Home Run Derby - MLB DFS Community Contest: Tuesday, June 21st
Happy Dinger Tuesday! FanDuel Sportsbook offers our favorite night of the week for MLB promotions. Bet $25 on a home run for every game and receive $5 towards a big free bet for every home run hit in the game — win or lose! We also have a contest with only a handful of slates left and great prizes still up for grabs. While Hendo2132 and I are duking it out for the top spot, second and third place are very much in play for everybody in the pool as of this slate. Make sure to leave your picks in the comment to be eligible for this month’s prizes.
Friday brought a decent output relative to the number of games on the slate. We shouldn’t be that upset with 31 home runs given only twelve games to choose from. Byron Buxton and C.J. Cron cashed in for a handful of us while Luke Voit and Manny Machado disappointed the masses in Coors Field. As mentioned above, Hendo has a strong hold on the first place prize (I am excluded) but the prizes for second and third place are very much up for grabs. Also, given the potential to collect 3 or more home runs on any given slate, first place can be back in play with a big slate. Make your picks! Make your bets! Let’s go!
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.
Tuesday, June 21st MLB DFS Slate Notes
The main slate begins at 7:05 PM EST with 13 games on tap. There are four dome games with no Coors Field. The two 6:40 PM games are not on today’s slate.
The MLB weather looks great at the time of this writing. With no potential for rain, for now, I would give the WeatherEdge tool a look to see which environments historically yield the most power.
One of the top weather contexts seems to be in Chicago for the White Sox tilt with the Blue Jays. The temperatures are very hot with winds blowing out to left field. Both teams are rife with right-handed power but… there’s always a but… Both pitchers suppress home runs at an elite level. Will the weather change that?
In Minnesota winds are blowing out to center field. In this game, we do have a pitcher to attack in Aaron Civale who just misses our worst five in HR/9 this season. Speaking of that list…
Matt Swarmer, CHC, 4.35
Chi Chi Gonzalez, MIL, 2.57
James Kaprielian, OAK, 2.18
Beau Brieske, DET, 1.98
Jose Urquidy, HOU, 1.76
The top two names are for extremely small samples on the season. Gonzalez, though, has given up north of a home run per nine innings over the last four seasons.
At the time of this writing, in the morning, here are the highest implied run totals for our slate.
Red Sox 5.63
Braves 5.35
Angels 5.16
Twins 5.09
Cardinals 4.90
The Red Sox draw a stellar power matchup with Beau Brieske and will likely warrant consideration. Further, Nolan Arenado and the Cardinals will square off with Chi Chi in Miller Park.
I think we have a very interesting slate this evening. We certainly have plenty of opportunities to attack but where can we go in each tier? Pricing will clearly make the difference. Let’s start.
Tuesday, June 21st MLB Home Run Picks
Luxury Box – J.D. Martinez – OF – $5,100
This tier is so tricky, tonight. I made a short list of considerations and landed on Byron Buxton, Paul Goldschmidt, J.D Martinez, or Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. I am sure that we might see a home run or two from a couple of these guys this evening. I went with Martinez because Brieske seems like the most likely to give up a long ball from the list of opposing pitchers. Brieske surrenders plenty of fly balls and hard contact to righties.
Fenway Park is always an attractive locale for right-handed power. Admittedly, line drives becomes singles, but high fly balls have a chance given the dimensions. Martinez isn’t lighting the world on fire this year but his eight home runs are more than sufficient evidence that he is a consistent power threat.
We will start here but will also sweat the other names on the short list. Perhaps, I can use them for the FanDuel promotion. Speaking of FanDuel, we get a +380 sticker price on Martinez tonight.
Promenade – Nolan Arenado – 3B – $4,800
Unlike the tier above, this tier feels too easy tonight. I could not believe my eyes when I noticed that we get a 47%+ fly ball hitter in this range in Nolan Arenado. Facing Chi Chi Gonzales in Miller Park. Yes, please.
Arenado is the archetype of the hitter we want in this context. Heavy fly balls. High hard contact rate. Arenado is matchup proof even with the move out of Coors Field.
We don’t have to worry about a matchup, however. As mentioned above, Chi Chi Gonzales is not opening up his 2022 in a strong way. Dating back to last season, his hard contact rate against right-handed hitters is 53% with fly balls near 40%. This feels like a great place for a SGP lotto ticket on the Cardinals.
We don’t have a price yet on Arenado on FanDuel Sportsbook. Let’s hope we get north of 3/1.
Bleacher Seats – Oneil Cruz – OF/SS – $2,000
I don’t play much on DraftKings but even I can see a free square when we get on on a slate. The newly called up Oneil Cruz is $2,000 at the SS position. Load him into your DFS lineups.
When we get to this tier, we are grasping at straws anyway. The temperatures seem really warm in Pittsburgh in a park that otherwise suppresses power. In his debut, Cruz collected two hits and feels like a hitter poised for higher pricing very, very soon.
Matt Swarmer is getting tattooed in his small sample of 20 innings thus far in 2022. With over 4 HR/9, thus far, he seems like a decent pitcher to attack for this range. I am sure I won’t be alone with this pick.
Cruz sits at +420 to hit a home run in this game on FanDuel. That is second behind only Ian Happ. Assuming we get a 3/1 price on Arenado, we should see a nice price point for a cheap parlay. I will also gladly use these three as my starting three for the FanDuel Dinger Tuesday promotion.
Check Twitter this evening for my Dinger Tuesday home run card for FanDuel’s promo. 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 Friday for a recap, leaderboard, and home run calls.
Player Image Credit: Imagn