The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for May 20

Agenda

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

1. Tweeters

Here at the Daily Grind, we occasionally put aside the silly business of fantasy baseball to address the tough philosophical questions of the day. Par exemple, when Twitter crashes, how do I tweet about it?

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

I finally spiked a lineup, but I was still one big performance short of a huge GPP night. Too bad Stephen Vogt, Brandon Phillips, or Jose Ramirez didn’t do more. Chris Sale, Carlos Santana, Jeff Francoeur, Rajai, Davis, and Jose Reddick were my big picks. The leaderboard is updated.

We’re back on DraftKings today where the prices on every ace not named Jake Arrieta or Aaron Nola are just way too good to be believed. See ya there.

By the way, I wasn’t serious yesterday when I said you couldn’t pick Chris Sale. Only one other owner went with him. I call dibs on Arrieta today.

3. Daily DFS 

Yesterday’s Grind

The shindig in Cincinnati is a serious postponement risk. It’s too bad, I was rather looking forward to loading up on Seth Smith, Adam Lind, and the more expensive Mariners.

Arrieta and Nola occupy two of the top seats tonight along with Gerrit Cole and Jose Quintana. Corey Kluber, Carlos Martinez, Sonny Gray, and Steven Matz are also on the bump, but they have warts.

Despite a sky high price tag, Arrieta should be the most popular pick tonight. He’s visiting Jake Peavy at pitcher friendly AT&T Park. I smell an auto-win. Cole will draw plenty of attention too at home against Eddie Butler. The Pirates offense should build him a cozy lead. I do worry about the Rockies powerful, high variance bats.

Nola and Matt Wisler square off in the poopoo battle. Because baseball defies our sensibilities, the Braves league worst offense will probably carry the day against the Phillies second worst offense in a 11-7 drubbing. More standard techniques have set the over/under to seven runs between the two teams. That almost smells high to me.

I read somewhere that Sonny Gray made a mechanical adjustment late in his last start. It had something to do with locating his fastball. As Jeff Sullivan found, the bigger issue is the lack of breaking ball command. Still, I’m tempted to jump on his $6,800 DraftKings price tag. He’ll have some margin for error tonight – the Yankees offense is just so broken.

Stack Targets: Christian Friedrich, Butler, Peavy, Wily Peralta, Justin Nicolino, Tyler Duffey, Dillon Gee, Mike Wright, Dan Straily, CC Sabathia, Clay Buchholz, Colby Lewis, Lance McCullers

4. SaberSim Observations

The simulator likes Cole, McCullers, Martinez, Arrieta, and Matz in that order. With McCullers and Matz shaking off injuries, I’m more inclined to target them tonight. SaberSim reminds us to not forget about Scott Kazmir at the Padres tonight. We’re also reminded that Arrieta’s aforementioned auto-win actually projects for just .49 wins.

Astros, White Sox, Blue Jays, Mariners, and Mets comprise the top stacks of the day. There are a lot of ways to approach lineup building tonight. Perhaps too many ways. I’ve always preferred eight game contests.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets 

Pitchers to Start: It would be correct to point out that Adam Morgan has not been very good this season – a 6.41 ERA with 6.41 K/9 and 3.20 BB/9 definitely qualifies as not very good. On a positive note, Morgan’s velocity is up over two mph and his swinging strike rate is a robust 10.5 percent. Most importantly, he’ll face a feeble Braves offense. Check out that 52 wRC+ versus left-hand pitchers.

Also consider: J.A. Happ, Robbie Ray

Pitchers to Exploit: When things happen in Minnesota, they tend to go unnoticed throughout the rest of the world. Such holds true of Pat Dean’s promotion to the majors which occurred over a week ago. Who knew? Nobody outside of Minnesota and the parts of Wisconsin which are characteristically identical to Minnesota.

Presumably the son of forgotten racist Paula Dean, Pat is a command and control southpaw with an 89 mph fastball. In recent years, the Twins have tried to employ pitchers who generate both strikeouts and velocity. Dean is a throwback to the halcyon days when every ball was put in play against the Twins. Dean doesn’t line up well against the should-be lefty mashing Blue Jays.

Also consider: Danny Duffy, Miguel Gonzalez, Mike Leake, Williams Perez, Joe Kelly, Sean Manaea, Jon Niese, Tyler Chatwood, Michael Fulmer, John Lamb, Zach Davies, Cesar Ramos, Mike Fiers, Matt Cain, Matt Shoemaker

Hitters (power): In the truest sense, Mitch Moreland hasn’t done much of anything this season. In an equally true sense (i.e. the truest), he has a desirable matchup tomorrow against homer prone righty Mike Fiers.

Also consider: Pedro Alvarez, Miguel Montero, Franklin Gutierrez, Mark Reynolds, Ryan Raburn, John Jaso, Aaron Hicks, Lonnie Chisenhall, Mike Napoli, Jeff Francoeur, Tommy Joseph, Jake Lamb

Hitters (speed): I saw a tweet the other day “complimenting” Joey Rickard’s 85 wRC+. It may be time for the Orioles to slide him on down to ninth. Until they do so, keep using him against Scrubster Dumps like Shoemaker.

Also consider: Melvin Upton, Leonys Martin, Rajai Davis, Cesar Hernandez, Eduardo Nunez, Jimmy Rollins

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.

No weather factors today. My iPhone 3 is fatigued. How ’bout that cluster of red stadiums at the bottom of the grid?

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.