Home Run Derby: Tuesday, August 20th

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!

Follow Joe on Twitter

Article Image

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! Major League Baseball put forth 29 home runs on Monday night for the picking. With a 15-game slate this evening, that number will likely increase by a large margin on what might be one of the last larger slates of the season — for the contest. The temperature in Texas is scorching. The Orioles still have to play baseball games. The Phillies will add a DH in Boston. So many options… Here are my calls for tonight followed by a leaderboard update from yesterday’s slate.

The statistics for each player are for the 2019 season.

Luxury Box

Mike Trout — OF – $5,500

Trout in 2019 – .368 ISO, 48.2 FB%, 44.6 Hard%, 90.8 MPH aEV

Burke vs RHH – no sample

Brock Burke will get the call-up to the MLB in the second game of today’s doubleheader between the Angels and Rangers — in scorching hot temperatures. Good luck…

Your housewarming gift for your new home confines in Arlington, Mr. Burke? A matchup with the BEST player in the league, Mike Trout. The temperature will be hot. Burke is a rookie. The Rangers bullpen is no good. Mike Trout needs no further endorsement. Lock and load.

Club Seats

Rhys Hoskins – 1B – $4,300

Hoskins in 2019 – .241 ISO, 50.8 FB%, 45.9 Hard%, 89.2 MPH aEV

Johnson vs RHH – .275 ISO, 89.1 MPH aEV, 34.5 FB%, 39.7 Hard%

Rhys Hoskins has not homered since August 3rd. This stunned me.

As per usual, Hoskins is a flyball machine and is still hitting baseballs rather hard. Fenway Park is a pretty solid environment for home runs for right-handed hitters and the Sox pitching today will not be so great. While it will not be a scorcher like Texas, the low-80s temperature will be coupled with some humidity. All systems go.

Brian Johnson is a guy. He absolutely cannot strike hitters out and will likely see a lineup filled with right-handed bats. The Phillies will add a DH today and could get into the Red Sox bullpen early. Hoskins, presumably leading off again, should see his fair share of at-bats. Tonight, he snaps the streak and takes Johnson deep.

Bleachers

Trent Grisham – OF – $2,800

Grisham in 2019 – .229 ISO, 50.0 FB%, 36.1 Hard%, 89.4 MPH aEV

Wacha vs LHH – .207 ISO, 89.0 MPH aEV, 35.9 FB%, 37.9 Hard%

Grisham sees a ridiculous price decrease today and will probably be a staple in many DFS lineups at this price. Hitting leadoff against Michael Wacha on the road means his ownership will be lofty relative to counterparts on a huge slate. Given the wasteland of options at this price point for our contest, I would not be shocked if he is a popular choice.

Wacha is giving up just enough hard-contact and fly balls to make me pretty content with eating Grisham chalk in our contest. I don’t see a reason to avoid a leadoff hitter who will likely see four at-bats.

Leaderboard (sortable by column)

Player Total August 8/2 8/5 8/6 8/9 8/12 8/13 8/19
joeycis 35 4 1 0 0 0 2 1 0
erichanlon 24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
shanekern03 52 8 2 1 0 0 3 1 1
nrcave 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
mewhitenoise 9 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
boomanfoo 33 4 1 0 3 0 0 0 0
allanturner84 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
hautalak 27 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 1
TheDataDetective 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
infy72 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ropediddy 27 2 0 0 1 0 1 0 0
bcorbett 42 3 0 1 1 0 0 1 0
pastorthor 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
MoccasinMusic 28 5 0 2 2 0 1 0 0
Gillik9486 37 5 0 2 0 2 1 0 0
Anttheman 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Curse 24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
WestCrook1 42 3 1 0 2 0 0 0 0
oxlodge42 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
strgzer585 40 3 0 0 0 0 2 0 1
weave40 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
pryan000 36 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
HIPPYHD 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
apov22 32 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
whitetrashballerz 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
jsherman003 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
wcuball29 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
dhorton8813 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
yisman 34 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 0
SmoothLH20 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
DJESQUIRE 34 8 2 2 1 1 0 1 1
bigstacks2015 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Wencesace21 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
BigPod 11 6 1 2 2 1 0 0 0
GBRollClones 19 6 0 3 1 0 1 1 0
sochoice 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0
firemedicpat 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0
pabloplyr 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
dmurphhh 3 3 0 0 0 1 2 0 0
steinymj 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
jkfor20 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

Again, Monday night brought a smattering of solo home runs from our pool. Surprise, surprise, Shanekern03 and DJESQUIRE both added another home run. They are deadlocked in August with eight home runs apiece with Shane basically jogging home the overall prize. We do have a handful of slates left but it seems like it would take a pretty massive few slates for Shane to cede the top spot. As for August, seems like we have a nice race to the finish.

Who is going yard tonight? Will the Royals pound the Orioles? Will the Phillies pepper the Green Monster or hit a pile of home runs? Can anyone catch our overall leader? I will be back on Friday (hopefully) to update the leaderboard and give a few more home run picks. 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.

About the Author

joeycis
Joe Cistaro (joeycis)

A high school mathematics teacher from New Jersey, Joe Cistaro (aka joeycis) is a lifelong fantasy sports fan. As a member of the RotoGrinders community, Joe cut his teeth writing for the website through the blogging program. Previously engaging the community with articles such as Home Run Derby and Finding Paydirt, Joe now focuses his time on sports betting content for both the NFL and the PGA TOUR. Follow Joe on Twitter – @ JoeCistaro