Today is a Friday. So there are going to be 15 games tonight, right? RIGHT?? Newp. The Cubs, the CUBS of all teams, are being sent over to London to play in London for some unknown reason. They of course are playing the Cardinals and if you dont think Paul Goldschmidt could double as a guard at Buckingham Palace then I don’t know what else to tell you.
So yeah, do the math people, this means there is no Cubs afternoon game on Friday, June 23rd. I am once again letting MLB know that I am available for hire to do their schedule.
We also have four teams who insist on doing 6:40 PM start times tonight, and God forbid FD or DK decide to give us a full 14 game slate with those on them. This means no Braves/Reds, no Twins/Tigers, no Pirates/Marlins and no Royals/Rays. I know you are all very sad.
WEATHER
Could be ugly, but its trending better than I thought.
A 10 game slate tonight which includes the Angels in Coors Field and has weather issues in the following spots. I am going to put High/Med/Low next to each game which designated the chances that the game is PPD.
- Mariners at Orioles – Med
- Mets at Phillies – Med
- Rangers at Yankees – Med/Low
- Brewers at Guardians – Low
I do not look at my Dashboard when I first go through deciding on the pitchers I want to look at. I have a process where I just look at each game and quickly determine who I want to consider and who I do not. So the fact that my 3 guys here are EXACTLY how they are on the Dashboard (as of Noon) is total coincidence.
Then again, I am the guy who built the logic that goes into the ratings, so I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a shocker, should it?
None of the SP’s to consider tonight have rain issues.
TOP PITCHER
PATRICK SANDOVAL (DK: $6800 / FD: $8200)
This is not a ‘leverage’ against Coors play. I really think Sandoval in Colorado is a solid option and in fact, any lefty right now vs the Rockies is going to be worthy of usage unless Jurickson Profar decides to have his 3 game hot streak or guys like Montero, Montes or Doyle — which sounds like a cross between an ABC sitcom about three Colorado Springs police officers and a Scinemax after dark show about the same Colorado Springs police officers who double as porn stars — decide to start hitting.
Now that I have completely lost your attention, just trust me that Sandoval will win the slate
SECONDARY OPTIONS
JOE MUSGROVE (DK: $8800 / FD: $8900)
Moose is almost an auto-play in a night time PETCO start, getting the Nationals certainly isn’t going to deter me off that train either. Don’t expect some huge strikeout spot here, but you should get 6 innings, a win and 18-20 points on a quiet pitching night that works well.
CHRIS BASSITT (DK: $9200 / FD: $9300)
The Hound Dog dominated his team from a year ago – The Mets – back on June 2nd and has proceeded to run into a brick wall in his last two starts vs quality opponents. He’ll face another former team in Oakland tonight back in Toronto. He should recover with a quality outing since Oakland’s lefties aren’t doing much of late.
OTHER NOTES
In the bad weather spots only Shane Bieber and Kyle Gibson have any potential value and neither have enough to bother taking a risk in bad weather.
I can see Logan Webb having a good outing vs a good Arizona team who in a short span flew from Milwaukee -> Washington, DC and then back out to San Francisco. But going east to west is better than going west to east on the last leg here, so I don’t think they’ll be that jetlagged.
The bad weather games have some great hitting potential if the rain would just go away and nobody is a better pick tonight than the New York Mets, who secretly got hot in Houston and should destroy Taijuan Walker tonight if they decide to play this game. Nimmo, Lindor, Alonso and Alvarez all homer in an alternate reality where this game decides to play without rain. Unfortunately, I am pretty confident the game gets PPD.
Beyond that, we have lots of ‘expensive’ teams who are good today, but we should not be sacrificing our pitching to force in two of them, so its an anchor around one team and then fill in with value one offs kind of night.
You do not need to be paying some flashy new tout site $79 a month or $99 a month for analysis on “here are the top 6 stacks” to use. I’m fucking good at identifying individual plays, and you should continue to build around that.
