The Daily Grind: Duduno, Gonzalez, Danks

Agenda

1. Program Notes
2. Daily DFS – Deduno
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Gonzalez, Danks, Norris, Herrera
5. Factor Grid

1. Program Notes

An airplane looms in my near future. Today’s Grind will be of the rapid fire variety. Robert Baumann will provide his picks and analysis for Saturday and Monday. I’ll be back in action on Tuesday.

Be nice to Robert!

2. Daily DFS – Deduno

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: The game at Wrigley is the only early contest.

Late: The Mariners could make for a wise stack tonight. It’s a bullpen day for the Astros with Samuel Deduno getting the start. As an added bonus, the game will be played at tonight’s second best park for offense.

Deduno has managed to stick around the majors despite a fringy profile. He certainly won’t overpower anybody with his 88 mph fastball. I doubt he’ll be on any sort of official pitch count, but he’s unlikely to pitch five innings. The Astros bullpen is neither good nor bad, so it could work out in Seattle’s favor.

Stack Targets: CC Sabathia, Justin Masterson, Mike Foltynewicz, Colby Lewis, Chris Young, Jose Quintana

3. GB / FB Splits

The following hitters are recommended based on the works of Shane Tourtellotte and Dan Fansworth. They show ground ball hitters perform better against fly ball pitchers and vice versa. Using three-year values for hitter OPS and pitcher GB%, here are today’s top recommendations. Use this link for Jeff’s full list.

Jeff has tabbed 32 names today. Here are some of my favorites.

Billy Butler vs. Colby Lewis
Adam Jones, Manny Machado, and Alejandro De Aza vs. Alex Colome
Freddie Freeman vs. Anthony DeSclafani
Robinson Cano vs. Samuel Deduno
Miguel Cabrera and J.D. Martinez vs. Chris Young

4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Gonzalez, Danks, Norris, Herrera

Pitchers to Start: The story of Miguel Gonzalez is one of decent results despite too many home runs allowed. The slightly fly ball oriented pitcher also coughs up a high HR/FB ratio. The combination is usually deadly, yet he’s kept his ERA well below 4.00 in every season. The reason is easy enough to see – a high infield fly rate and low BABIP.

Tomorrow’s game is at Tropicana Field. The pitcher friendly confines should improve the game outlook for Gonzalez. Tampa Bay has one of the highest strikeout rates in the league, and their overall lineup is mediocre.

Also consider: Dan Haren

Pitchers to Exploit: The ghost of John Danks will face a Twins lineup that has a few lefty boppers. Danks is a hittable lefty with unimposing stuff. Target Field isn’t too stingy to right-handed hitters. Need I say more?

Also consider: Wade Miley, Ricky Nolasco, Eric Stults, Jason Marquis, Jorge de la Rosa, Jeremy Hellickson

Hitters (power): Derek Norris has big ol’ platoon splits. Luckily, he’ll face a lefty at Petco.

Also consider: Trevor Plouffe, Alex Guerrero, David Peralta, Josh Reddick, Will Middlebrooks, Dan Uggla, Eric Campbell, Marlon Byrd, Andrew Susac, Chris Young

Hitters (speed): Odubel Herrera is still batting first or second for the Phillies. For the record, I think he’ll sustain a fairly high BABIP based on a high volume of hard hit line drives and grounders. Dan Farnsworth thinks he’ll roll over too many outside pitches. He’s up against Haren.

Also consider: Ender Inciarte, Eric Young, Adam Eaton

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.

The Link. There is a notable lack of green stadiums. Your choices are Texas or bust.

This post is not brought to you by any DFS platform. The current author is quite pleased to present a DFS ad free environment.