Home Run Derby - MLB DFS Community Contest: Friday, June 24th
Happy Friday, Grinders! Tuesday night was a festival of power. The main slate yielded 50 home runs as summer is officially in business. Will Friday returns a similar haul?
With 50 home runs we did see a lot of movement on the leaderboard. Ohtani’s two home runs, Matt Olson, Pete Alonso, and Jared Walsh fueled the uptick in many scores on our board. The highlighted scores — not including myself — are prize winners for this month if scores hold. After today, Tuesday will be our last slate for the month of July.
Reminder! Prizes were doubled this 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 award 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, June 24th MLB DFS Slate Notes
The Friday night MLB slate on DraftKings starts at 7:05 PM EST with 14 games for the home run hunt. Four games are in domes. Coors Field is not on the slate. Despite the very capable pitchers, Yankee Stadium is likely the best hitting environment on the slate.
The weather for tonight seems to be a non-issue except for the chance of pop-up showers in Atlanta and Minnesota. We don’t see many steamy environments. Instead, we see relatively warm temperatures across the slate.
Here are the bottom six pitchers with regard to HR/9 pitching on tonight’s slate:
Rory Garcia, DET, 1.89
German Marquez, COL, 1.73
Kyle Hendricks, CHC, 1.72
Dylan Bundy, MIN, 1.67
Julio Urias, LAD, 1.54
Luis Severino, NYY, 1.36
Here are the six highest implied run totals featured on our starting lineups page:
Angels 5.27
Twins 5.27
Rangers 5.10
Cardinals 5.01
Royals 4.78
Diamondbacks 4.78
Let’s get to today’s picks. I need a bounce back performance after my airball on Tuesday.
Friday, June 24th MLB Home Run Picks
Luxury Box – Mike Trout – OF – $5,800
This won’t require much explanation. While there are several upper tier options to choose from, nothing really stuck out as a must-pick environment.
Mike Trout tore the Mariners up last week in a five-game set. With five home runs over five games, the Mariners will have Trout nightmares rekindled tonight in Anaheim. Chris Flexen is a guy. He throws baseballs. Yet, nothing is special enough about Chris Flexen to deter me from making what feels like a no brainer choice.
We ride with Mike Trout at a +220 sticker price on FanDuel. I don’t know how interested I am in betting that number but it certainly makes me feel great about this pick.
Promenade – Nolan Gorman – 2B – $3,700
Nolan Gorman hit two home runs on the Tuesday night slate when several of our Grinders had heavy interest in Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. Gorman draws a matchup against Kyle Hendricks in what should be a hot St. Louis home ballpark.
Gorman, in his small sample, is flashing all of the attributes we look for. High ISO, high hard contact, and heavy fly balls are part of Gorman’s arsenal against right-handers since being called up.
Hendricks is no longer the crafty, groundball machine that we relied upon to keep our DFS lineups together. Gorman is +420 to go long on FanDuel Sportsbook. Let’s make him our pick in this tier.
Bleacher Seats – Alek Thomas – OF – $2,900
Keeping up with the rookie theme, we call upon another standout call up in Arizona.
Admittedly, the play here is more about Thomas’ price and the opposing pitcher. Garcia brings the worst HR/9 on the slate to Arizona to face a sneaky Diamondbacks stack that will go heavy with left-handed hitters. On a full slate, this stack will likely be completely overlooked but brings plenty of price relief if you want to pay up for pitching or play a premium stack.
Alek Thomas currently sits at 47.4% hard contact at righties. In this range, that’s enough for me. With a +520 number, Thomas and Gorman fetch us a decent price if you add Trout to the parlay. A parlay pays +10415 so a $10 bet would be quite the windfall.
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