Home Run Derby - MLB DFS Community Contest: Tuesday, June 28th
Happy Dinger Tuesday, Grinders! FanDuel Sportsbook is running back Dinger Tuesday. You know what that means! Free bets for home runs. As for our contest, today’s slate is the last in July which means some prizes will get doled out after tonight. Who will close on the top of our leaderboard?
Speaking of the leaderboard, Friday’s slate was not very friendly to home run hunters. With only seventeen home runs, our community struggled to find any bombs. Mike Trout was the exception, providing a tick mark for all of us that led off with the slugger. While I won’t win a prize, I sure will look to take the lead back over to close the month. Let’s get after it tonight and find a ton of home runs on a huge slate.
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 28th MLB DFS Slate Notes
I am not sure we could have asked for a better slate to close out the month of July. The entire MLB is playing tonight starting at 7:05 PM EST. Five games are in domes. Coors Field is on the slate… we will get back to that.
The Los Angeles Dodgers boast a 6.60 run implied total per our starting lineups page. The Dodgers let the DFS world down last night, getting blanked by Chad Kuhl and the Rockies. I can’t imagine the Dodgers’ lineup will continue this trend against Kyle Freeland.
The Blue Jays at home against Michael Wacha are the only other team projected for more than five runs at the time of this writing.
The weather is great tonight. Wrigley Field will see winds blowing out while Coors Field is very warm with winds blowing out. I think avoiding Coors Field is going to be very tricky.
Here are tonight’s highest HR/9 starting pitchers:
Chase Silseth, LAA, 2.20
Patrick Corbin, WSN, 1.59
Jon Heasley, KCR, 1.52
Brandon Woodruff, MIL, 1.44
Robbie Ray, SEA, 1.39
With so many options, anything can happen tonight. Who is going yard? Let’s start.
Tuesday, June 28th MLB Home Run Picks
Luxury Box – Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – 1B – $5,700
For the final slate, we are going to stack a couple of studs because of pricing. Vlad the Impaler of baseballs leads off for us with his power-hitting prowess in a great matchup. Michael Wacha is nothing to write home about; the Blue Jays boast a lofty total for a reason.
With 44.1% hard-contact against righties, Wacha is going to struggle to get through this Blue Jays lineup this evening. The Jays make for a very reasonable stack when their ownership can’t possibly get too lofty. With the Dodgers in Coors and 13 other games to choose from, Toronto could win you a tournament tonight.
Vlad leads off for us here but we are also interested in the Jays leadoff hitter. Vlad offers a +360 price tonight on FanDuel Sportsbook.
Promenade – George Springer – OF – $4,900
Rinse. Repeat. All of the aforementioned flaws in Wacha’s game are ripe for an onslaught by adding another Blue Jay to my card. George Springer continues to be oen of the more dominant leadoff hitters in the game.
A member of the 40/40 club (fly balls and hard hits), Springer brings a .277 ISO against right-handed pitching to the plate this evening at home. The stack has worked in the past for us, I don’t mind having a couple of options tonight. This range is tricky. The matchups for many of the bigger names aren’t ideal while Springer gets the added bump for hitting leadoff.
Springer is +290 to go yard tonight, more than likely due to his leadoff position.
Bleacher Seats – Darin Ruf – 1B – $3,200
Another night in the bleacher seats and so few options to pick. Tonight, the Giants offer some right-handed bats with pop in this range. The winds will be blowing out but Oracle Park is built to mitigate the impact. That said, we don’t have many other places to turn in my opinion.
Ruf boasts a 50% hard-contact rate against lefties and Tarik Skubal for all of his recent success, yields more than enough hard hits and fly balls. I don’t think we have much to think about in this range. I think Evan Longoria also makes sense but I will stick with Ruf.
Ruf is 610 to go yard tonight. That brings our SGP to +10711 for the evening. If you tail, good luck! Otherwise, get those home run picks in and engage with me on Twitter. My home run card will be posted once lineups are all live.
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