CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings: Friday, May 7th

Happy Friday! Before we get into this 14-game slate, we’ve got a little something to discuss. Earlier this week, I was posting an afternoon update to the Musings, and I quickly typed the phrase ‘thrown into whack’ without really thinking about it. I was aware that wasn’t really what the people say, but it felt right. Then yesterday on Crunchtime, I was commenting on the Twins lineup and said something like, that lineup kind of threw that stack into whack. There it is again, ‘into whack.’ As we all know, the phrase that gets bandied about when something goes awry is ‘thrown out of whack.’ We’ve all heard it, we’ve all said it. But, hold on, what are we really saying here? Maybe I just don’t understand what ‘whack’ is? But it seems to me that in the phrase ‘thrown out of whack’, whack is essentially acting as a state of confusion or disarray. Maybe whack is a place or an object or a state of being, but whatever it is, I’ve always taken it to mean whack is just where things go to become a mess. Well, if that’s the case, then if you were to throw something ‘out of whack’, wouldn’t you be helping it? Like clearing things up. “well, at least it’s not in whack anymore!”. And then, if that’s the process, if you wanted to mess something up, you would throw it into whack, not out of it. Right? What am I missing?

Until further notice, or until I have this explained to me, and maybe gain a better understanding of where or what whack is, and why being in it is not bad, I’m officially switching the phrase to ‘thrown into whack.’ I emailed President Biden this morning (joebiden@aol.com) to see about forming a more official committee to make this change more publicly known. But for now, we start with our little corner of the world, where we hope nothing happens to throw this slate into whack!

Friday Night Pitching

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This is a very intriguing group of pitchers tonight, as we have a couple known aces, along with several of this seasons breakout pitchers. We’re going to be forced to decide how much to buy into these hot starts with guys like Rodon, Rogers and Urias. There is not a clear dividing line as to where the top tier ends and the second tier begins, but for the sake of some comparisons, I want to start with these five pitchers, looking at just the small sample 2021 stats:

Blake Snell at San Francisco – 31.6% K, 12.8% BB, 3.51 ERA, 3.71 SIERA
Jack Flaherty vs Colorado – 25.9% K, 7.2% BB, 3.41 ERA, 3.77 SIERA
Trevor Rogers vs Milwaukee – 33.8% K, 10% BB, 1.91 ERA, 3.27 SIERA
Carlos Rodon at Kansas City – 37.9% K, 9.5% BB, 0.72 ERA, 2.82 SIERA
Julio Urias at LA Angels – 28.8% K, 4.1% BB, 2.87 ERA, 3.09 SIERA

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About the Author

CheeseIsGood
Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

One of the preeminent baseball minds in all of fantasy, Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood) has won contests at the highest levels of both season-long and DFS. He is a 2x winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize in DFS; having won the 2014 FanDuel baseball Live Final and following that up by taking down a DraftKings Milly Maker Tournament in 2015. In addition, he’s won the Main Event championship in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship and the NFBC Platinum League, which is the highest buy-in entry league. His consistent success in the NFBC tournaments earned him a prestigious spot in their Hall of Fame. Dave can also strum a mean guitar while carrying a tune, and if you’re lucky, you’ll see him do so on one of his MLB Crunch Time appearances. Follow Dave on Twitter – @DavePotts2