Home Run Derby: Friday, August 9th

by Joe Cistaro (joeycis) Last Updated 2019-08-09 20:34:53

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!

Follow Joe on Twitter

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! We are back for a loaded Friday slate after a pretty exciting Tuesday night in baseball. The slate of games finally produced — we saw 51 home runs — and as a result, the leaderboard was moving and shaking. Tonight, the Bronx Bombers are playing… well, does it really matter who they play at this point? The Red Sox welcome Jaime Barria to Fenway. The Astros travel to Baltimore. We have fourteen total games to sift through and hunt for home runs. So, what do you say? Shall we? Here are my three picks for tonight and a leaderboard update to follow.

The statistics for each player are for the 2019 season.

Luxury Box

Mike Trout — OF – $5,800

Trout in 2019 – .369 ISO, 47.9 FB%, 44.4 Hard%, 90.6 MPH aEV

Johnson vs RHH – .283 ISO, 89.5 MPH aEV, 32.6 FB%, 39.5 Hard%

Mike Trout is currently -670 to win the American League MVP. Those odds will become even greater after this weekend. With the Fenway Park wall to pepper repeatedly, Trout could be in for a pretty big offensive weekend. I like Trout in this tier not just because he is Mike “bleeping” Trout — but because the Astros are in Baltimore. On a huge slate, pick percentage will be split anyway but Houston’s full team of $5K hitters will split plenty of the ownership against Dylan Bundy. Moving off of that and hoping Trout hits two home runs can help move me up the leaderboard come next week.

Brian Johnson can not miss right-handed bats and will see plenty of them tonight. Good luck.

Club Seats

Aaron Judge – OF – $4,200

Judge in 2019 – .210 ISO, 27.5 FB%, 55.0 Hard%, 96.9 MPH aEV

Reid-Foley vs RHH – .091 ISO, 87.4 MPH aEV, 34.6 FB%, 46.2 Hard%

Aaron Judge is cheaper than Mike Tauchman…

Judge has not produced his normal home run total since coming back from injury this season. Maybe I am being a bit biased. Maybe I am just trying to will a home run because I took Judge this week in the RotoGrinders Home Run Derby pool. I can’t justify not picking Judge in this tier. Nope. Can’t do it.

Sean Reid-Foley has a really annoying name to type and an unsustainable 6.7 HR/FB%. That all changes, tonight.

Unreal… guess I will pivot to Didi in the same tier.

Bleachers

Ryan O’Hearn – 1B – $2,800

O’Hearn in 2019 – .140 ISO, 37.0 FB%, 34.9 Hard%, 89.5 MPH aEV

Jackson vs LHH – .206 ISO, 90.6 MPH aEV, 39.6 FB%, 41.7 Hard%

Wait… ahem, Edwin Jackson is pitching again in 2019? Are you sure? Okay…

Sorry about that, my imaginary co-writer (and/or extra personality) has just informed me that Edwin Jackson is pitching against the Royals, tonight. First, what the hell? Imagine being a minor league hurler hoping to get the call and hearing that Edwin Jackson is taking that spot. Gross.

Second, I am taking a Royal. I don’t even really care who at the moment. Ryan O’Hearn is in this tier? What’s his fly ball rate? Oh, who cares. Done.

Leaderboard (sortable by column)

Finally, we were rewarded for our patience with 51 home runs on Tuesday night. You know baseball is chalk-filled with variance when Tucker Barnhart was the guy to have for home runs. Boomanfoo took advantage with a massive three-HR night. This propelled him to a tie for second place with a few others but another bomb from DJESQUIRE placed him in first place with five home runs. MoccasinMusic and WestCrook1 rounded out the slate with two home runs apiece.

Those two home runs proved very valuable for WestCrook1 as he is not just five back of shanekern03 for the overall lead. I asked for some competition and I received it. Here’s hoping the two titans battle back and forth down the stretch as we prepare to crown our overall winner.

Will I hop off the schneid and get back to my July form? How many home runs will the Yankees hit, tonight? Will the Astros drop double digits on the Orioles? This slate is packed with the offense and run-scoring potential — should be a fun one. I will be back next week to update the leaderboard and recap what happens, tonight. Until then, good luck, everyone.

I am happy to announce that at the end of each month I will be rewarding the highest home run total with a RotoGrinders T-shirt. Having a rough month? Don’t let up. The RotoGrinders member with the most home runs throughout the season — until the end of August — will be awarded a 3-month Combo Premium subscription to start the NFL season!

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.