Home Run Derby - MLB DFS Community Contest: Tuesday, July 26th

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Happy Dinger Tuesday, Grinders! FanDuel Sportsbook brings our favorite promotion of the week. On top of a promotion requiring home run selection, we also have RotoGrinders Single Entry Series underway on FanDuel. For a Tuesday night, we have plenty to think about! Not least, a contest with a jam-packed leaderboard and a few great prizes at stake. Let’s review Friday night and then make some picks.

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Well, Aaron Judge punished yours truly for getting very cute on Friday. After picking Judge for a couple of consecutive slates and finally relenting, Judge went yard twice in Baltimore. Worse yet, a high volume of our community members collected those home runs for their July and seasonal totals. Many players landed those two home runs but 1010mg stood above with an additional bomb from Seth Brown.

All in all, the MLB provided 42 home runs on Friday. If we can see a similar output, tonight could be very lucrative. The leaderboard is very tight at the top as WestCrook1 clings to the top spot. The last two slates of the month occur tonight and on Friday. Who will win the top prize?

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 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.

Tuesday, July 26th MLB DFS Slate Notes

Tonight’s slate features 13 games on DraftKings. Our lock time is the standard 7:05 PM EST. The Cubs-Pirates and Marlins-Reds games are off the slate. Coors Field is on the slate as the Rockies welcomes the White Sox. Four games take place in domes.

The weather looks pretty good with a few required check-ins before lock time. We want to keep our eye on Baltimore, Kansas City, and Philadelphia as lock looms. Colorado seems likely to play without any issues.

Here are our HR/9 targets for this evening:

Kirk McCarty, CLE, 4.50 **
Tyler Gilbert, ARI, 2.08 **
Josiah Gray, WSN, 2.05
Jose Suarez, LAA, 1.80
Jose Berrios, TOR, 1.77

**Small sample sizes.

German Marquez holds a 1.56 HR/9 this season. At home, his HR/9 is 2.2. The White Sox feature a host of options in our middle tier.

The Subway Series commences tonight in the less favorable ballpark. That said, the ballpark doesn’t matter for several of the hitters we would target. Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Pete Alonso are never cheated with the baseballs they crush. A surprising realization I stumbled into earlier was that Taijuan Walker only owns a 0.39 HR/9 this season. While I don’t think that is important for some of these sluggers, I do think the ballpark and the pitching do matter a bit.

At the time of this writing, our lineups page lets us know that the Dodgers’ top four hitters are in the highest tier. Playing out West, the Dodgers often go overlooked. Against Josiah Gray, we must consider these options in a prime spot.

So, what will we do on Dinger Tuesday? Let’s make our picks.

Tuesday, July 26th MLB Home Run Picks

Luxury Box – Mookie Betts – OF – $5,500

So, after all of the commentary about Coors Field and the Subway Series, we zag. Why?

Well, as much as the Aaron Judge blunder was not fun on Friday, I don’t love the ballpark and matchup. Will I be shocked if he hits two home runs in a big game (for the first time in years)? Absolutely not. I just prefer to attack one of the worst HR/9 on the slate.

What about Coors Field? The matchups are excellent with German Marquez and Michael Kopech giving out hard contact like candy. Yet, these teams combined ISO numbers are just putrid. The White Sox feature only two players with a flyball rate north of 40% (Moncada and Sheets) and the Rockies features… none.

Gray gives up so much with regard to fly balls and hard contact to both sides of the plate. His 45.3% fly balls to righties and 51.9% to lefties (foreshadowing) are too tasty to pass on. I am going to open with Mookie and hope he pays off one of his four at-bats going yard.

Mookie does not have the best home run price at +260 on FanDuel so I might look elsewhere for Dinger Tuesday. That said, I feel as confident in him as anyone else on our slate to go deep.

Promenade – Max Muncy – 2B – $4,200

Muncy’s ISO is pretty low but boy are his fly balls and hard hits up. If Josiah Gray is my main target today I might as well add a guy with a 55.6% flyball rate against righties. Muncy sits with a measly 9.8% HR/FB rate — the lowest over the last five seasons. My guess is we see a bit of regression in a positive direction, home run-wise, and hopefully, that starts tonight.

Muncy offers a +390 price for a home run. We add him in our second slot.

Bleacher Seats – Jake Lamb – OF – $2,200

Well, I suppose we should just stack it up. Lamb is dirt cheap but with his limited sample against RHP this season, he is hitting the ball very hard. He is surely a pinch-hit risk but for our low-tier guy, I will hope he gets there in his first two at-bats. Gray gives up such a high volume of fly balls and hard contact against both sides of the plate. On a Coors Field day, the Dodgers make for a really nice stack.

Lamb closes our ticket with a +560 price on FanDuel. That bumps our SGP to +10601 — a very nice return for a cheap ticket.

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 Friday for a recap, leaderboard, and home run calls.

Player Image Credit: Imagn

About the Author

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Joe Cistaro (joeycis)

A high school mathematics teacher from New Jersey, Joe Cistaro (aka joeycis) is a lifelong fantasy sports fan. As a member of the RotoGrinders community, Joe cut his teeth writing for the website through the blogging program. Previously engaging the community with articles such as Home Run Derby and Finding Paydirt, Joe now focuses his time on sports betting content for both the NFL and the PGA TOUR. Follow Joe on Twitter – @ JoeCistaro