The Daily Grind: Great American Scooters

None of my readers made the most heroic pick of the season last night, not that I’ve said one word about the guy. Let’s correct that…

AGENDA

  1. Great American Scooters
  2. Weather Reports
  3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
  4. SaberSim Says…
  5. TDG Invitational Returns!

1. Great American Scooters

Baseball has been awash with multi-homer games this season, but few hitters have reached the three-homer threshold. Reds utility dude Scooter Gennett said screw it, why not blast four shots.

Not to take away from his accomplishment, but those last two home runs were very heavily aided by his home park. The third probably has a 50/50 chance to be an out or a double in most venues. The fourth would usually bang off the wall for a double.

Gennett is now hitting .302/.336/.578 in 122 plate appearances. Last season, he made what I’m starting to call the Elvis Andrus adjustment – hitting more fly balls without becoming a fly ball hitter. Gennett actually made the adjustment first, but it didn’t produce results like with Andrus. However, he’s improved upon those gains thus far in 2017. He’s certainly earned more playing time, although it’s unclear who will draw the short straw. Jose Peraza has been playing better and Scott Schebler will return soon.

2. Weather Reports

Colorado is a small storm risk this afternoon. It will probably fine. The rest of the league is dry.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

Early Slate: The damned early slate has all the cool stuff. Clayton Kershaw hosts Stephen Strasburg in Los Angeles. We’re also missing a Coors Field game between Trevor Bauer and Kyle Freeland. Francisco Liriano at Jharel Cotton is the third and final game available. I don’t have much to add here.

Stack Targets: Bauer, Freeland, Cotton, Liriano

Main Slate: I lied a moment ago, there is plenty of “cool stuff” to juggle this evening. Rebounders Dallas Keuchel, Zack Greinke, and Yu Darvish headline the slate. Keuchel and Greinke have especially soft matchups. We have every reason to believe they’ll reach 30 DK points. Darvish has only a slightly more difficult opponent.

A gap of nearly $3,000 separates $10,500 Darvish from $7,900 Jimmy Nelson. The Brewers surprise ace is coming off consecutive 30+ point outings. The Giants are an easy matchup, although they aren’t very strikeout prone.

I still have faith that Rick Porcello’s results will one day match his high quality peripherals. I can’t say I’m thrilled about a visit to Yankee Stadium. For $7,300, it’s worth shooting for the high upside ceiling. He rarely completely bombs.

As long as he doesn’t allow four home runs, Lance Lynn should be in line for an auto-victory opposite Bronson Arroyo. I said this two days ago about Asher Wojciechowski, and the Cards scored only two runs in a loss.

Stack Targets: Arroyo, Buck Farmer, Jose Urena, Mike Pelfrey, Chad Kuhl, Yovani Gallardo, Jerad Eickhoff, Luis Perdomo, Alex Meyer, Adalberto Mejia, Ty Blach

4. SaberSim Says…

Let’s look only at the main slate for this section. Greinke, Darvish, John Lackey, Porcello, and Keuchel round out the top five pitchers. I worry a tad about Lackey’s home run problems opposite an occasionally powerful Marlins lineup. SaberSim loves DBacks tonight. The top five bats are Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Jake Lamb, David Peralta, and Mookie Betts.

5. The Daily Grind Invitational

Travisbecker combined Max Scherzer, Kyle Seager, Gregor Blanco, and Jake Arrieta for the bulk of his 163.25 points. Congrats to his Mariners stack for supplying a victory. He also guessed well by rostering a bunch of Diamondbacks, but the specific players he had didn’t do much. It’s always frustrating to pick a correct team to stack and still get no value. Leaderboard.

We’re on DraftKings today.





You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam

4 Comments
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theparishowmember
6 years ago

You should replace the “SaberSim Says” section that highlights top 5 hitters/pitchers with something like “SaberSim Likes” and point to a few players that under owned players that SaberSim likes.

Thomas
6 years ago
Reply to  Brad Johnson

Me too. I’m wondering if there’s some way to crowdsource this?