Rise & Grind: Thursday, August 6th
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
ESPN Fantasy Teams with DraftKings – Do you have a friend that keeps pestering you to join their ESPN season long league? You keep telling him you don’t play season long anymore because DFS is so much better. Well, you might want to give him a call back and tell him you changed your mind. ESPN and DraftKings announced a $1 million side pool for the Week 1 Millionaire Maker. The ESPN league manager with the highest finish in the DK Milly Maker will win $1M to split between his/her league. At this point, you really can’t afford not to play in your buddy’s league, just in case.
DraftKings CFWC – While we are on the subject of big announcements by DraftKings, we might want to mention the CFWC. If you are a college football grinder, go ahead and reserve December 3-6 for your trip to Miami. The full details are not yet available, but FatalError teased the announcement in this forum thread.
RotoGrinders Script and Lineup App – The last few days have been quite exciting here at RotoGrinders. Last Friday, Riley announced the new Bulk Lineup Tool. With the recent announcement of automated entry being allowed on DK, we decided to level the playing field for everyone. In the announcement, Riley explains how the feature works and the future improvements that are coming. Go give it a try and get your script on. If you love the script tool, you will probably enjoy the new iOS lineup app. Cal has the details in this thread. The RG lineup app sends push notifications for new lineups, postponements, and late scratches. It is also your one stop shop for accurate lineups verified by the RG team before they are posted.
Preseason NFL – Are you ready for some football? I know I am. DraftKings has some good news; we won’t have to wait until September 10th to scratch our NFL DFS itch. Starting this Sunday with the Hall of Fame game, DK will be offering preseason NFL contests. If you were around for last preseason, you already know how much I love preseason NFL. For those that have been asking, I will write a blog or article this weekend on how to research and approach preseason. The games that lock on Sunday include the HOF game and then next Thursday’s contests.
MLB Recap – Alright, that’s enough industry news for now. How did things go last night in MLB? As usual, bhdevault has the big winners and losers in his FanDuel Daily Roundup If you built your team around a Yankees stack, you were probably one of the big losers. Steven Wright’s knuckleball was dancing and the Yankees had no answer. As far as good stacks, the Jays welcomed rookie Tyler Duffey to the league in a big way and the Mets hung a seven spot on David Phelps and the Marlins.
Big Winners – Yesterday’s split slate offered slightly less options than normal, but that didn’t stop some of the big names in the industry from rising to the top. On FanDuel, ganondorf owned the night as he took down the Monster and Slam and just missed in the Rally. Meanwhile in high stakes, McJester took down the Slugger. Over on DraftKings, 08Gary08 took down the Payoff Pitch, underjones road a Mets stack to victory in the Gold Glove, lsphila punched his ticket to the FBWC, and cashupcash won the Perfect Game. If you want to see the rest of the links or review the early contests, check this forum thread.
On The Menu
MLB Today – Today is Thursday, which means the usual split slate. Today the schedule is split perfectly in half with five early games and five late. Notorious has his First Look posted already if you want to get a jump start on your research. Later today, he will also have the MLB Grind Down, and if you are an incentives member you can expect expert picks to start rolling in. If you decide to play the early slate, be sure to tune into Grinders Live at 10:30 AM ET with headChopper and BritDevine. For the late slate, check out Gabey and boggslite at 4:30 PM ET and Dean, DraftCheat, and EMac from 5:30 until 7:00 ET.
MLB GPPs – With a split slate, we also get split guarantees. A quick peek at tonight’s slate on the Big Two still still yields some decent GPPs. DraftKings has a $130K Payoff Pitch, $125K Perfect Game, $120K Moonshot, and $55K Gold Glove. FanDuel has a $115K Grand Slam, $100K Monster, WFBC Qualifier, $35K Squeeze, and $60K Rally.
#NarrativeStreet – One of the first things I do when searching for #NarrativeStreet plays is check Baseball Reference to see if anyone is getting a birthday bump. Today I was ecstatic when I realized it is Wilmer Flores’ birthday. Then I checked the schedule and realized the Mets don’t play today. I was a little bit crushed; I wasn’t crying though, I just had a little dirt in my eye. Anyways, let’s just move. Surely, there are some other players who might have a little extra motivation today. For example, Jimmy Rollins makes a fine play in a #RevengeGame against the Phillies. Same goes for Jacoby Ellsbury against the Red Sox, and Jed Lowrie against the A’s. On the #Milestone watch front, all of the following players need one HR to a milestone. Edwin Encarnacion (250), Ryan Braun (250), Jay Bruce (200), Mike Napoli (200), Marlon Byrd (150), Aaron Hill (150), David DeJesus (100), David Murphy (100), and Buster Posey (100). They all make excellent plays. Last but not least, we take a peek at the Daily Batter Hub for today’s top BvP plays. The A’s stack gets the nod as the top BVP stack. If you can only get one of the A’s stack, make it Josh Reddick, who is batting .304 with three HRs off Feldman in 23 at-bats.
Bottom Line – What a crazy week in DFS! RotoGrinders has a lineup app and new script tool, preseason NFL starts Sunday, DK announced a CFB live final, and ESPN is offering $1M to the highest finish league manager in the millionaire maker. How can we top all of that? How about with a video of Chris Baker video bombing an interview with a belly dance? Yeah, that works. On that note, let’s go build some lineups!