The Daily Grind: Weekend Update

Good news, bad news time. The good news is that The Daily Grind weekend edition will run on Sundays. The bad news is there will be frequent conflicts with my personal baseballing schedule. So this weekend version will be truncated. How truncated you ask? Well, behold!

AGENDA

1. Weather Reports
2. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
3. Fade Fade Fade
4. SaberSim Says…

1. Weather Reports

The weather will cooperate today. No rain in the forecast, and no temperatures below 50 degrees. For the record, I didn’t truncate this section, there’s just nothing to report.

2. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

Main Slate: The main slate is nine games deep starting at 1:10pm. We’ll focus our attention here today. Stephen Strasburg is the headlining act against what I can only assume will be a tired or euphoric Phillies offense. The Fightin’s popped 17 runs yesterday including 12 in the first inning. However, they were opposed by recently recalled Jeremy Guthrie. Strasburg should carve them up.

Lance McCullers is available with his patented blend of high value, short burst outings. The Royals offense remains contact-centric which may cut down on his totals. They’re not particularly fearsome, even with the help of Minute Maid Park.

Other DFS aces include Rick Porcello at Detroit, Carlos Martinez hosting the Reds, Jake Arrieta at Milwaukee, and Jose Quintana hosting the Twins. Martinez has the highest ceiling and floor of the bunch, and it’s reflected in his price. Porcello and Quintana are solid volume plays while Arrieta could be a fade after his weird velocity loss in the opener.

Below the upper crust is… a second crust. Odd, that. Here we find viable options like Julio Teheran, Marco Estrada, Gerrit Cole, and Jake Odorizzi. Individually, I’m not thrilled with any of these matchups. However, I’d willingly bet on at least one of them keeping pace with their more expensive comrades. Selecting which one could be the key to GPP gold. I still wouldn’t do it.

Once you break through all those crusts, we have a creamy potpie of bargain plays. CC Sabathia looked great in his season debut. He’s a high effort pitcher these days, succeeding by use of his wiles. His velocity was up last week. The Orioles aren’t a good matchup, but there’s a chance they spank Wade Miley.

Daniel Norris was a popular sleeper enter the season and thus he remains interesting. His first turn in the rotation was bumped due to rainouts. Norris may be a tad over-rested. Some pitchers do well when fresh while others lose 10 or 20 points from their command.

I put Raspberries in my oatmeal today. That could be the top play of the day.

Stack Targets: Zach Davies, Jeremy Hellickson, Scott Feldman, Miley, Nate Karns

3. Fade Fade Fade

Today, these will be rapid fire without any real analysis.

Stars: Arrieta could be underrepresented due to fear of his velocity loss. He still pitched well without it.

Miguel Cabrera has started sloooowly. DFS owners overreact to noticeable slumps.

Not that I’d use him here, but Odubel Herrera has second base eligibility on DraftKings. It’s all those zero innings he’s played there as a major leaguer.

Miguel Sano go BOOM.

Carlos Correa hasn’t rewarded his owners in days. I smell a big fly.

Bargains: Backup catchers as assigned.

Tyler Saladino has the leadoff man’s bonus combined with a (justifiably) low price.

Ronald Torreyes likes to ambush bad fastballs. I wonder if Miley knows… (yea, he knows).

Keven Kiermaier has a perfectly volatile profile at the dish. He’s a great selection to round out a DFS roster.

4. SaberSim Says…

Strasburg, McCullers, Arrieta, Quintana, and Estrada rule the roost according to SaberSim. The projection tool does not know about Arrieta’s velocity. Therefore, I’ll mention sixth ranked C-Mart too.

The top hitters are Anthony Rizzo, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Kris Bryant. Hmm… I wonder which offenses you should stack in shallow formats?