Home Run Derby - MLB DFS Community Contest: Friday, August 12th
Happy Friday, Grinders! This past Tuesday the MLB provided 39 home runs for our hunt. Did the community capitalize and light up the leaderboard? With only a few weeks remaining, every slate gets crucially more important. Let’s see how we did prior to making a few home run calls for this summer Friday.
To answer the aforementioned question about the success of our community, well, no. No, we the community of home run hunters did not capitalize on the 39 home runs across the MLB slate. Instead, the only correct guess was Paul DeJong by BigPod and WestCrook1. The two added one tally mark to their total while the rest of us were left wondering what could have been. On the next one! Right?
Let’s get into today’s picks.
Reminder! Prizes were doubled for each month. Spread the word!
Rules, Tiers, and Prizes
Here are the cliff notes from the introductory rules and guidelines set forth in our opening article. If you want a bit more clarification, here is the first article with a more developed explanation for the contest.
In short, pick three players in the comments for tonight’s DraftKings Main MLB slate. You may pick one player from each of the tiers below.
Luxury Box – $5,000 and above
Promenade – $3,500 – $4,900
Bleachers – Below $3,500
You will collect home runs for every home run your batters hit that night. Selections must be made prior to lock time in the comments section. At the end of each month, prizes will be awarded to the community members with the most home runs. At the end of the season, additional prizes will be awarded to those members who put together the best totals for the entire season (ending in August).
The following prizes will be awarded to players based on their home run total for the month (April, May, June, July, August)
First Place – 2 months of RotoGrinders MLB Premium
Second Place – RotoGrinders T-shirt and hat
Third Place – 2 weeks of SAO Premium
The following prizes will be awarded to players based on their home run total for the entire baseball season (April – August)
First Place – One month of RotoGrinders Combo Premium
Second Place – RotoGrinders Swag Pack
Third Place – One month of SAO Premium
If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments or send me a message on Twitter.
Friday, August 12th MLB DFS Slate Notes
DraftKings offers a thirteen-game main slate tonight that locks at 7:05 PM EST. The Braves and Marlins just miss the slate while the Cubs and Reds have the night off. Coors Field is on the slate as the Diamondbacks travel to Colorado.
Weather seems to be a non-issue today. We should see plenty of nice temperatures and at the time of this writing, no threat of rain to delay or postpone games. Happy Friday, indeed.
Here is the HR/9 list for today:
Cory Abbot, WSN, 3.55
Adam Oller, OAK, 2.47
Domingo German, NYY, 2.04
Nathan Eovaldi, BOS, 1.92
Jose Berries, TOR, 1.83
Most of these chaps are very short on innings. Yet, Nathan Eovaldi brings a full complement of home run-riddled innings. Oh, and the Red Sox welcome the Yankees. Interesting.
Adam Oller, also, flaunts a decent enough sample size of innings and travels to Houston to face the now-first place Astros. Fortunately, Oller shouldn’t see too many powerful bats (sarcasm).
The Coors Field game looks pretty tasty on paper but the starting arms do a satisfactory job of keeping the ball in the park. Of all the Coors Field pitchers, Antonio Senzatela keeps the ball on the ground the most.
Let’s get to today’s picks for home runs.
Friday, August 12th MLB Home Run Picks
Luxury Box – Aaron Judge – OF – $6,500
I mean, yeah. The picture does a great job of making my intentions clear immediately. Sometimes, with this contest, it feels really good to just pull out the Aaron Judge card. Tonight in Fenway Park seems to be one of those nights.
Nathan Eovaldi resides on our HR/9 list each week and draws a horrific matchup for power. While Eovaldi could rack up some strikeouts, I expect a handful of baseballs to fly over the Green Monster, tonight.
Judge’s 45 home runs lead the league by a mile. A weekend series in Boston could bring that number very close to 50. Judge is +240 to hit a home run on FanDuel Sportsbook at the time of this writing.
Promenade – Alex Bregman – 3B – $4,900
Alex Bregman pulled a home run into the Crawford boxes last night and draws a very favorable matchup to repeat this evening. Adam Oller is also on our home run target list and will face the unenviable task of combating the Astros’ lineups on Friday night.
Bregman is a member of our 40/40 club against righties this season — just breaching 40% fly balls and hard contact. His ISO continues to climb closer to .200 as he racks up extra-base hits. While Yordan Alvarez steals most of the headlines, Bregman still remains a very viable power option at the heart of the Houston order.
Bregman boasts a +430 price and makes for a nice addition given Judge’s short price.
Bleacher Seats – Brandon Belt – 1B – $3,200
This range is pretty horrific this evening. I was hoping we might sneak a cheap bat in from Coors Field or even the Astros game but the well is very dry.
Brandon Belt will see a nice lineup spot at home against Bryse Wilson. While the home ballpark is not great for power, Belt has only played in San Francisco throughout his career and power hasn’t been an issue — just health. He is healthy now in a positive platoon matchup.
We add him to our parlay for +360 to round out our picks. We have a fun little parlay for +8189 this evening. Good luck!
Thanks so very much for reading. Give me a follow on Twitter for sports betting banter, golf tidbits, and professional wrestling reactions. We will see you again on Tuesday for a recap, leaderboard, and home run calls.
Player Image Credit: Imagn