be a borderline useful stream starter in a Carlos Villareal kind of way. He’s opposite the Padres at Petco Park tomorrow. Six innings, five strikeouts, and a couple runs allowed is fairly likely outcome. He’ll have a shot at a win too.

Also consider: Rubby de la Rosa, Alex Wood

Pitchers to Exploit: I kind of like Adam Morgan, but a matchup against the Cardinals is just a little too much for me. Morgan relies on a plus changeup which could keep St. Louis honest. Unfortunately, if he’s even a little off, his minus fastball could lead to a torching.

Also consider: Jake Peavy, Dan Straily, Juan Nicasio, Jhoulys Chacin, Zach Davies, Kris Medlen, Cesar Vargas, CC Sabathia, Tyler Wilson, Colby Lewis, Clay Buchholz, John Danks, Phil Hughes, Mike Fiers, Mike Leake

Hitters (power): Blue Jays leadoff man Michael Saunders is only 26 percent owned on Yahoo. He’s finally healthy and performing. Saunders is batting .304/.382/.557 with four home runs and a .377 BABIP. He’s opposed by a soft-tossing command guy.

Also consider: Oswaldo Arcia, Eddie Rosario, Chris Young, Enrique Hernandez, Nolan Reimold, Franklin Gutierrez, C.J. Cron

Hitters (speed): The Rays have a few lefty mashers. Among them is Brandon Guyer. The 30-year-old is off to a strong start this year and has a .271/.366/.436 career line versus southpaws. He’s against Wood.

Also consider: Cesar Hernandez, Rajai Davis, Leonys Martin, Rafael Ortega

6. The Factor Grid

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.

It’s looking dry-ish tonight. We should get the full slate.

The Link.

This post is not brought to you by any DFS platform. The current author is quite pleased to present a DFS ad free environment.