The Daily Grind: Foreshadowing

If a current FantasyDraft user were to send me a referral, I would greatly appreciate it. Well, you may greatly appreciate it too. (MISSION COMPLETE)

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. Is This The Year?

1. The Daily Grind Invitational

Our highest scoring day was followed by our lowest scoring day. Fourseasons managed to scrape a victory with only 105.45 points. Trevor Story and Rick Porcello did most of the heavy lifting. Congrats and Leaderboard.

Same deal, fill ‘er up on DraftKings. Forty $2 entries for the evening slate.

PS – New users who deposit with my referral link get 25% bonus cash after jumping through a few hoops. I also get 25%. Conditional referral bonuses suck, but I guess they’re better than no bonus.

2. Weather Reports

A few venues are at risk of postponement or delay. The most imperiled is Philadelphia. It’s not a guaranteed rainout, but a doubleheader tomorrow looks likely. Baltimore has a 50/50 chance of rain all evening. New York and Pittsburgh are lesser risks for precipitation. Kansas City may have a delayed start. It looks like they’ll play though.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

Early Slate: The tiny four game early slate gets to have all of the fun today. Among the venues are Coors Field and Guaranteed Rate Park – great locations for power. Pitcher haven AT&T Park is also on the agenda.

Max Scherzer ($13,100) costs as much as he should. The Giants keep striking out despite owning a collection of individuals who I would not describe as strikeout prone. And that park… Scherzer is opposed by bargain priced Jeff Samardzija ($7,500). I always say only an idiot would use two pitchers from the same game. This… may be an exception. I think you’ll pretty safely receive $20,600 of value from the pair.

The other premium investment is Justin Verlander at $12,000. The Angels ruined Morton’s bid yesterday with a couple home runs. It’s easy to run afoul of Mike Trout. After a couple years of early season hiccups, Verlander appears to be in midseason form. Go ahead and pay the premium.

Stack Targets: James Shields, Felix Hernandez, Jon Gray, Tyson Ross

I’m not going out of my way to hate on Gray or Ross. They’re at Coors Field. That’s all. Felix is homer prone. Shields is homer and steal prone.

Main Slate: The eight game main slate is not without aces. As noted in the weather section, one or more games may fall by the wayside. Clayton Kershaw is the top arm. At $14,000, it’s going to take some planning to build a roster around him. Why so pricey? He’s opposed by a crappy Marlins offense and a crappy Marlins starter (Trevor Richards).

Zack Greinke ($10,000) and Jake Arrieta ($8,500) might get erased by rain. Even without price considerations, I’d take the Arrieta side of this equation by a narrow margin. Trevor Bauer ($9,000) hosts Jon Lester ($8,200) at Progressive Field. One of these days, Lester is going to toss eight dominant innings en route to a top score. To this point, he has two strong starts and two duds. I’d usually avoid Lester versus the Indians, but I like his price tag tonight. It’s certainly risky to use the declining lefty.

Eduardo Rodriguez ($7,600) is appropriately priced for his profile. He’s a high risk, high reward play. ERod’s strikeout per inning offers considerable upside opposite the Blue Jays. They’re lineup isn’t exactly filled with lefty mashers. He’s not immune to bad outings.

Stack Targets: Trevor Richards, Alex Cobb, Jake Faria, Jason Hammel, Kendall Graveman, Doug Fister, Jhoulys Chacin

For $4,500, I think a strong case exists for using Fister against the Athletics. Especially with Kershaw. There’s a lot of ways for him to get to 15 points. Ditto Chacin in his visit to Kauffman Stadium.

4. SaberSim Says…

Looking purely at the main slate, Kershaw, Greinke, Arrieta, Bauer, and Michael Wacha are the preferred pitchers. Even the simulators like Wacha more than me now… Wacha is also the top value along with Hammel and Faria. Cody Bellinger leads the hitters followed by Joey Gallo, Mookie Betts, Matt Olson, and Yasmani Grandal. Values include Pedro Alvarez, Teoscar Hernandez, Matt Joyce, and Delino DeShields.

5. Is This The Year?

Mike Trout breaks baseball?

This is a dumb video. Cool news though.

Trevor Story is on one of his hot streaks…