Rise & Grind: Thursday, July 23rd
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
Yahoo Fantasy – Congratulations to Yahoo. Yesterday, CEO Marissa Mayer announced that Yahoo’s Daily Fantasy Product has attracted 1.3M players since their launch only two weeks ago. That is some incredible news Yahoo. Too bad it isn’t true. Here are some other things Yahoo was able to do over the last two weeks: develop a cure for cancer, negotiate a Middle East peace plan, and win 94% of their contests on DK and 90% on FD. Okay, none of those are true either, but this is fantasy sports right? Doesn’t the fantasy part mean you get to claim whatever you want? Yahoo later clarified that they meant that 1.3M people have visited Yahoo Fantasy Sports Properties in the last two weeks. I suppose that is getting closer. Let’s just leave this alone for now.
Trolling Done Right – The NFL offseason is a boring time. Unless you enjoy keeping up on the latest arrests, there isn’t much going on. The Seattle Seahawks took this opportunity to kindly ask EA Sports why Marshawn Lynch didn’t get a 99 Trucking rating. Even though Lynch is “Beast Mode” whoever runs EA Sports Twitter is the Beast Troller. EA responded, tweeting one more of these would have helped, which is an obvious reference to the last play of the Super Bowl. Ouch, that’s going to leave a mark. Can somehow send the Seahawks some burn cream?
Warner Bros Signs LeBron – Yesterday, Warner Brothers Entertainment inked a deal with LeBron James’ media company known as Springhill Entertainment. This sent the Twitterverse into a buzz about a possible Space Jam II movie. Some have already suggested possible plots for the movie. Here is mine: Packed into a tiny gym at the YMCA, LeBron James sits with Bob Costas to discuss his plans for free agency. As the Bulls, Knicks, Lakers, Cavs, and Heat wait, LeBron looks into the camera and says, “I’m taking my talents to Moron Mountain.” An audible gasp can be heard in the room as a Spacecraft lands and LeBron boards the Nerdlucks’ spacecraft. A sense of hopelessness fills the room. Then a small child remarks, “The Nerdlucks have a lot of talent, but maybe we could defeat them by playing team basketball.” A grumpy looking, gray-bearded, character emerges from the shadows. Is that? Could it be? Gregg Popovich?
Big Winners – Alright, enough nonsense, let’s see what happened in DFS last night. If you are looking for a quick roundup of yesterday’s top plays, give bhdevault’s Daily Roundup a read. As you can see from the roundup, Nelson Cruz and Preston Tucker’s double-dong performances were crucial for late night and Joey Votto’s nine total bases and dong were pretty important for the early slate. Let’s run through the DFS players who leveraged those performances to win some big cash. Devind took down the FD Slam, theclone won the FD Monster, mrluck won the Rally, zzzimsleeping won the WFBC qualifier, shanksalot won the DK Gold Glove, metboi08 won the DK Payoff pitch, dafong won the DK Payoff Pitch, and jswag9 won the DK Moonshot. If you are curious about any other results, they are in this forum thread.
On The Menu
MLB Today – We have 11 games on the menu today split between four early and seven late. Keep your eyes peeled for some rock-solid advice here on RotoGrinders. As usual, we will have the MLB Grind Down, Pitching Articles, Expert Picks, and even a Six-Pack to wash it all down. If you don’t have time to read everything, you can check get your advice in video form on GridnersLive. BritDevine and Pepsi7 will be on this morning at 11:30 ET. You will definitely want to tune in so you know who today’s Nelson Cruz that Brit isn’t using is, so you can get that player on your team. Later this afternoon, you will also want to catch stevietpfl and CrazyGabey at 4:30 ET and then Hoop2410 and DraftCheat at 5:30 and EMac at 6:30.
#NarrativeStreet – With today’s split slate, it is going to be harder to differentiate your team from the field. Sure, you could just pick the best player at every position but what are the odds of being right? A method that works just as good is picking players based on silly narratives. For example, Josh Donaldson is playing a #RevengeGame against the A’s, same goes for Brett Lawrie on the other side of that game. They both make great narrative plays. Austin Jackson is also looking for revenge against the Tigers. On the #MilestoneWatch front fire up the following players who need just one HR to reach a milestone: Albert Pujols (500), Aaron Hill (150), Todd Frazier, Carlos Gomez, David Murphy, Ian Desmond, David DeJesus (100). If you prefer your narrative plays to be backed by statistics check out the Batter-vs-Pitch (BvP) splits in the Daily Batter Hub. If you believe in BVP you are going to want to stack the Tigers against Iwakuma. The four-man stack of Cespedes, Kinsler, Victor Martinez, Castellanos, is a combined for 28-for-67 (.417) with 10 HRs off Iwakuma. Fire them up with confidence.
Bottom Line – Neither of these get their own blurb, but both are noteworthy. Shoutout to FanDuel for adding a cancel entry button to the upcoming entries page. You can now cancel contests from that page as opposed to opening each one individually. On another note, today is the last day to win a ticket to the Mid-Summer Classic on DraftKings. If you want to play in tomorrow’s event but don’t want to pony up $100 you better check out the early or late satellites today. Good luck out there and happy grinding!