Home Run Derby: Tuesday, August 13th
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!
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 Tuesday, Grinders! With a fifteen-game slate this evening, the home runs are likely to keep coming in bunches. Coors Field is on tap with a slew of other offensive contexts to attack. The Twins play in Miller Park, the Yankees still play the Orioles (wow, they are horrible), and the Cardinals face Glenn Sparkman. The league provided plenty of home runs on a short eight-game slate last night. I imagine the total will be quite high this evening. Here are my three picks for the busy Tuesday slate and a leaderboard update from Monday.
The statistics for each player are for the 2019 season.
Luxury Box
Max Kepler — OF – $5,100
Kepler in 2019 – .275 ISO, 44.8 FB%, 43.1 Hard%, 90.3 MPH aEV
Anderson vs LHH – .138 ISO, 84.4 MPH aEV, 47.3 FB%, 31.3 Hard%
Chase Anderson is well-known for his reverse splits. He tends to give up more power to the right side of the plate. That said, with Nelson Cruz missing from the Twins lineup, I really do not know where to turn. Also, just because he tends to be reverse-splitsy, Anderson doles out plenty of fly balls to the left side of the plate as well. Kepler will find himself in a very favorable ballpark for left-handed power.
Reservations? I am obviously nervous about all of the Twins if they cannot manage a home run early in the game. The Brewers bullpen is really good and the last thing I want to see if Kepler facing Josh Hader in need of a bomb. Chase Anderson gives up just enough fly balls that I think Kepler can make it work within his first couple of at-bats.
Coors Field will be a really popular spot tonight. Two bombs off Kepler’s bat could go a long way in moving up the standings.
Club Seats
Jake Lamb – 1B/3B – $4,000
Lamb in 2019 – .192 ISO, 37.1 FB%, 45.7 Hard%, 87.6 MPH aEV
Gray vs LHH – .182 ISO, 90.9 MPH aEV, 25.1 FB%, 43.9 Hard%
Jake Lamb does not bring a large sample of at-bats with him to Coors Field, tonight. That said, he has shown plenty of power upside throughout his career — even homering last night in the first game of the series with the Rockies. Lamb is not a prodigious fly ball hitter but throughout his career, he has hit the ball extremely hard. Jon Gray is not a fly ball heavy pitcher to either side of the plate but he gives up plenty of hard-contact to the left side.
Coors Field is going to be a popular target this evening — especially in the high tier. I am comfortable fading the bats up there with all of the other available options. I am less comfortable fading in this tier where a Jake Lamb double-dong would be disastrous.
I am also, in no way, shape, or form, playing Aaron Judge. You know what that means…
Bleachers
Franmil Reyes – OF – $3,300
Reyes in 2019 – .258 ISO, 35.9 FB%, 46.8 Hard%, 92.1 MPH aEV
Sale vs RHH – .197 ISO, 89.2 MPH aEV, 38.5 FB%, 40.9 Hard%
I know. This pick seems a bit ridiculous. The better likelihood here is Franmil striking out 2-3 times against Chris Sale. I know. That said, Sale’s issues with hard contact and fly balls cannot be ignored simply because his name is Chris Sale.
My expectation here is that Justin Smoak retains his popularity after going yard last night — rightfully so. When the contest zigs, I need to zag. If I am going to catch up this month I will need to secure some lesser owned home runs. Franmil has plenty of power. We just need him to make contact.
He should see his share of at-bats with Yasiel Puig serving his suspension. All I need is one.
Leaderboard (sortable by column)
| Player | Total | August | 8/2 | 8/5 | 8/6 | 8/9 | 8/12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| joeycis | 34 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| erichanlon | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| shanekern03 | 50 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| nrcave | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| mewhitenoise | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| boomanfoo | 33 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| allanturner84 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| hautalak | 26 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| TheDataDetective | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| infy72 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ropediddy | 27 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| bcorbett | 41 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| pastorthor | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MoccasinMusic | 28 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Gillik9486 | 37 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Anttheman | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Curse | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| WestCrook1 | 42 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| oxlodge42 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| strgzer585 | 39 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| weave40 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| pryan000 | 36 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| HIPPYHD | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| apov22 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| whitetrashballerz | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| jsherman003 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| wcuball29 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| dhorton8813 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| yisman | 34 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| SmoothLH20 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DJESQUIRE | 32 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| bigstacks2015 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Wencesace21 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BigPod | 11 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| GBRollClones | 18 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| tmirrione | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| sochoice | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| firemedicpat | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| pabloplyr | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| dmurphhh | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| steinymj | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Shane is becoming a bit of a mercenary. He swoops in here and there and drops a bunch of home runs. Shane went 3 for 3 with his home run calls last night and became the first member to reach 50 home runs. Unless somebody goes on a really great run, Shane looks poised for three months of free combo-premium content to prep him for the NFL season. Feel free to put up a fight, anyone!
I thought I was going to be strutting into Tuesday with my two home runs until Shane took the shine off. Instead, dmurphh, strgzer585, and I settled for two home runs apiece. The big night from shanekern03 places him in a tie for first in August with BigPod and DJESQUIRE — with all three knotted at six home runs. Will Shane end the season with an August sweep?
Will Coors Field bring fireworks? Can Toronto repeat a ridiculous power performance? Will Aaron Judge hit a home run? Don’t you dare, Aaron. We might see upwards of 50 home runs on this slate. Where will they come from? You tell me. Drop your picks in the comments and have a great slate. I will be back on Friday with an update. 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.