The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for May 12

Agenda

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

1. Ray Thoughts

I got a good look at Robbie Ray for the first time since last season. He usually pitches after my bed time. I was reminded how much I love his fastball which was running 95 mph all day. His slider is a solid pitch, but I’d like to see him rework his repertoire.

Like many pitchers, he throws a terrible sinker. In theory, this offering helps his other pitches to play up. In practice, I’m not sure that’s true for Ray. His four seamer has a fairly straight trajectory, but he throws across his body. The result is the illusion of horizontal movement. Adding a cutter for actual horizontal movement would be a fantastic addition to the repertoire – this is basically what Madison Bumgarner throws most of the time.

Ray’s command reminds me of Wily Peralta – i.e. it’s not good. Because he doesn’t hit spots well, his 0-2 and 1-2 pitches have to be thrown well out of the zone. They’re usually easy takes. Later in his outing yesterday, he appeared to get fed up with nibbling and started trying to throw through hitter’s bats. It sort of worked.

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

User yarrayyarray took home the gold yesterday with the help of Max Scherzer and Jackie Bradley Jr. I picked one of them – if only I had pick the other too. The leaderboard is updated.

Today’s contest is on DraftKing’s again. It’s for the usual $2 and 30 users. See you there.

3. Daily DFS 

Yesterday’s Grind

The Mets aren’t a roll-over-and-play-dead offense, but they might as well be against Clayton Kershaw. The entire slate hinges on Kershaw’s performance. David Price, Johnny Cueto, Dallas Keuchel, and Zack Greinke have a similar ace ceiling, but all four are showing warts. Speaking of warts, in past seasons I’d love Adam Wainwright against the L.A. Trout.

Vincent Velasquez is far from consistent. His big outing against the Padres is also over-inflating his price. Still, it’s hard to pass on that hard thrower against the Triple-A Gwinett Braves.

Should you accept the mission of fading Clayton Kershaw, Bartolo Bartola has one of my favorite matchups of the day. Sure, the Dodgers are a good offensive club. Colon is a good pitcher. This game is screaming 2-1 finish. So, baseball being what it is, that probably means Kershaw gets lit and Colon lasts four innings.

Either side of the Nathan Eovaldi–Ian Kennedy matchup has upside and a craterous floor.

Stack Targets: Mike Pelfrey, Aaron Blair, Jered Weaver, Jimmy Nelson, James Shields

4. SaberSim Observations

SaberSim agrees with most of my interpretations. Our one divergence is with Colon. The simulator doesn’t think he’ll pitch poorly, it’s just that he’s projected for .20 wins. It’s rare for SaberSim to project under .30 wins.

Orioles, Brewers, Padres, Red Sox, and Tigers make up the top stacks of the day.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets 

Pitchers to Start: Lance McCullers will make his season debut. I have no reports on his velocity so I plan to sit him against the Red Sox. In 2015, McCullers featured a good 95 mph fastball and an elite curve. His lack of a third pitch limited his ability to work deep into games.

Also consider: Brandon Finnegan, Jeremy Hellickson, Steven Wright, Junior Guerra, Nick Tropeano, Nate Karns

Pitchers to Exploit: Matt Harvey is visiting Coors Field. An attempt to google his history at Coors has revealed this will be his first visit to the mile club. Enjoy Mr. Harvey. Mets twitter is probably the whiniest of the 30 teams so we’ll have some secondary entertainment too.

Also consider: Justin Verlander, Chris Tillman, Tom Koehler, Ricky Nolasco, Josh Tomlin, Martin Perez, R.A. Dickey, Jon Gray, Shelby Miller

Hitters (power): Most Mets are owned at a high rate. Asdrubal Cabrera is the exception due to modest across-the-board production. He’s worth activating for the Coors series.

Also consider: Chase Utley, Seth Smith, Adam Lind, Ben Paulsen, Brett Wallace, Brandon Guyer, Steve Pearce, Pedro Alvarez

Hitters (speed): The Twins, who, by the way, totally know what they’re doing, are batting Eduardo Nunez second. Should backup Derek Jeter be playing over prospect Jorge Polanco? That’s debatable. Nunez has actually done well thanks to a high BABIP. And he runs.

Also consider: Jonathan Villar, Jarrod Dyson, Cesar Hernandez, Joey Rickard

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.