The Daily Grind: Thames Time

Some nights, I’ll go against my gut on pitching matchups just to force myself to pay attention to a certain guy. That was Jason Vargas last night, and it was not the correct play. The rest of my lineup worked out though despite lacking any Rockies or Eric Thameses.

AGENDA

  1. Taming Thames
  2. Weather Reports
  3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
  4. Contrarian Picks
  5. SaberSim Says…
  6. TDG Invitational Returns!

1. Taming Thames

Here’s Eric Thames hitting another pair of home runs…

So those were two terribad pitches he hammered into the seats. Which is consistent with everything I’ve been saying. Garrett tossed a middle-middle hanging slider on a full count. Next time up, he threw a middle-away crap ball that kinda just floated in the zone. Garrett’s fastball is awful. I don’t understand how it took three outings for him to melt.

2. Weather Reports

The entire Northeast is at risk tonight – Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Boston. You can assume the Braves, Mets, Yankees, and Red Sox will not play. The other two games are a maybe 75 percent likely to be postponed.  Colorado is also dealing with a 40 to 50 percent chance of rain all day. It’s cold in Denver too.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

Main Slate: Fourteen of 15 games are in the main slate tonight. Sorry Cleveland with your goofy 6:10pm start times. Doesn’t anybody work in Cleveland?

Clayton Kershaw is always a wise investment, even when he costs $14,300 on DraftKings. My personal cutoff is $13,000. Anything under that is a must-play for Kershaw. Anything over requires some thought. He’s opposed by Ty Blach at AT&T Field. No Madison Bumgarner to whack it over the fence.

Danny Duffy has career worst fastball velocity, but it hasn’t affected his results. The peripherals say regression is coming, but you might opt to use him anyway versus the White Sox.

Oh my, these probable rainouts really guff up the options. Perhaps you want to try used-to-be-good pitchers at a friendly park? In that case, Kyle Hendricks and Gerrit Cole are your guys. I really don’t want either of them.

If you aren’t using Eric Thames, give some consideration to Scott Feldman. The mediocre righty has a habit of going on early-season hot streaks before fading. He’s done it enough times that I believe in his ability to outperform his peripherals. Some.

Where did the… uh oh… that’s everyone. I guess the play tonight is Kershaw and the slowest burning dumpster fire.

Stack Targets: German Marquez, J.C. Ramirez, Dylan Covey, Erasmo Ramirez, Pat Corbin, Clayton Richard, Joe Ross, Andrew Cashner, Jesse Hahn, Ty Blach, Zach Davies

4. Contrarian Picks

Stars: On a deeper night, Kershaw’s ownership would be muted. Alas…

Because of Kershaw and the other pitchers, any super expensive position player will have a reduced ownership. Bryce Harper ($6,100) tops the list along with Trea Turner, Daniel Murphy, Nolan Arenado, Mike Trout, Adam Eaton, Charlie Blackmon, etc. etc.

Bargains: Of the rain games, Baltimore is probably the most likely to happen. Wade Miley should be virtually unowned. Miley isn’t a great pitcher, but on a day when there’s only one of those, he could wind up as the second best.

Jedd Gyorko might slip through the cracks despite hitting a bunch of home runs. He’s opposed by Marco Estrada.

5. SaberSim Says…

It’s Kershaw, Vince Velasquez, Michael Wacha, Cole, and Miley topping the charts tonight. On the hitting side, Turner, Harper, Billy Hamilton, Paul Goldschmidt, and Arenado are the big dogs. I’m not so keen on Goldy since he’s a ground ball hitter versus an extreme ground ball pitcher.

6. The Daily Grind Invitational

Kudos to tulip_blues and the three other participants who used Jesse Chavez. It would have never occurred to me. Chavez gave his owners the cash to target a couple clutch Rockies at Coors. The leaderboard is updated.

It’s DraftKings Day. With the usual parameters.





You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam

8 Comments
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Scott Daugherty
6 years ago

Is there a problem with the SiberSim page today? I’m not getting anything.

I’m looking at Dback and Padre bats. Shifting from Coors, if I choose to go with Kershaw.

Jackie T.
6 years ago

Yeah, SaberSim isn’t giving me anything either: “No records to display.”

ericdykstra
6 years ago

It’s been broken all season. It always shows Thames’ HR as less than 1.0