METS
Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Fransico Alvarez, Starling Marte
If the game is delayed we could pivot off this one as a divisional series they’ll have no problems making it up later. But for now its trending in a go direction.
DODGERS
Mookie Betts, Will Smith, JD Martinez, Chris Taylor
The fans care way more about this ‘rivalry’ than the players do — but with JP France being horrific vs RHH and the top of that Dodgers lineup being good at home, we would be silly not to back the Mookie-Smith-Martinez train.
ANGELS
Ohtani, Ward, Rengifo, Renfroe
Angels in Coors vs Freeland or Padres in PETCO vs Corbin. This really is a no-brainer folks. It’s the Angels here even at their expensive prices.
BEST SPOTS FOR VALUE PLAYS
White Sox: Eloy, Benitendi, Vaughn
Oakland: Noda, Bleday
They’re not good, but the LHB do get Bassitt who has been rough vs LH of late, almost as if he is on the Manoah diet. In a non Bassitt lineup just take Noda at 1B and move on.
CATCHER
- Francisco Alvarez
- Will Smith
- Gary Sanchez
- Chad Wallach … Cool, 2800 guy in Coors who hits lefties decently.
FIRST BASE
- Pete Alonso
- Ryan Noda … Be the one lefty who takes Bassitt deep he will, yes.
- Nelson Cruz
SECOND BASE
- Luis Rengifo
- Ketel Marte
- Miguel Vargas
THIRD BASE
- Rafael Devers – Really like Devers and this game in general to have some under the radar HR upside.
- Chris Taylor – Can be used at OF too
- Matt Chapman
SHORTSTOP
Corey Seager and Francisco Lindor much like Alonso and Lowe are #1/#2 without rain.
- Mookie Betts – Anywhere you can get him in today would be wise.
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Shohei Ohtani (Trout obviously fine too, duh). Ohtani homers though.
- Eloy Jimenez
- Taylor Ward
- Jarred Kelenic – Leading off.
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
Most in rain spots
- Starling Marte
- Kyle Schwarber
- Giancarlo Stanton
- JD Martinez
OUTFIELD – Value
- Mike Yastrzemski
- Jesse Winker
- Chas McCormick
- David Peralta
- Pete Alonso – 1B – Mets – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Mookie Betts – SS – LA Dodgers
- Eloy Jimenez – OF – White Sox
- Rafael Devers – 3B – Red Sox
- Francisco Alvarez – C – Mets
- Ketel Marte – 2B – Diamondbacks
- Shohei Ohtani – OF – Angels
- Jarred Kelenic – OF – Mariners
- BONUS ……. Ryan Noda – 1B – Athletics
TODAY’S BETTING ANALYSIS
Good Over Upside — Meaning these have best potential to go way over…
- Astros/Dodgers
- Red Sox/White Sox
- Mets/Phillies
Good Under Upside — Meaning best potential to be a 2-1 or 5-2 type game.
- Nationals/Padres
- Brewers/Guardians
ML Targets
- White Sox
- Angels
LINEUP CONSTRUCTION / FINAL THOUGHTS
I feel like I have been locked in on the proper build for lineups all week long, whether it’s taking the assurance on pitching, building around a singular team (yesterday) or spreading out the builds (Tuesday).
Tonight is a little bit of everything. Tonight you should really build off who is going to give the most bang for your buck on pitching, which I firmly believe is Patrick Sandoval at $6,800, and then pair that with the star to hit 2 HR tonight (because someone is) like Mookie or Ohtani and the bottom of the order cheap guy who is in a great spot that might get overlooked (Chris Taylor, Luis Rengifo, etc.)…
Then fill in your stack off that to give you the most upside.
If we make it close to lock without PPD announcements in the rain spots and you want Mets or Rangers then go all in, don’t just have 1 or 2 bats which could get PPD, go 4+.
CORE
Patrick Sandoval
Mookie Betts