There is an early slate on this Saturday, which is how every Saturday should be for Baseball. Not to be confused with the Afternoon slate or a Very Early slate or a Morning Bird or whatever other names FanDuel wants to roll out there. This really isn’t that hard of a thing for them to do but they clearly just want to confuse every DFS player out there to the point where we just don’t end up playing on their site. Honestly, DK could have made the slate bigger as well but we’ll take the seven game slate which avoids some of the mid afternoon spots. Very pro move to leave those for a nice afternoon tilt which takes us back to College Sports Saturday’s in the fall/winter when we could just put in far too many lineups.
WEATHER
Some light rain in St. Louis between the Reds/Cardinals
No warm games, everything in the 50’s/60’s, very comfortable conditions but we do have some wind which is over 10 MPH in some areas which can only help hitting most likely
- Mariners vs Red Sox – wind out to right field
- Nats vs Mets – wind out to center
- Pie-rats vs Twinkies – wind out to right — cooler here than any other game
- Brewers vs Cubs – Wind out to left, but not extreme wind — however the way Wrigley is playing in day games this year it’s likely another favorable hitting spot
- Wind in at Comerica park for Royals-Tigers, but not extreme.
- Not sure on roof status in Houston. Could be open.
NATE EOVALDI
I will make the case for Eovaldi to be #1 today and really we’ve got 3-4 arms who all are interchangeable to classify as a #1 SP on this early slate. Eovaldi has continued to improve his fastball into one of the better ones in the game and has been throwing some heavy gas up to 100 MPH this season. The Mariners young kids are not the type to drill dead red gas and specifically France, Trammell, White, Crawford are all likely K candidates today. Kyle Seagers bat is getting old, Kyle Lewis’ bat isn’t broken in enough this year and Mitch Haniger … well Mitch Haniger is a great story I can’t say anything bad about him. None the less, of all these guys Eovaldi can make a strong case to have the most strikeouts today and his offense is rolling as well so he’ll get run support.
MARCUS STROMAN
There are three bad offenses that we’d look to pick on today. The Nationals (Stroman), the Pirates (Pineda) and the Tigers (Singer). Stroman of them all is not the one to expect a massive strikeout game but he has the best boost against the Nationals lineup which without Soto should continue to be a primary target for us. Stroman has thrown 85-86-90 pitches in his first three games and all were extremely efficient as he went 6+ innings in each of them and did what he normally does — keep the ball on the ground and generate lots of soft contact. He is less likely to run into trouble than Pineda, although either can be considered today.
BRADY SINGER
Brady Singer has been really great his last couple of starts but has received zero run support. While that usually seems to be a trend for some pitchers every year, he has a scenario today where the Royals core hitters are facing someone they’ve known and hammered for a while in Matt Boyd — so I like him to get some run support finally today and this is still a lineup we want to pick on even with a RHP. The Tigers are not as bad vs RHP as they are vs LHP but still carry a 26% strike-out rate and for $6,500 Singer should get us into double digit fantasy points as a solid SP2 today. Jonathan Schoop is a major problem though, so lets hope he has nobody on base when he comes up.
Other notes …
Freddy Peralta – He has dominated the Cubs, but this is the third time they will see him in a month so I am avoiding.
RED SOX
Verdugo – Devers – Bogaerts
Follow my logic here and tell me if the math checks out. About 10-11 months ago I would wake up at 5:15 AM in the morning to ensure that some dude named Hyung-So Kim or Kim is so Hung or Jeong Choi or TUCKER, PRESTON was in the lineup against Chris Flexen Deez Nuts. So math would tell us that we should probably look to play Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts and Alex Verdugo against him in Fenway Park, no? Alright. Thanks for the math check.
ROYALS
Whit – Soler – Dozier – Salvy
That was cute and all for Ryan O’Hearn and Andrew Benintendi to do the work last night for Kansas City. But today is about the Royals core hitters facing Matthew Boyd and Whit – Salvy – Soler are the trio to ride. Whit is 25-48 against Boyd in his career and yes he runs on the lefty because he has 9 doubles and I am 100% confident I have rostered him about five times in this match-up where he doubles, steals third and then scores. Salvy was white hot at home during the Royals recent home stretch but comes in shockingly 0-21 on the season against LHP. He gets the DH role after the night game last night and should snap that slump today. And then there’s Soler/Dozier batting 4-5 who if you are expecting the Royals to put up some more runs today, have to be in your lineups for the obvious Soler vs DET and Dozier vs Boyd (10-21, 2 HR) scenarios.
METS
Smith – Nimmo – Conforto – Lindor – Alonso
Some pitchers are good then bad then good then bad. But in the case of Joe Ross I believe he is more good-bad-bad-good-bad-bad than 50/50. He’s coming off a bad start when we attacked him with Cardinals and the Mets are not a good spot for him. In addition to having hit him well in the past, the ball is going to carry today in CitiField when it gets up in the air (why Stroman should be fine), and lefties have crushed Joe Ross this year — which is most of what the Mets will roll out and we get Lindor on his good side here too. Lindor+Alonso are the keys for a big game from this stack but the guys who you want to start with are Nimmo-Conforto and Dominic Smith. You’ll want two of those three when going with the Mets.
TWINS
Donaldson – Cruz – Buxton – Kiriloff
A- The model loves them and the model has been nailing teams that produce if you just look at the “top 5 overall each day”. B- It’s the Pirates so the combination of Cahill+Bullpen isn’t a bad one. But the weather here isn’t something I am extremely exicted about overall. The slate actually lacks good value on hitters, so we’re considering Alex Kiriloff for only $2100 here, especially if he draws a favorable spot in the order. And by favorable I mean behind Cruz/Buxton who are sure to get on base multiple times. Cahill has given up a ton of power to RH hitters, so a Twins stack does make some sense if you ignore the cooler temps in the Twin Cities.
CATCHER
- Salvy Perez – $5500 might scare you but pitching isn’t expensive so it’s a wash.
- Willson Contreras
- Kurt Suzuki
FIRST BASE
- Travis Shaw
- Jonathan Schoop
- Pete Alonso
SECOND BASE
- Whit
- Fill in from your core stack.
THIRD BASE
Loaded position on early slate, expect lots of offense here.
- Rafael Devers
- Alex Bregman
- Hunter Dozier
SHORTSTOP
- Francisco Lindor
- Carlos Correa
- Xander Bogaerts
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Jorge Soler
- Yordan Alvarez
- Alex Verdugo
- Dominic Smith
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Nelson Cruz
- Michael Conforto
- JD Martinez
- Michael Brantley
OUTFIELD – Value
- Alex Kiriloff
- Franchy Cordero
- Not much else
THE DONGERS CLUB
- Jorge Soler – OF – Royals – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Jonathan Schoop – 1B – Tigers
- Dominic Smith – OF – Mets
- Carlos Correa – SS – Astros
- Raffy Devers – 3B – Red Sox
- Whit Merrifield – 2B – Royals
- Kurt Suzuki – C – Angels
- Alex Kiriloff – OF – Twins
- BONUS ……………………… Francisco Lindor – SS – Mets
BETS
- Nationals / Mets OVER 7.5
- Pirates / Twins OVER 8