The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for July 2

Agenda

1. The NL Race
2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Factor Grid

1. The NL Race

I’ve seen two popular thoughts over the last few days that strike me as completely backwards. The Marlins are drawing flak for acquiring Fernando Rodney to support their shaky bullpen. Miami relievers have pitched fine to date, but there were some warning signs for regression.

The club is absolutely in a position to buy. They’re currently sixth in the National League – half a game behind a mid-flop Mets roster and half a game ahead of the always relevant Cardinals. There are flaws with that the Nationals roster too that could lead to a collapse. Rodney may not have been the best acquisition target, but they were to right to strike early. Now let’s see if they also strike often.

There’s increasing support for a Pirates sale of some kind. The club is two games under .500, but they’re also just three games out of the Wild Card. Their pitching staff has been a huge disappointment, but they’ll get Gerrit Cole back soon. Mark Melancon’s name has come up as trade bait even though he’s the most reliable reliever on the roster. The reliever market is expected to be deep too. We’ll see what happens, but I don’t see the Pirates as obvious sellers or buyers at this point.

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

For the second straight day, it really only took two players to win the contest. Michael Fulmer and Victor Martinez supplied over two-thirds of the production for akdog47. The rest of his Tigers stack – Miggy and Nick Castellanos – did the rest of the work. Congrats!

Let’s do an afternoon contest on FanDuel today. These usually don’t fill so it’ll probably be just for fun.

3. Daily DFS 

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: Chris Sale is set to pitch in the shadow of Jose Fernandez. Everybody – and I do mean everybody – will be in on the Marlins ace opposite the lowly Braves. Meanwhile, Sale has a risky matchup against the strikeout prone Astros. He could keep pace with Fernandez despite a much lower ownership rate.

Danny Duffy is fully stretched out after tossing eight innings last week. He’s opposed by the highly exploitable Phillies offense. Duffy has posted strong strikeout numbers since returning to the rotation.

Trevor Bauer at Marco Estrada should make for a fun matchup to watch. With both clubs exhausted by yesterday’s 19-inning affair, Bauer and Estrada will be expected to go the distance. Their ownership rates should be fairly tame with Fernandez and Duffy drawing most of the attention.

Stack Targets: Tyler Duffey, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Blake Snell, Doug Fister, Aaron Nola

Late: Jake Arrieta is the lone ace of the slate. He’s visiting the ghost of the Mets roster. Arrieta’s had some trouble with walks recently. I’m not sure if we should be concerned yet – the stuff still looks fantastic.

Drew Pomeranz is a nice play versus the Yankees at Petco Park. Unfortunately, he’s an $8,500-quality pitcher with a $10,400 price tag. That’s a bitter pill to swallow.

The Athletics will call upon Rich Hill against the Pirates. Pittsburgh has a strikeout problem versus lefties. It’s anyone’s guess how Hill will perform. Is he back in top form or something less? He’s priced at his peak.

The Padres dismantled Nate Eovaldi yesterday, and he’s a much better pitcher than Ivan Nova. Perhaps it’s not a good idea to target the strikeout prone Friars tonight. Then again, even blind squirrels can find nuts. That doesn’t mean they’ll find them every day. The Padres still have a bad true talent roster versus right-handed pitching.

Stack Targets: Clay Buchholz, Chad Kuhl, Chad Bettis, Dan Straily, Pat Corbin, Nova, Tyler Wilson, Bartolo Colon, James Paxton, Hector Santiago,

4. SaberSim Observations

SaberSim is just a little bit bugged at the moment. I like Arrieta’s matchup today, but I don’t think he’ll throw 9.21 innings on average.

5. 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.

If CBP still shows yellow in the notes column, then the iframe isn’t updated yet. It’s supposed to do so dynamically, but it’s been delayed the last few days.

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.