The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for June 15

Agenda

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

1. A Reminder

If you haven’t tuned in the last couple days, my schedule will be pretty wonky until June 23. Service will be interrupted for both the column and Invitational contests. Columns for next Saturday and Monday will be cancelled unless someone volunteers to take my place. Unlikely since we all have the same conflict. Next Wednesday’s column is questionable too. Today was a game time decision. Waking up at 4:00am helped make a full(ish) post possible.

Also, I just now realized I completely blanked on doing my Tuesday chat yesterday. So I owe you all a chat to be named later.

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

DraftKings pranked me. “You’ve won!” exclaimed the email waiting in my inbox this morning. Thinking my late night stacks delivered, I popped open DraftKings to discover I won…$2. I bet $15.25. Talk about disappointment.

New user rxbandit is not disappointed. He Jameson Taillon, Julio Teheran, Miguel Cabrera, Chase Utley, and Carlos Gonzalez to victory. Welcome to the leaderboard! We’ll do another DK contest today.

3. Daily DFS 

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: The five game early slate includes Clayton Kershaw, Stephen Strasburg, Johnny Cueto, and a Coors Field game. Cue George Takai. Jason Hammel and Jimmy Nelson are the better contrarian picks. The other pitchers really have it bad.

Stack Targets: Chad Bettis, Andrew Cashner, Pat Corbin, Justin Nicolino, Ivan Nova

Late: Chris Sale and Noah Syndergaard aren’t quite as acey as Kershaw and Strasburg, but there’s damn little separating them. Corey Kluber’s also rounding into midseason form. All three are $10k and up on FanDuel and DraftKings.

Marco Estrada has everything you might want from a mid-tier pitcher – well almost everything. I’d prefer AT&T Park to the Rogers Center, but it would be weird to play a Phillies-Jays game in San Francisco. Aside from a hitter friendly stadium, Estrada pitches deep into games, increasing his point total and chances for a win. He strikes out about a batter per inning. He’s opposed by the Jeremy Hellickson and the Phillies. The ingredients are in place fora 60 FD point evening.

I, uh, I really dislike all the other alternatives. I’ll probably go aces. I suppose Nate Karns and Collin McHugh have potential. They should be unpopular too. Picking unpopular players is a weird dynamic of DFS.

Stack Targets: Tyler Duffey, Bud Norris, Mike Pelfrey, Anthony DeSclafani, Jeff Locke, Hector Santiago, Jeremy Hellickson, Tyler Wilson, Derek Holland, Sonny Gray, Drew Smyly

4. SaberSim Observations

Well, I absolutely hate Smyly’s matchup with the Mariners. SaberSim ranks him fifth – ahead of Sale and Kluber. I’ll let you decide. The top four are the names you’d expect. Estrada ranks 10th with Hector Santiago coming out of nowhere to rank ninth.

Top stacks include the Coors game, Nationals, Blue Jays, Sox (both Red and White), Padres, and Orioles.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets 

Pitchers to Start: It’s a rare day when there are more guys to start than exploit. It mostly comes down to matchups. Straily and Wisler are in Atlanta, Happ draws the Phillies offense, and Sabathia has the shaky Twins.

The game to watch is James Paxton versus Blake Snell. Paxton’s sitting 98 mph and sustaining it deep into starts. The new stuff is inducing a big whiff rate. I still see him as a meltdown risk and the Rays to mash lefties. It’s very rare for southpaws to throw over 95 mph, so I’m willing to look past the vanilla splits.

On the other side of this one is Snell, a guy with a very impressive repertoire but only middling command. The Mariners are stocked with plenty of lefty mashers too. Snell will have his work cut out for him.

Also consider: Dan Straily, Matt Wisler, Colby Lewis, J.A. Happ, CC Sabathia, Junior Guerra, Tanner Roark

Pitchers to Exploit: If, like me, you were buying Eduardo Rodriguez coming into the season, it’s time jump off the bandwagon – at least in redrafts. Dynasty owners may view this as a buy low opportunity. This simply isn’t the pitcher we signed up for – the velocity is down and the whiff rate is nonexistent. He has a 6.06 ERA despite a .216 BABIP. How? Oh, and he’s opposed by the pure mash Orioles.

Also consider: Daniel Mengden, Juan Nicasio, Kyle Gibson, Erik Johnson

Hitters (power): I’ve recommended Jon Jay a couple dozen times without ever saying a word about him. He doesn’t actually have power, but he does have a nice role as the Padres leadoff man. If you need to take a chance on volume and runs scored, he’s your guy. Otherwise, move along. When a player is usable despite a lack of power or speed, I default them to the power section (see, Gennett, Scooter).

Also consider: Aaron Hill, Chase Utley, Robbie Grossman, John Jaso, David Freese, Tommy Joseph, Franklin Gutierrez, Dae-ho Lee, Chris Iannetta, Yangervis Solarte

Hitters (speed): If you have a chronic stolen base problem, you may want to permanently roster Maybin while he’s still available. Sure, the BABIP will regress in a bad way, but he has more power than he’s shown too. More importantly, he’s set for another 15 to 20 stolen bases. He probably won’t swipe one tomorrow off lefty Danny Duffy and catcher Salvador Perez.

Also consider: Aaron Hicks, Joey Rickard, Ender Inciarte

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 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.