May Dongers Club Appreciation Contest – Day #2:
Click Here to Enter on DraftKings
Rules for tonight:
Friday, May 27th: Chairman Bonus … If you play the Chairman and he homers, you get 2x his points. If you fade the Chairman and he doesn’t homer, you get 2x the points of the player at the same position (The Chairman will not be an OF)
Standings will be updated after tonight so that you know where everyone stands going into next Tuesday’s final round.
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Friday, May 27th …
The White Sox and Cubs will play this weekend but someone at MLB headquarters decided they shouldn’t play today — which is absurd. At any rate, we have 13 games tonight with some Tornado warnings coming through the east coast too. Fun times!
WEATHER
- Rockies at Nationals – Rainy/Stormy. Very dicey situation here during the day with Tornado warnings, however if they are after 6pm and haven’t announced a DELAY or PPD then I would imagine they will play despite flying cows and stuff.
- Guardians at Tigers – Rain and bad baseball. Probably try to get it in.
All other games look good to go.
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JUSTIN VERLANDER (DK: $10.5k)
Verlander has faced the Mariners twice this season, they’re a young team and he had 8K over 8IP in the first meeting while they got to him a little bit in the second meeting knocking him for a whopping 2 ER and only 3 SO. Today we go back to Verlander dominating the Mariners batters and I really don’t expect anything less than 7 innings and 9 strikeouts.
SEAN MANAEA (FD: $9.7k)
Manaea has become the trusted depth guy for the Padres. Two of his last 4 starts he has gone over 100 pitches, including 110 against the same Pie-Rats on April 30th. They won’t give you the same strikeout upside that Verlander will have but I do see us getting 7 innings out of the lefty tonight, making him option 1b after Verlander and on FanDuel this is an $1,100 difference
JON GRAY (DK: $5,500)
One of the more chalky plays tonight will be Shane Bieber, but there is ole Jon Gray at $5.5k vs the pathetic Athletics out in Oakland who I think will be close to him in ownership tonight. Go ahead and ride it though, this isn’t some rookie kid who will get beat up and knocked out by the 2nd inning as Gray is going to see a heavy RH lineup which plays to his splits of allowing just .377 xSLG and 26% strikeout rate to the RH batters.
SLEEPER
ALEK MANOAH
No, I didn’t want to just post the GIF below since we have Manaea and Manoah going…. Alright, yes, I did. Honestly though the Angels strikeout rates continue to stay high and Manoah being a guy with electric stuff who has managed to pitch better when facing strong lineups makes me think he can dominate this slate tonight at low ownership. I would prefer to roll him out as the SP2 with Verlander and play for a combined 60 fantasy points when nobody else will have that combination.
PITCHING LEFTOVER THOUGHTS
Brad Keller did not make my list because of Gray being in ag ood spot, but welcome to Brad Keller’s strong game. He is a DK play.
I mentioned Shane Bieber being a heavy ownership play, he’s getting Detroit for the second straight start and is coming off a 40% CSW game last weekend. The velocity is down but he will be just okay. I think JV and Manaea out score him though. He would be a DK only play IMO. Take JV or Sean on FD.
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RED SOX
JD Martinez, Alex Verdugo, Trevor Story
So the hottest offense in Baseball gets to go back home in a warm and humid environment vs Kyle Bradish and the Orioles? Cool cool. While you might want to rush and play Trevor Story today, we should consider the man in front of him to get the best treatment on the board and Alex Verdugo is cheap and splits well vs Kyle Bradish.
ASTROS
Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel, Michael Brantley, Kyle Tucker
Houston is in just as good of a spot as the Dodgers but is cheaper and will be lesser owned.
Other Teams I would focus on for offense
Rays, Orioles, Padres, Braves
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CATCHER
- Will Smith
- Austin Nola
- Jacob Stallings
FIRST BASE
- Matt Olson … Olson has decent enough spltis vs LHP and should be behind lots of good RH hitters today with a high RBI potential. Often times we simply get caught homer hunting and overlook someone who is a good player in an obvious good spot to have a 3-4 game with lots of RBI.
- Rowdy Tellez
- Yuli Gurriel
SECOND BASE
- Jose Altuve
- Trevor Story … Seems…. Good?
- Jazz Chisholm
THIRD BASE
This is last night’s version of the Goldy/Freeman nugget on FanDuel where I said to play them both. I would play both Arenado and Machado here today or look at Justin Turner as a Dodger one off.
- Nolan Arenado
- Manny Machado
- Justin Turner
SHORTSTOP
Worst position on the slate tonight. when we account for Trea’s price, Xanders splits and other stuff…
- Dansby Swanson
- Amed Rosario
- Jorge Mateo
- Wander Franco
OUTFIELD – Mt Rushmore
- Alex Verdugo
- Andrew Benintendi
- Yordan Alvarez
- Trey Mancini
OUTIFELD – TIER 2
- Kyle Schwarber
- JD Martinez
- Manuel Margot
- Jurickson Profar
OUTFIELD – Value
- Brian Anderson
- Anthony Santander
- Enrique Hernandez … Also known as Kike
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- Nolan Arenado – 3B – Cardinals – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Alex Verdugo – OF – Red Sox
- Trevor Story – 2B – Red Sox
- Andrew Benintendi – OF – Royals
- Brian Anderson – OF – Marlins
- Rowdy Tellez – 1B – Brewers
- Amed Rosario – SS – Guardians
- Will Smith – C – Dodgers
- BONUS …………………… Manny Machado – 3B – Padres
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OWNERSHIP BREAKDOWN
This feels very clear cut today and Jon Gray to me is good chalk against Oakland as a value pitcher on DraftKings. But there are good pitchers who are getting overlooked a little bit as SP1 because Shane Bieber will be the highest owned top end arm vs Detroit. I would not have 100% Bieber tonight and prefer Verlander and Manaea over him.
DK SP: Bieber, Verlander, Manaea, Gray
DK Contrarian SP: Alek Manoah, Brad Keller
FD SP: Bieber, Manaea, Verlander
FD Contrarian: Alek Manoah, Jon Gray
Boston will be the highest owned offense on both sites
Houston and Tampa are the lowest owned stacks that I would use
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BETTING PLAYS
Rockies/Nationals UNDER 9.5
Cleveland ML
Philadelphia ML
Tampa ML
Kansas City ML
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