Rise & Grind: Friday, June 5th
Welcome to the RotoGrinders cup o’morning joe. Start your day off right here, as we sort through yesterday’s happenings and take a peek at the upcoming DFS day.
In Case You Missed It
FanDuel PBC and DraftKings King of Boston – Happy Friday Grinders! Unless you work in a service industry such as bartending or hospitality, Friday means the end of your work week. Any Friday is a great day, but today is extra special. No, not because today is National Doughnut Day (though that is pretty cool) but for a different reason. Several Grinders traveled yesterday to opposite coasts to compete in championships. The Rise and Grind would like to wish everyone competing in the King of Boston or Playboy Baseball Championship a huge amount of luck. Notable contestants in the PBC include GrindersLive host Stevietpfl and RG co-founder Cal Spears. Over in the KOB, the man who does it all, Notorious, will be competing to become the King of Boston.
Follow PGABirdies – The $250K Drive the Green tee’d off yesterday on DraftKings. One lucky contestant is going to turn $3 into $100K by selecting the correct golfers. If you are sweating your PGA contests, you need to make sure and follow PGABirdies so you can keep track of all the birdies. If you are like me and selected Ernie Els this week, you need to follow PGABogeys. In fact, just follow tthem both as you prepare for the PGA Millionaire Maker in two weeks.
NBA Finals – Game 1 of the NBA Finals offered one of the best NBA games of the season. Sadly, there was no DFS connection as sites cannot run a contest with only one game. That may have actually enhanced the experience for some though. If sites had run a contest last night, exposure to LeBron James’ 44 points would have been a must in GPP and cash. Without the DFS angle, basketball purists simply enjoyed the best player of his generation trying to will his team to victory. Golden State played a “pick your poison” style of defense, allowing LeBron contested but makeable jumpers in exchange for limiting the Cavs role players. With the game on the line, LeBron missed a shot that was rebounded by Iman Shumpert who nearly made the put-back. In the ensuing overtime Golden State went small with Draymond Green at center and an exhausted Cavs squad only managed two points. To add injury to insult, Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving appeared to injure his knee in overtime. If Irving is forced to miss time, this series is probably over.
MLB Recap – As I said above, today is National Doughnut Day. Hopefully you didn’t start the celebration a bit early with a bunch of doughnuts from your hitters last night. Overall, it wasn’t an impressive night for offense. There were eleven dongs hit yesterday, but only four of those were in the late slate. They were hit by Paul Goldschmidt, Brandon Moss, John Mayberry Jr, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Notably, Joc Pederson is not on that list. After homering in five straight games, Pederson failed to hit one out last night. In my opinion, it is never too early to ask whether Joc is slumping again. I’m just putting it out there.
On The Menu
MLB Tonight – Last night was lacking in dongs, but a sneak peek at tonight’s slate tells me things should be different. For starters, we have Giancarlo Stanton and the Miami Marlins in Colorado for a game at Coors Field. We already know that Coors bats will make a good target, but every other game seemingly has a matchup between two number three starters or worse. Tyson Ross, Carlos Martinez and Jake Odorizzi seem to jump out as the safest options, but I will leave it to the experts to explain why.
MLB GPPs – If there was ever a slate to label “GPP Only”, tonight would be it. The lack of strong cash-game pitchers on a fifteen-game slate should lend itself to all kinds of roster variation tonight. If you are interested in chasing some serious cash. DraftKings is running another Swing for The Fences. The contest features a $3 buy-in and $100K first prize. Best of all, maximum entries are limited to 200 per person. If you are looking for something with a slightly smaller field, you will need to up your buy-in just a bit. FanDuel does have a $200K Grand Slam that would seem to fit that description and DraftKings is still running their usual Payoff Pitch and Perfect Game GPPs. If you are looking for a chance to attend a live final, tonight offers a chance to do that on the cheap. FanDuel is running a WFBC qualifier at $25 and DraftKings is running a $27 FBWC qualifier. FantasyAces also has a $109 qualifier that awards two seats to the FABC. Go get your live final seats!
DFS NASCAR – This weekend will be the third week of DFS NACSAR on DraftKings. Drivers will test out their skill on the tricky triangle known as Pocono Raceway. Qualifying will take place this afternoon, so we should have a better idea which drivers to target once we know where they start. In the meantime, feel free to check out greenflag’s Pocono datasheet and join the discussion in the forums.
Bottom Line – If anyone knows a DFS site that doesn’t force you to select a pitcher, let me know in the comments below. Otherwise tonight seems like a great night to build a bunch of GPP teams. Go fill up the Swing for The Fences and hopefully DraftKings will continue running it. What else are you going to do with $3? That will barely get you a gallon of gas these days.