The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for June 21

Agenda

1. Roommate Scouting Report
2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets

1. Roommate Scouting Report

The FanGraphs event went off this weekend without a hitch. It was great to meet and talk baseball with everybody. I roomed with Paul Sporer, and I have a few scouting grades to share.

Player: Paul Sporer
h/w: 6’15”/119 lbs

Tolerance to cold (Scouting grade = 20): While the city of New York was quite hot this weekend, Paul was in frequent need of layers. On the first night, fellow Paul (Kastava) proved his 70 grade gentlemanliness by lending Sporer the shirt off his back (actually an Islanders jacket from a bag).

Love of dogs (Scouting grade = 80): Which dogs did Paul want to meet? All of the dogs. Paul joked about stealing the dogs often enough that we can’t be sure he won’t in the future. To the best of my knowledge, no dogs were stolen on this trip.

Taste in TV (Scouting grade = 60): Paul and I were in complete agreement on the best shows to watch at 2:00am, namely Angie Tribeca and Ridiculousness. As the alternatives were mainly infomercials, I gave Sporer a conservative grade in this category. The ceiling could be higher.

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

The Invitational returns! We’ll be playing DraftKings today with all the usual parameters. Do note, there’s a good chance tomorrow’s column will not happen due to travel. I’ll be back to my normal schedule on Thursday. The Factor Grid will return then. Certain things really require a dual monitor.

DraftKings has a good refer-a-friend special going right now. If you join with this link, we both get two free $20 tickets. Even if you only have a passing interest in playing DFS for money, it seems worthwhile to take a shot at a couple big GPPs

3. Daily DFS 

The funny thing about spending the weekend at a baseball conference is that I’ve fallen out of touch with the latest happenings. This part’s still easy. Jose Fernandez has the candy matchup opposite a “hot” Braves lineup. They did sweep the Mets…Fernandez is priced like Clayton Kershaw because he’s pitching like the top guy in the league. Unfortunately, he’s often pulled with pitch count totals in the 80s. Makes it a little risky to pay the big bucks.

Noah Syndergaard’s matchup isn’t as good as JoFery’s . The Royals are visiting New York so they’ll be without fantastic (sarcasm) DH Kendrys Morales. Their lineup isn’t very scary. Johnny Cueto draws a much tougher Pirates lineup, but he’s opposed by a very beatable pitcher – Wilfredo Boscan. Corey Kluber should have no trouble with the Rays. Blake Snell has the stuff to match Kuber pitch-for-pitch, but we’re more likely to see five OKish innings from Snell.

Poor Chris Sale has to tame the Red Sox onslaught. DraftKings was nice enough to offer a sale on Sale – he’s only $8,700 tonight. Given his upside, this price is worth considering even against a horrifying offense.

We discussed Sonny Gray this weekend with a few offers on the buy low bandwagon. There’s a general belief that his rehab stint “cured” whatever was previously ailing him. Of course, he was recently shelled by the Rangers so I’m wary. He costs just $6,600 on DK.

Stack Targets: Luis Perdomo, Boscan, Bud Norris, Clay Buchholz, Chad Bettis, Tyler Wilson, Hector Santiago, Pat Corbin

4. SaberSim Observations

SaberSim has a couple wrinkles to add to the top of the pitcher’s list. I nearly talked about both of them so I’m on board. Fernandez and Syndergaard top the list with Marco Estrada, Kluber, and Tyler Duffey trailing. Estrada has a winnable matchup versus Corbin and the Diamondbacks. I wouldn’t call it an easy win though. SaberSim projects .57 wins for Estrada – the highest in the entire slate. Duffey has that tasty Phillies matchup, but he’s also struggled to throw five innings in recent appearances.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets 

Pitchers to Start: If there was ever a time you could use Twins starter Kyle Gibson, it’s tomorrow. The sinkerballer is opposed by the Phillies who Jeff Sullivan notes are now the worst offense in baseball. Gibson has a 6.06 ERA (4.83 FIP) with 4.68 K/9 and 4.13 BB/9. The Twins offense may actually have some difficulty with the equally struggling Adam Morgan. This could be the worst pitcher’s dual of the season.

Also consider: Adam Conley, Bartolo Colon, Junior Guerra, Daniel Mengden, Julio Urias

Pitchers to Exploit: Robbie Ray pitched well last week against the Phillies. A matchup against the Blue Jays is decidedly less advantageous. Ray’s wild ways will get him into trouble.

Also consider: Michael Wacha, Robbie Ray, Erik Johnson, Eduardo Rodriguez

Hitters (power): Hyun-soo Kim isn’t much of a power hitter, but he’s a regular threat to reach base against hittable pitching. Johnson certainly falls into the hittable bin.

Also consider: Robbie Grossman, Trevor Plouffe, Logan Morrison, Corey Dickerson, Chris Young, Mark Reynolds, Ryan Raburn, Jeff Francoeur

Hitters (speed): Ender Inciarte is starting to show a little more fire in recent weeks. He still has an ugly season line, but that’s just the .264 BABIP talking. He makes contact with everything, and he has plate discipline too. He could push 15 steals over the rest of the season. Too bad he’s opposed by a southpaw tomorrow.

Also consider: Whit Merrifield