FanDuel MLB Thoughts and Tips for September 4th

I will be updating this throughout the day with more thoughts and tips.

Last night Carlos Gonzalez had two homers but was 1 for 17 lifetime against Ryan Vogelsong. This shows you that the whole batter vs. pitcher angle doesn't mean that much sometimes.

It's good information to have but you have to use it wisely. Don't pick a player just because a hitter did well in small sample sizes.

Batter vs. Pitcher

Brian McCann is 10 for 16 vs. Jake Odirizzi with two homers. How many of you will roster McCann because of these stats?

Bryce Harper is 9-21 against Julio Teheran with two homers and Jose Lobaton is 7-13 with two homers.

Jose Bautista is 2 for 29 against Ubaldo Jimenez. Does this mean you shouldn't roster Jose tonight?

Josh Donaldson is 2 for 15, Edwin Encarnacion is 6 for 30, and Justin Smoak is 2 for 20. Russell Martin is no better and is 9 for 37 against Ubaldo.

Jay Bruce is 11 for 30 with 3 homers off Matt Garza and Todd Frazier is 6 for 19 with 3 homers.

Skip Schumaker is 8 for 19 off of Garza but Schumaker is such a bad hitter right now.

Brandon Moss is 6 for 8 lifetime vs. JA Happ and Mark Reynolds is 0-16.

Gregory Polanco is 8 for 11 against Carlos Martinez.

Charlie Blackmon is 5 for 9 vs. Chris Heston with two homers and DJ LeMathieu is 6 for 9.

Best stacks:

Which game will be the highest-scoring game tonight? I'm looking at hitters' ballparks and I see a lot of runs being scored in Cincy when Garza of the Brewers takes on Sampson of the Reds.

You can make a case always in Coors where Heston of the Giants goes up against De la Rosa.

Heston relies on a sinker though and he could be effective in that ballpark with his pitches. De la Rosa pitches well at home too.

Orioles at Toronto sounds like a duel between great home run hitters on both teams.

Which pitchers do you want to stack against?

I am looking at Pelfrey of the Twins, Hutchison of the Blue Jays, and Sampson of the Reds.


As vs. Mariners:

I would target Valencia, Phegley, and Lawrie since they all hit lefties very well. Marcus Semien is also a good batter vs. lefties.

None of the Mariners have ever hit against Aaron Brooks.

Indians vs. Tigers

Michael Brantley, Francisco Lindor, Jerry Sands, Giovanny Urshula, and Jason Kipnis are good hitters to roster against average lefties like Lobstein.

Ryan Raburn and Carlos Santana might be good hitters to have tonight as well.

Alex Avila has two homers off of Tomlin, Miggy Cabrera is 4 for 9 with a homer, and Ian Kinsler is 5 for 10.

Pirates vs. Cardinals

Randall Grichuk, Mark Reynolds, Brandon Moss, and Johnny Peralta are your targets here against Happ. Peralta has 9 homers against lefties already this season.

Phillies vs. Red Sox

Rusney Castillo, Xander Bogarts,  and Mookie Betts are the best bets against a lefty like Morgan.


Giants vs. Rockies

You can't go wrong with Buster Posey, Andrew Susac, and Marlon Byrd when they take on lefties. Matt Duffy hasn't hit well against lefties but he's getting better at it. Angel Pagan is back from his injury and he has a proven track record vs. lefties as well.

Heston doesn't pitch as well against  left-handed hitters so target the Rockies who bat from the left side here. 

White Sox vs. Royals

Lorenzo Cain smashes lefties so he is in play tonight as one of your three outfielders.Kendrys Morales, Eric Hosmer, and Cain are the top three in hits against lefties in 2015.




Rangers vs. Angels

Mike Trout is a good target here at $4300. CJ Cron is also a good hitter against lefties this season.
Aybar has 38 hits vs. lefties. Shane Victorino is 3 for 3 against Perez.

Hottest hitters:

DJ Lemathiu   14 for 30

Didi Gregorious  14 for 24

Ryan Zimmerman 13 for 28 with 5 homers

Nolan Arenado 13 for 34 with 4 homers

Buster Posey 12 for last 25

Kyle Seager 12 for last 26

Joey Votto 11 for last 20

Charlie Blackmon 12 for last 34

Stephen Piscotty 12 for last 27

The pitchers I am starting tonight are Jacob degrom, Josh Tomlin, Aaron Brooks, Colin McHugh, and Mike  Bolsinger. I also have some rosters with Luis Severino. 

