The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for August 11

Agenda

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

1. Another Experimental League

Here’s one for the DFS crowd – a season-long league on FanDuel/DraftKings/Yahoo/YourDFSSite. I’ve been toying with this concept for awhile, but the administrative components have always proven too daunting.

The backbone isn’t very complicated. It’s just a matter of smoothing the edges. Twenty teams compete on a daily basis in free contests. Scoring can be done one of two ways. A cumulative total of site points can be tracked or points can be reward for place – i.e. 20 for first, 19 for second, etc. Or, perhaps both. The two scoring systems would have slightly different implications on optimal strategies.

Payouts would work just like a normal season long league with X owners receiving some amount of money based on final standing. As an added bonus, the host site wouldn’t get 10 percent of our buy-in.

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

Yesterday’s contest didn’t fill. We’ll be moving back to FanDuel today. It’s a small four-game slate – should be fun trying to out-think each other.

3. Daily DFS 

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: Six games are early and it feels like Noah Syndergaard or bust. With the Mets handling him carefully, it’s still tough to pay full price. Who else do you turn to here? Chris Tillman‘s been exceedingly blah lately, but at least he might throw eight innings on a good day. I like Jameson Taillon’s matchup against the Padres. He’s another guy who probably won’t surpass six innings. Fister doesn’t have the strikeouts necessary for a good point total, even if he does throw more than six frames. That leaves us with dumpster dives like Lucas Harrell and Matt Garza.

Jose Berrios may be tempting, but now is not the time.

Stack Targets: Christian Friedrich, Roberto Hernandez, Andrew Triggs, Braden Shipley, Chad Bettis, Berrios, Garza, Harrell

Late: All the interesting bits are in our four-game late slate. Only Jhoulys Chacin is an automatic target. Corey Kluber is opposite Chacin at Progressive Field. It’s obviously the best opportunity for a win in the contest.

Jon Lester and Carlos Martinez have their work cut out for them. Not only do they need to out-duel each other, they must also silence difficult lineups. For that reason, I’m not thrilled with either of them.

Miguel Gonzalez at Danny Duffy is of interest too. Both starters are pitching well lately. An utter lack of wins for Gonzalez makes his DFS totals look worse than they should. It’s possible neither pitcher will receive enough run support for the victory.

Stack Targets: Chacin, Eduardo Rodriguez

4. SaberSim Observations

Thor, Taillon, Lester, Kluber, and Duffy round out the top five pitchers of the day. Show of hands, who’s surprised? Brewers, Braves, Cubs, Indians, Rockies, Rangers, and Astros are among the preferred stacks today. Interestingly, no Red Sox made the top 30 hitters despite a tepid projection for Michael Pineda.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets 

Pitchers to Start: Joe Musgrove is just under the 50 percent owned benchmark.* The Astros righty is a command and control guy who seems to have skipped the usual transition period for pitchers of that profile. Granted, he’s made just two appearances in the majors, but he’s looked quite sharp. Tomorrow is a big test versus the Bautista-less Bleu Jays.

*some of the guys below may be over 50 percent owned, I didn’t check them today because I’m running behind

Also consider: Mike Foltynewicz, Jon Gray, Tyler Skaggs, Andrew Cashner, Homer Bailey, Yordano Ventura, Sean Manaea, Dylan Bundy

Pitchers to Exploit: The Rockies aren’t very fearsome at sea level, especially with Trevor Story and Carlos Gonzalez out of the lineup. Even so, I’m not sure Jake Thompson is really ready for the majors. His stuff should induce more strikeouts than it does which tells me he’s probably catching too much plate. You can get away with that in Triple-A, not so much in the majors.

Also consider: CC Sabathia, Pat Corbin, Paul Clemens, Logan Verrett, Anibal Sanchez, Ivan Nova, Matt Cain, Ariel Miranda

Hitters (power): With Danny Valencia often sitting in favor of younger Athletics, his ownership rate has declined. Let’s not forget his .352/.418/.625 line against southpaws. He’s opposed by a mediocre lefty tomorrow.

Also consider: Pedro Alvarez, Hyun-soo Kim, Chase Utley, Franklin Gutierrez, Ryon Healy, Alex Dickerson, Ryan Schimpf, Yangervis Solarte, Aaron Hill

Hitters (speed): With Shin-Soo Choo back in the Texas lineup, Delino DeShields bat ninth. Since his recall, he’s batting .211/.286/.342. Sanchez is particularly hittable which might help him in a one-off sense.

Also consider: Orlando Arcia, Tim Anderson, Travis Jankowski, Rajai Davis

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.

The weather ratings are insane today with only one park not earning a 10. Watch out for storms.

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.