Home Run Derby - MLB DFS Community Contest: Tuesday, June 7th
Happy Tuesday, Grinders! June is in full swing after a busy Friday night slate with plenty of home runs to go around our leaderboard. Our leaderboard is reset, with the right column tabulating June home runs and the left column keeping track of seasonal totals. This might be a good time to refresh on prizes for the overall for motivation to keep plugging. If not for the season, June is still new and fresh. For added incentive, June’s prizes will be doubled. Instead of one month of MLB Premium, the winner will receive two. Instead of one week of ScoresAndOdds Picks, third place will get two. Second place will receive a shirt and hat!
Well, I don’t want to brag but… Actually, I do want to brag about my Yankees stack all notching a home run. By the time I placed the SGP on FanDuel Sportsbook, the odds on the parlay were +10908 (Carpenter didn’t hit leadoff). I was rewarded in big fashion. I was not the only member of our community to collect three home runs. Hendo2132, dukefan197723, and new members Sagn442 and wildcats22985 all found three home runs with help from Vladimir Guerrero, Kyle Schwarber, Kyle Garlick, and Matt Carpenter. The MLB provided 37 home runs — a welcome uptick for our to contest. Let’s hope the weather cooperates and provides another bounty of power this evening.
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 7th MLB DFS Slate Notes
Tonight’s slate features 12 games. The Guardians and Rangers doubleheader is NOT included on the slate. Coors Field is not on the slate. We have three games in domes (Houston, Tampa Bay, Milwaukee).
The weather will be worth a look at some point today when building DFS lineups and placing HR bets. At the time of this writing, we seem to have several locations with some rain before and close to first pitch. Hopefully, we end up having a bunch of late starts? Check back before lock time to get the full scoop.
The Braves lead the slate with 5.27 implied runs. The Blue Jays and Astros are close behind. The Yankees’ game and Red Sox game both have no totals at the time of this writing. I would assume the Yankees’ total will join that group as the top total on the slate.
Here is our HR/9 list for today’s projected starters. The five listed are the highest HR/9 in 2022. Full disclosure, Cole Sands has only 8 innings to his name but will be facing the Yankees.
Cole Sands – 2.25
Kyle Bradish – 2.18
German Marquez – 1.80
Chris Flexen – 1.46
Reid Detmers – 1.40
Let’s play Family Feud. Who are the top five hitters in the MLB over the last 14 days with respect to hard-contact rate? (Min. 40 PA)
Don’t cheat. I doubt anybody can get more than two of these… if that…
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Did you guess yet?
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Ready for the answers?
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Here they are:
Austin Riley – 57.9%
Wilson Contreras – 56.3%
Joc Pederson 54.8%
Bo Bichette – 54.1%
Franchy Cordero – 51.6%
Austin Riley and Joc Pederson both have 6 home runs during that time frame. Riley gets lefty Cole Irvin at home tonight while Joc Pederson welcomes the aforementioned German Marquez to San Francisco. Feel free to fire those up.
Let’s get to tonight’s picks. Reminder! FanDuel Sportsbook features their $5 Dinger Promotion tonight. Bet $25 on a player to hit a HR and receive $5 in free bets for every HR hit in the game in free bets (up to $25). I plan to bet a home run in every game today and will hopefully tweet out who I bet later on when lineups come out.
Tuesday, June 7th MLB Home Run Picks
Luxury Box – Yordan Alvarez – OF – $5,900
Chris Flexen made our list of gas cans for tonight’s slate. He travels to Houston to face a formidable Astros’ lineup and yeah, he isn’t very imposing.
With 16 HR and .322 ISO this season, Yordan feels like a no-brainer this evening. Admittedly, I was very much drawn to Austin Riley and Joc Pederson. That said, Austin Riley might have weather issues and the Giants tend to be very silly with lineups. Yordan is playing in a dome and should draw a start in the heart of the order.
Dating back to last season, Alvarez boasts a 50% hard-hit rate against RHP. 50%! His fly balls are steadily above 40%. He is the prototype for the type of player we want in this range. We open here with a +330 price tag on FanDuel Sportsbook.
Promenade – Kyle Schwarber – OF – $4,300
The Phillies travel to Miller Park for our second dome selection. Schwarber will hit leadoff on the road in a ballpark tailored perfectly for left-handed power.
Speaking of lefties that sell out for power. Schwarber is a member of the distinguished 40/40 club. Not steals and home runs — FB% and Hard%. I don’t know much about Jason Alexander besides he had a pretty decent start against the Cubs. I lean towards Phillies bats in this affair. Given the size of the slate and totals, a Phillies stack might be in order.
Schwarber pays +290 for a home run on FanDuel.
Bleacher Seats – Luke Voit – 1B – $2,700
Rounding out our picks is a player I assume is going to be popular in tonight’s article. Scanning this range, I just don’t see another way. Luke Voit brings plenty of fly balls (39%) and hard contact (50%) against right-handed pitching. Taijuan Walker yields plenty of hard contact and fly balls to both sides of the plate. I won’t bother with much more.
Voit brings no weather concerns. We just need him to make the lineup. I presume he does as the Padres look at avenge a loss to the Mets. Voit brings the most value to the party — +400 on FanDuel at publishing time. Parlay all three together, and I will, and we are looking at +8285. There might be some benefit to looking for parlay boosts on other sites but this is a solid baseline.
I am a bit nervous with no Yankees after last week. Sweat along with me! I hope to post all of my HR picks for the FanDuel promo later today.
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