The Daily Grind: High Score

You’ll never guess which hitter I recommend today.

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. Immaculate

1.The Daily Grind Invitational

My dreams of catching up to cubbieblues were shortlived. He scored an emphatic 224.2 points with large contributions from Chris Sale, Charlie Morton, and all of his hitters. That’s the top score in the TDGI this season. Congrats and Leaderboard.

We’re working with a lovely five-game slate this evening on FantasyDraft. You’re not likely to score 224.2 points in this one!

If you have not signed up for FantasyDraft, please use this referral link for tracking purposes. If I understand properly, by using the referral, you will receive a 10 percent return on any rakes you pay.

2. Weather Reports

The Red Sox-Royals game might run afoul of rain, but it looks like they should be able to play through it. Who even cares about the early slate. Speaking of, the wind is still blowing in at Wrigley, but it’s just a mild eight mph.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

Early: Zack Wheeler ($20,200) is the expensive arm in the seven-game afternoon slate. If you intend to participate, entries are due by 12:10pm ET. In any event, Wheeler is indeed an excellent play against the visiting Giants. In fact, I consider this a large bargain.

Next up are Caleb Smith ($18,100) at Brandon Woodruff ($16,900). These too are both bargains. I prefer the Woodruff side of the spectrum for the obvious reasons – namely the Marlins suck and the Brewers do not suck. Lately, Smith has been making short, high effort starts. Woodruff has proven to be rather volatile. We can count on strikeouts though.

Mike Foltynewicz ($15,900) burned me last week, but I still consider him playable. So too is Chris Archer ($15,400) at this price – even against a tough Braves lineup. Jose Quintana ($14,700) is a nice value at home against the Sea Level Rockies. I believe it’s Jalen Beeks day ($14,700) for the Rays. They’re visiting the lowly Tigers. Alas, Beeks is always overpriced. Quintana is a much safer play.

Favorite Plays: Wheeler, Woodruff, Quintana

Stack Targets: Daniel Norris, Dakota Hudson, Peter Lambert, Ryan Weber, Shaun Anderson

Late: Patrick Corbin tops the board this evening. He’s visiting San Diego and costs $19,900. It’s a somewhat risky matchup as the Padres feature a deep pool of powerful right-handed sluggers. I think he can be easily expected to return value, but there are definitely scenarios where he’s touched up for multiple home runs. I’m not overly keen about Joey Lucchesi ($17,800), especially not at this price. I’d only consider using him as a contrarian play because he’s so obviously an anti-value.

Jose Berrios ($18,800) is visiting Trevor Bauer ($17,600) in the rubber match of the day. Both pitchers are aggressively priced. The Twins offense is good – they’re just not as good as their current statistics would have you believe. I treat them as somewhere slightly better than a 105 wRC+ club which, against Bauer, is more like an 85 wRC+. As with Corbin, a lot of potential outcomes yield 20 or more points for both pitchers. And it’s also not too hard to envisage the disaster scenarios – especially for Bauer.

Tyler Skaggs ($16,700) is fine, but I find myself wanting to use right-handed Athletics. Mostly because there are quite a few talented bats in the Oakland offense and for some reason they’re very affordable right now. A full stack is risky against a solidly mid-tier southpaw. Mike Fiers ($13,500) offers a similar story except there is very little upside for DFS-able production. Fiers is a pitch-to-contact guy with a home run problem. The Angels don’t strike out (except for Shohei Ohtani).

J.A. Happ ($15,300) is posting random numbers this season. He’s very likely to earn the win bonus tonight. Whether he also does enough to stymie the Blue Jays is another matter entirely.

Favorite Plays: Corbin, Berrios, Bauer, Happ

Stack Targets: David Hess, Edwin Jackson, Ariel Jurado, Fiers

4. SaberSim Says…

The Sim won’t let me sort by All Day so we’ll just look at our evening contest. Corbin, Bauer, Berrios, Skaggs, and Lucchesi are the preferred arms. Corbin, Bauer, Hess, Happ, and Skaggs are the value plays. Uh, be careful with Hess.

On the hitting side, a certain Mike Trout is joined by Luke Voit, Shin-Soo Choo, Gary Sanchez, and Renato Nunez. Bargainland is populated by Kendrys Morales (make sure he plays), Chris Davis, Jason Kipnis, Vladito, and Rio Ruiz. Davis actually has a really attractive matchup against a pitch-to-contact ground ball guy.

5. Immaculate

Video game inning.

Well this was less expected (despite the awful opponent).

I still think Brian Anderson is a 25-home run hitter. Not necessarily this year.