Home Run Derby: Monday, August 5th

by Joe Cistaro (joeycis) Last Updated 2019-08-05 18:29:12

Calling home runs, besides great fun, often makes the difference between a wildly profitable night in DFS and missing the cash line. Throughout the 2019 MLB season, I will endeavor to find a few home runs in three salary tiers on DraftKings. Join me throughout the year and call your home runs for monthly and seasonal RotoGrinders prizes. Without further ado, let’s play Home Run Derby!

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Throughout this season, I will produce the Home Run Derby for main slates on DraftKings 2-3 days per week — selecting a home run from three different pricing tiers. If you want to call your home runs, please use these tiers for your selections to be eligible for any Derby prizes. Here are the tiers.

Luxury Box – $4,500 and above
Club Seats – $3,500 – $4400
Bleachers – Below $3,500

Hitters must be selected from the DraftKings Main Slate.

Schedule this Week: Monday, Tuesday, Friday

Happy Monday, Grinders! August kicked off with a packed Friday slate and continues with an unusually large 12-game slate on Monday. We will see the Bronx Bombers in Camden Yards against a bad Orioles pitching staff. The wind is gently blowing out of Wrigley Field. The newly powerful Indians welcome Mike Minor. The Reds have to face Cole… ahem… Taylor Cole. Tonight should be plenty of fun as we enjoy the summer stretch. Here are my home run picks for tonight with a leaderboard update to follow.

The statistics for each player are for the 2019 season.

Luxury Box

Didi Gregorius — SS – $5,000

Gregorius in 2019 – .194 ISO, 43.4 FB%, 29.5 Hard%, 86.8 MPH aEV

Ynoa vs LHH – .213 ISO, 91.6 MPH aEV, 47.9 FB%, 37.0 Hard%

I know. Why in the world would you pick someone with a 29.5 Hard% to hit a home run in the top tier? First, Didi has a very small sample thus far in 2019. Second, have you watched the Baltimore Orioles in 2019? The pitching staff is horrendous.

Didi leans fly balls and is in a ballpark today that really favors anybody who can put the ball in the air. The Yankees are on the road so Didi should see his full complement of at-bats. Last season, Didi finished with a .226 ISO and 27 home runs. Many of his home runs are a circumstance of Yankee Stadium’s dimensions — and Camden Yards is not the Polo Grounds.

Gabriel Ynoa is giving up a lot of pop to lefty hitters this season. Behind Ynoa is a bullpen that has given up a league-worst 92 home runs. A lowly 21.4 K% in the bullpen enables hitters to sit back and not be overpowered. Didi will get to see Ynoa a couple of times and then a bullpen that will struggle to punch him out.

Club Seats

Franmil Reyes — OF – $4,000

Reyes in 2019 – .274 ISO, 35.0 FB%, 48.7 Hard%, 92.3 MPH aEV

Minor vs RHH – .148 ISO, 85.5 MPH aEV, 36.1 FB%, 38.0 Hard%

Franmil Reyes was a big get for the Cleveland Indians who are typically starved for free-agent acquisitions. Using Trevor Bauer and his value, the Indians were able to acquire Reyes, Yasiel Puig, and Logan Allen in a three-team deal. Reyes is having one of the quieter power seasons in baseball probably because he played in San Diego.

His 27 home runs place him in the top 15 in all of baseball with a really nice park shift for the remainder of the season. Mike Minor was not traded at the deadline and has been moving in the wrong direction over his last four or five starts. Minor has allowed at least one home run in each of his last four starts and gave up four against Houston on July 19th. The Cleveland lineup gained plenty of depth at the deadline — Minor could struggle to get deep into this game. Franmil is in a really good spot, tonight.

Bleachers

Brandon Belt – 1B – $3,100

Belt in 2019 – .163 ISO, 48.1 FB%, 39.9 Hard%, 86.7 MPH aEV

Fedde vs LHH – .186 ISO, 91.8 MPH aEV, 23.2 FB%, 39.0 Hard%

Typically, we are hoping for just a box or two to be checked in this tier. You know, high fly ball rate, a bad opposing pitcher, great ballpark, hot weather, etc… This tier is usually so bad that I typically need just one box to justify a pick.

Tonight, Brandon Belt checks at least two. Belt brings a massive fly ball rate to the plate tonight. Check. Erick Fedde is not a good pitcher. Check. At this price, I can settle for that. Belt’s home confines are not helpful to power hitters, in any way. But, that is baked into the price. I have taken far worse in this tier during this baseball season.

Leaderboard (sortable by column)

Another month starts and we get more of the same. Shanekern03 led off August with a two-homer night and extended his first place home run total to 46 bombs. WestCrook1 found a home run of his own to crack the 40-HR mark and remains the closest competitor for Shane down the stretch. Fresh off a new child, DJESQUIRE also landed two bombs to kick off the final month tied with Shane for the last T-shirt.

Just in case you were wondering why the leaderboard is shorter, I decided to erase the row for anyone with five total home runs or less. I certainly do not mean to be rude to my readers. That said, updating the board is pretty time consuming and all of the deleted rows will make me gets articles out in a more expedited fashion. I felt it was unlikely that anyone lower than this mark was going to win the overall but will certainly be added back in for the August T-shirt prize.

So, how will our first full week of August begin? Will we see a bevy of bombs? A heap of home runs? A tidal wave of taters? I am pretty excited about a pretty busy week around baseball. I will be back tomorrow morning to see how we did. Until then, good luck, everyone.

I am happy to announce that at the end of each month I will be rewarding the highest home run total with a RotoGrinders T-shirt. Having a rough month? Don’t let up. The RotoGrinders member with the most home runs throughout the season — until the end of August — will be awarded a 3-month Combo Premium subscription to start the NFL season!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the article, stick around for the rest of the MLB season. Want to compete against me? Drop your expensive, mid-tier, and cheap home run calls in the comments (DraftKings pricing). Otherwise, give me a follow on Twitter where I typically post slate-relevant statistics and embarrassing comments about professional wrestling.

Statistics for this article are obtained from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, RotoGrinders Daily Research Console, and Baseball Savant.