The Daily Grind: Thin Thursday Is Back

This is why the universal DH is the worst idea.

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. You Don’t Have To Spend It All

1.The Daily Grind Invitational

Iamlee13 needs to save some for the rest of us. He’s already placed in the top five a total of four times including a first and third finish yesterday. If you’ll recall, we’ve only played three contests to date. Ozzie Albies, Willson Contreras, and Adam Frazier were his big differentiators. Congrats and Leaderboard.

We have a very special three-game contest tonight on FantasyDraft with the usual parameters. I LOVE these small slates. In a big contest, there’s always something I didn’t consider affecting the top performers. Tiny groupings give us an opportunity to look at everything in exquisite detail. See ya there.

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

Two games were already postponed – Seattle at Chicago and San Diego at St. Louis. The other eight games should stay dry. Conditions could be chilly.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

The schedule is split with four games early, three in the evening, and one lost to the aether.

Early: James Paxton ($21,500) is the top play by miles. While he might be outshone by a couple other aces (more on them in a moment), Paxton’s juicy matchup against Alex Cobb ($9,000) promises an easy path to victory. And the soft Orioles offense is a ready source of strikeouts.

Those other aces are opposed, canceling out their chances for an easy win. Stephen Strasburg ($19,400) is visiting Noah Syndergaard ($19,300) at pitcher friendly CitiField. Since they face each other, they come with an over-$2,000 discount on Paxton. They’re also charged with battling difficult opponents. Even so, both studs are excellent plays in a small slate. This is a case where you could consider using both pitchers.

Or you could try both of Jakob Junis ($15,300) at Spencer Turnbull ($10,900). At two-thirds the price, the Tigers hurler is the better value. They both figure to post similar point totals. Expect about a strikeout per inning on both sides of the ball with five or six innings of work and solid run/hit/walk prevention. The Royals and Tigers possess bottom five offenses. (Don’t @ me about the Royals decent play to date).

Eduardo Rodriguez ($14,600) came out flat in his season debut. The biggest cause for concern was two missing mph on his fastball. Without a little more heat, he’s probably just an innings eater. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Brett Anderson ($12,600) had a fantastic first start despite a reputation for middling performance. Don’t worry, he’s still a pitch-to-contact ground ball guy. Select any right-handed Red Sox slugger who can lift the ball. Steve Pearce is supposed to return tonight!

Favorite Plays: Turnbull, Junis, Paxton

Personally, I’ll take overowned Paxton with Turnbull or Junis over the alternatives.

Stack Targets: Cobb

Yep, it’s just the one guy.

Late: Tonight’s Invitational promises to be a blast because there’s practically no differentiation between the six available starters. Well, that’s not entirely true. Max Fried ($14,700) is expected to throw about three innings, leaving him without a chance for a win. Unless he’s been doing super-secret work on the side, he’s only stretched out for a 50 or 60 pitch outing. His opponent, Yu Darvish ($15,900), looked pretty terrible last week. His velocity was down, and he wasn’t missing bats. While I advise patience in season-long formats, I’m keen to try a Braves stack tonight.

Two pitchers I’m giving a good, long look are Tyler Mahle ($15,400) visiting Jordan Lyles ($13,900). Both are making their season debut. Mahle reportedly tinkered with his pitch usage over the offseason, de-emphasizing his bad fastball in lieu of more offspeed stuff. Lyles emerged as a solid volume arm last season, posting 8.62 K/9, 2.87 BB/9, and a luck neutral 4.11 ERA. PNC Park and chilly weather improves the outlook for these two hurlers.

Matt Harvey ($14,700) is the only one here with a decent outing to his name. Despite recording just one strikeout in six innings, Harvey looked relatively sharp last week. As usual, he leaned heavily on his fastball and slider while showing a curve and changeup. His fastball sat at 94 mph, and he recorded swinging strikes at the same rate as last season. His opponent, the Rangers, feature a slew of all-or-nothing sluggers. If Harvey notches just one strikeout again, it’s probably because very bad things happened.

Favorite Plays: Harvey, Lyles, Mahle

Stack Targets: Darvish, Edinson Volquez

4. SaberSim Says…

I’m using the all-day pool (manually excluding the Blue Jays-Indians game) because for some reason, DraftKings does not have the three-game evening slate. As an aside, the SaberSim projections are always for DraftKings, although FantasyDraft is so similar in scoring and pricing that it usually works out to be the same.

The top pitchers are Paxton, Syndergaard, Strasburg, Turnbull, and Junis. No surprises there. Turnbull, Fried, Rodriguez, Syndergaard, and Harvey are listed as the best values. The Sim doesn’t know about Fried’s pitch limit yet. Paxton is next on the list.

The batters to own are Chris Davis… Just kidding, I accidentally sorted it backwards. As I was saying Mike Trout, Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, J.D. Martinez, and Mookie Betts. You know, all the guys you always target plus Voit. Adam Frazier, Voit, Ender Inciarte, Corey Dickerson (if healthy), and Jesse Winker lead the way in valueland. You won’t need bargains in tonight’s contest since the pitching is so cheap.

5. You Don’t Have To Spend It All

With a weird slate on our hands, today is a good time to talk about leaving money on the table. While it’s generally advantageous to use all of your resources, a thin three-game slate can create a lot of overlapping lineups. To ensure a unique look to your lineup – a semi-important trait in GPPs – you’ll need to get creative.

One trick is to use a down-lineup guy in place of a popular cleanup hitter. The pros and cons are fairly obvious. Alternatively, you could try building an optimized lineup for several thousand dollars less than your max budget. Consider trying it out tonight. With six cheap pitchers available, you’ll have to actively try to spend all of your budget. And you’ll overlap heavily with most of the field.