Home Run Derby - MLB DFS Community Contest: Tuesday, May 10th
Happy Tuesday, MLB Grinders! Friday was a complete disaster as many of the games were washed out by a two-day long system on the Eastern seaboard. Doubleheaders were all over the place on Sunday to make up for the multiple games forced to be postponed by Mother Nature. Perhaps, Mother Nature is a baseball fan and wanted a loaded Sunday slate. In any event, we still must review what happened on Friday night. Spoiler alert! Not much went down.
Well, well, well… Yours truly was the only person to heed the weather cautions and find some safe environments for home runs. In all actuality, I got pretty lucky with Eugenio Suarez finding two home runs and my first cheapie going yard. Jose Miranda hit his first home run in a slate where we really need all the help we can get. That vaults me to the top of May and a bit further up the leaderboard. Don’t be mistaken, prizes or not, I am here to win.
Batter up!
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 – One month of RotoGrinders MLB Premium
Second Place – RotoGrinders T-shirt
Third Place – One week 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, May 10th MLB DFS Slate Notes
We have 13 games on tonight’s slate without many weather concerns (at the time of this writing). Given our last slate was nearly washed out, I am very confident that the number of home runs today will far exceed that of Friday’s 14 home runs.
At the time of this writing, the highest implied run total on the slate is 8.5. I find this staggering. Online betting sites seem to be adjusting to the new offensive conditions in baseball.
The top of the home run leaderboard has not changed much since my last update. C.J. Cron now joins the four-way tie up top with Buxton, Rizzo, and Judge with nine home runs. The top 15 home run hitters in baseball (7 HR and above) are mostly usual suspects with the exception of a few. Willy Adames has 8 and Rowdy Tellez has 7 home runs.
Franmil Reyes sits 6th in the MLB in 2022 in average exit velocity on his batted ball events (93.5 mph). Despite hitting the ball very hard, Reyes does not have much to show in the way of offense stats. With only 3 home runs but 43 strikeouts, it is no wonder Reyes’ has a .100 ISO. His HR/FB% at 0.19 is low and I anticipate Reyes will pick up a bit when the weather warms.
Who has the highest implied run total on the slate? The Yankees? No. The Blue Jays? No. Must be the Phillies or the White Sox? Still, no. If you guessed the Miami Marlins you would be right. The Marlins bring a 4.53 implied run total to the very late slate against Madison Bumgarner in Arizona. Bumgarner must be getting away with smoke and mirrors this season and is ripe for some right-handed power to come through. We have very cheap options available to us with the proper platoon split.
Tuesday, May 10th MLB Home Run Picks
Luxury Box – Rafael Devers – 3B – $5,500
Truist Park was built for Freddie Freeman. Freddie Freeman is gone. So, what’s left is a ballpark tailored for left-handed power hitters.
Enter Rafael Devers on Tuesday night. The weather is warming — likely up to 80 degrees during this game. Devers checks the fly ball box (44.4%) and hard-contact box (48.5%) against right-handed pitchers in 2021. Kyle Wright is priced up today and seems to be a very good pitcher. That said, in his small samples, his fly ball rate against lefties is north of 40% in both 2021 and this season.
Devers will almost certainly hit in the two-hole and should see 4-5 AB against Wright and company. I think this is a good place to start for home runs tonight. FanDuel Sportsbook prices Devers at +385 to hit a home run at the time of this writing.
Promenade – Pete Alonso – 1B – $4,800
In 2021, Pete Alonso finished with 50% fly balls against left-handed pitching. 50%! Flip a coin for every time Pete Alonso hits a ball.
When you flip heads and Petey obliges with a fly ball, his 43.6% hard-contact rate against lefties suggest the ball has a decent chance of leaving the ballpark. Patrick Corbin of the Nationals does limit fly balls but we like extreme fly ball hitters against groundball pitchers.
The weather should cooperate. By no means will it be a toasty late-spring day, but we don’t have to worry about the freezing cold rainy conditions we experience last week. Alonso should hit 4th on the road and see 4 plate appearances, minimally. In this range, he might have the most pronounced track record with regard to power hitting. Easy pick, tonight.
This game is off the board as this article is getting published. Check sites later for HR odds.
Bleacher Seats – Garrett Cooper – 1B – $2,600
When I saw a notification for a Jose Miranda HR on Friday night, I almost did a cartwheel. Then, I realized I am 6’3”, nearly 40, overweight… pretty much a non-athletic giant. So, instead of the cartwheel, a simple fist pump gesture manifested as I grinned with my first cheap home run of the year.
We love those home runs. That one-off in our lineups that we take a chance on because it just makes everything else work. That high-odds leg you add to your whacky HR parlay that night. Euphoric, indeed. That said, we move on to tonight’s cheapie, Garrett Cooper.
I am highly considering deploying a Marlins stack, tonight. My guess is despite the Marlins bringing the highest run total (so far) of the night, people won’t be enthusiastic about playing Miami for the late-night hammer. Jazz Chisholm, the most-played Marlin, is neutralized by a southpaw, so the stack doesn’t seem appealing. Madison Bumgarner is a ticking time bomb for power and tonight, the Marlins might just be the fuse.
Cooper makes our third road hitter in the heart of a batting order. While he doesn’t overwhelm us with fly balls, Cooper hits the ball very hard, especially against lefties. Cooper and a few teammates seem like very good candidates for a home run.
Easy call for a cheap bomb, you can have Cooper at +450 to hit a home run on FanDuel. Good luck, tonight!
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