Home Run Derby: Friday, August 30th
Calling home runs, besides great fun, often makes the difference between a wildly profitable night in DFS and missing the cash line. Throughout the 2019 MLB season, I will endeavor to find a few home runs in three salary tiers on DraftKings. Join me throughout the year and call your home runs for monthly and seasonal RotoGrinders prizes. Without further ado, let’s play Home Run Derby!
Throughout this season, I will produce the Home Run Derby for main slates on DraftKings 2-3 days per week — selecting a home run from three different pricing tiers. If you want to call your home runs, please use these tiers for your selections to be eligible for any Derby prizes. Here are the tiers.
Luxury Box – $4,500 and above
Club Seats – $3,500 – $4400
Bleachers – Below $3,500
Hitters must be selected from the DraftKings Main Slate.
Schedule this Week: Monday, Tuesday, Friday
Happy Friday, Grinders! Did you miss me? We have waited far too long for one more crack at the Home Run Derby. Consequently, today’s article will be the last MLB article I write until 2020 as we smoothly (maybe not so smoothly) transition to the NFL next week. As many of you know, the article has not been featured this week because my wife and I welcomed our third child and first daughter — Addison Maria Cistaro.
Normally, I break into some banter to discuss my three home run picks. Mixed with the occasional GIF, I look to join the community through our mutual thirst for home runs while attempting to entertain. As the contest nears the end, I am not in the running for either of the final prizes. So, instead, I will wax today about what could be the best surprise I will ever experience.
With two boys at home already, my wife and I decided to let our third child’s gender be a surprise. After all, we had the boy stuff covered without issue and, between our nieces, we should have more than enough to welcome in a baby girl. For 40 weeks, we waited in anticipation — boy or girl? We agreed — sort of — on a shortlist of names for either sex and felt about as prepared as we could be to welcome in another life into our family.
Monday was quite the rollercoaster ride. My poor wife was experiencing contractions throughout Sunday night while letting me sleep (what a champ) because she knew there wasn’t really anything I could do to help. When the morning came, she indicated that she thought it was time. She had an appointment already scheduled with her doctor for her checkup so we would go see her and plan to go right to the hospital.
We get to the appointment and, despite my wife having actual contractions, she was not far enough along to warrant getting to the hospital, yet. So, we had lunch and went home hoping that the baby might come sooner than later. Well, sure enough…
After arriving at home and hanging out with the boys for a bit, everyone fell asleep — everyone except my wife. More contractions. Now closer. In the words of Rafiki of Lion King fame — “It is time.”
We traveled our way back to the hospital to see if she would be admitted. Like a running back that finishes with 101 yards, she just got enough to get the bonus… if you consider enduring hours of labor a bonus. We were admitted by 6:30. My wife went through five and half hours of brutal labor (her epidural did not quite work) and then, words I don’t think I will ever forget.
You have a baby girl. I couldn’t believe it. I know how embarrassing that might seem. A geometry teacher who cannot believe that a coin flipped heads. My body was taken over with emotion. I don’t think I could ever put into words how I felt when we received…
Our surprise. Addison Maria Cistaro was born at 12:09 AM on August 27th, 2019. She was 7 lbs. 15 oz. Mom and baby are doing great. We are home and assuredly life is going to continue to move so fast that I will yearn for the days when these little scamps are still — well, little. But, nothing will take away that moment.
Home run…
I am going to take a pass on calling home runs, tonight. I already feel like the biggest winner. So, instead, who will win the month? Nobody hit a home run last Friday. So, we have a RotoGrinders T-shirt to give away and a three-month combo premium subscription to give away. Anything can happen on a packed Friday night slate.
I will update with winners on Twitter on Saturday morning. May the best man/woman win. Also, thank you so much for sticking with this guy all season. Like last year, this baseball season has been a ton of fun and the article always brings me a ton of joy to produce. Stick around for the NFL season and we will have fun picking touchdowns.
Until then, good luck, everyone.
Leaderboard (sortable by column)
| Player | Total | August | 8/2 | 8/5 | 8/6 | 8/9 | 8/12 | 8/13 | 8/19 | 8/20 | 8/23 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| joeycis | 35 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| erichanlon | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| shanekern03 | 52 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| nrcave | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| mewhitenoise | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| boomanfoo | 33 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| allanturner84 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| hautalak | 27 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| TheDataDetective | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| infy72 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ropediddy | 27 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| bcorbett | 43 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| pastorthor | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MoccasinMusic | 28 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gillik9486 | 39 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Anttheman | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Curse | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| WestCrook1 | 42 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| oxlodge42 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| strgzer585 | 41 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| weave40 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| pryan000 | 36 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| HIPPYHD | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| apov22 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| whitetrashballerz | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| jsherman003 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| wcuball29 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| dhorton8813 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| yisman | 34 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SmoothLH20 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DJESQUIRE | 36 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| bigstacks2015 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Wencesace21 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BigPod | 11 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GBRollClones | 19 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| sochoice | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| firemedicpat | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| pabloplyr | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| dmurphhh | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| steinymj | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| jkfor20 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| tmirrione | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the article, stick around for the rest of the MLB season. Want to compete against me? Drop your expensive, mid-tier, and cheap home run calls in the comments (DraftKings pricing). Otherwise, give me a follow on Twitter where I typically post slate-relevant statistics and embarrassing comments about professional wrestling.
Statistics for this article are obtained from FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference, RotoGrinders Daily Research Console, and Baseball Savant.