FanDuel MLB DFS Tips for 8/22/15

Last night in the GPP contests, the top winners all had Jerad Eickhoff as their pitcher and his price was only $3000 and he got 15 points.

Of course every winner had Cespedes in their LU too and he had 28.75 points.

I was rank in the top 60 in a GPP and won $60 with Kendry Flores as my pitcher. Flores was $5000 and if I had picked Eickhoff instead, I would have won $1000!

I probably would have won the GPP and $5,000 since I would have $2000 more in salary if I took Eickhoff over Flores. Talk about a huge blunder. I would have had more salary space to pick up a better 1b than Billy Butler!

No use to beat myself up over this but it gets frustrating when there's such a big difference in money. I usually have 10 to 15 entries in GPPs.

At the end of the night, I often win from two bucks to $40 bucks and on a good night, I can make from $50 to $100. If I end up losing money, it only is about 5 to ten bucks and I do end up breaking even often.

You might want to target batters in small ballparks tonight such as in Baltimore, Cincy,  Boston, Houston, and Colorado.

Which pitchers do you go against and stack four hitters tonight? I like to have a stack against
Delgado and Chris Rusin. Delgado will be on a pitch limit and hopefully the Reds can score some runs and get some hits and homers against the Arizona pitchers.

Let's go over all the positions on Saturday.

Pitchers -

Greinke $12,500
Gray $10,700
Martinez $10.400

These are the three most expensive pitchers. Martinez and Gray get to pitch against weak offenses in great pitching environments while Greinke is on the road in Houston but the Astros strike out a lot.

I don't like Martinez that much now as he has not been pitching like an ace and the Cardinals are no lock to win the game since their offense is struggling due to injuries and Ian Kennedy can pitch well against them.

The A's are no lock to beat the Rays too with Erasmo Ramirez on the mound but Gray should subdue their lineup.

I might want to take Greinke over these two pitchers since I know the Dodgers are motivated to hit after getting no-hit last night and Kazmir has shown cracks of late.

Cheaper alternatives are Yordano Ventura at $8300 and Kennedy at $7900. Do I really trust Ventura pitching on the road? I don't but I like the price tag and maybe he can do some damage against the Red Sox bats.

Carlos Rodon of the White Sox is cheap at $6800 and I like his strikeout potential. He struck out 11 Angels two starts ago and he could be a good cheap option vs. the Mariners.

I will have one LU with Joe Ross of the Nats at $7300. He has pitched better at home and he can get a lot of strikeouts against the Brewers.

There's a lot of cheap and bad pitchers today and I only like Randy Wolf at $4700 and Matt Barnes at $4600. Wolf is a Tiger now and he has a lot to prove coming from the minors. Wolf is 39 years old and it's his birthday so why not take a flyer on him against the Rangers? He might only get me 5 points but I would load up on expensive hitters and hope one of them hits 3 homers like Cespedes!

Barnes has swing and miss stuff and he had 7 strikeouts in his last start against the Indians. 

Catcher -

You should go cheap on catcher today since there's not a lot of quality hitting catchers tonight. Caleb Joseph is $3400 and that's too much for me. D'Arnaud is $3900 just because he's hitting at Coors.

Hundley at $3300 for the Rockies is on some of my LUs against the lefty Niese.

I also like Victor martinez batting cleanup today.

First Base -

There are so many expensive hitters at 1B. I like Joey Votto at home against a subpar pitcher in Delgado.


Second Base -

Dee Gordon is expensive at $4200 but he's on fire and I would pick him up if I could.

Third Base -

Josh Donaldson is at $5700 and I think I want to avoid him today even though he is up against a lefty. The price tag is just too high for me and I'll take my chances that he won't get multiple homers today off Heaney.

Arenado is $5100 but of his 30 homers, only two of them have come against a lefty and Niese is pitching for the Mets.

I might go with Uribe at $3400 and save some $.

Shortstop -

Tulo at $3800 seems affordable and he's up against a lefty but Heaney isn't a bad pitcher at all.

A bargain at $2400 might be Johnny Pererta of the Cardinals. Kennedy has given up 26 homers this season.

Outfielders -

Harper, Cargo, and Cespedes are all $4900. Which one is the best pick of the three?

Jay Bruce at $2800 is cheap but when will he ever hit a homer again or get some doubles? He is in a major slump.

AJ Pollock had a big night on Friday but at $4400, I don't like him today against DeSclafani. Desclafani is only 7-8 but he's a decent pitcher and not a gas can.