Rise & Grind: Thursday, June 18th
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
U.S Open at Chambers Bay – Lineups are officially locked for the DraftKings PGA Millionaire Maker. Over the next four days DFS players will sweat their lineups and hope they become the next DFS millionaire. If you plan on doing some sweating yourself, make sure to follow PGABirdies. If you selected a bad team, you may not see any of your picks on PGABirdies. In that case, be sure to follow PGABogeys. Based on the grumblings I have heard from some PGA pros, the Bogeys account should be very busy this week at Chambers Bay. This is a really tough course and USGA Director Mike Davis warned the players to get some extra practice in. He said, “The idea of coming in and playing two practice rounds and having your caddie just walk it and using your yardage book, that person’s done,” Davis said. “Will not win the U.S. Open.” Several players scoffed at Davis’ warning and even mocked him. Webb Simpson responded, “We’ll play for second” and Rory McIlroy responded by asking what Davis’ handicap is. I apologize for not getting this information to you guys yesterday. If you have Rory McIlroy or Webb Simpson, your teams are already done. At least according to Mike Davis and #NarrativeStreet.
NFL GIF War of 2015 – If you spend much time on DFS Twitter, you have no doubt seen your share of Twitter beefs. In fact, some would say DFS Twitter is more about trash talk than actual DFS. Mostly, we just pass the time setting lineups until the next good Twitter fight erupts. Yesterday, Donte Stallworth tweeted out a link to the NFL GIF War of 2015 if you haven’t already seen it, don’t even waste your click. That’s not how you beef on Twitter. If you want to have a GIF war, come join us in the RotoGrinders Forums. We have entire threads that started with a serious question or comment and then devolved into an all out GIF spamming convention. Just look at this McCutch Sucks thread after the middling Pirates had a terrible weekend in Coors last year. That’s how you do a GIF war.
If the NFL wanted an actual Twitter beef, they should have looked just looked at Antonio Cromartie and Kellen Winslow’s beef from last week. It all started when Jets CB Antonio Cromartie played reporter and asked some tough questions to teammate Dee Milliner. One such question was whether Milliner thought he would make the team this year. This apparently angered Kellen Winslow who came out with a series of tweets. First, he said, Cromartie is one of the biggest posers, not a guy I would want with me in an alley. Then he followed with, worry about yourself Cro, stop talking….. Apparently, the tweets caught Cromartie’s attention because he fired back at Winslow. He said, You wish you were as good as your dad. Have you been to Target lately? The latter part of that tweet is a reference to Winslow getting arrested last year for masturbating in a Target parking lot. That’s how you Twitter beef folks. You hit them with the zinger. This fight wasn’t done though. After a day or two of thinking about a comeback, Winslow came back with, U Wish you were a dad. Learn your kids names. That is a reference to the fact that Cromartie has ten kids with eight different women. Ooohhhh, that stings! I think we are done here. Let’s just call this Twitter fight a draw, but also file it away in the #NarrativeStreet folder, just in case Winslow signs a contract with a team who plays the Jets this season.
Big Winners – While we can’t declare a winner in the Cromartie/Winslow Twitter fight, we did have some winners in DFS last night. First off, condolences go out to DraftCheat for finishing second in the FD WFBC for the second day in a row. I can’t help but think that this is some sort of curse for refusing to eat the hat after losing this Twitter bet. Anyways, DC was bested by ehafner and his Cubs/Royals stack in the WFBC. ehafner now adds another live final qualifier to his resume. Last night was also a pretty good night for RotoGrinders co-founder Cal Spears (braskey on FanDuel), who claimed second in the Super Slugger on FanDuel (scout326 won it). It was also a pretty good night for kaibang as well, who took down the Super Rally. They weren’t the only Grinders with good showings on FanDuel though. Bcalicore won the Monster and luke8787 is headed to the Chicago Baseball Championship.
Over on DraftKings, TommyG1979 re-claimed the King Of The Hill crown as he bested lsphila in a $10K H2H. The real story of the night was STLCardinals84 though. Cardinals hacked into the Cubs’ database and realized they would score 17 runs last night. This led him to using a Cubs stack to take down the Gold Glove and claim second in the $150K Special. Oddly, STLCardinals84 played his Cubs stack in the $20 GPP and $1060 GPP but completely skipped the $200 Perfect Game and $1000 FBWC (he would have won both). To me this lends credence to the argument that STLCardinals84 is either really good at DFS or he’s hacking into something like the real Cardinals. Anyways, underjones and e4e5nf3nc6 would like to thank STL for not entering the Perfect Game or FWBC. His absence allowed them to win the Perfect Game and FBWC respectively. Also, while I’m here, milo1051 deserves a quick shout out for claiming first and second in the Hot Corner. The rest of yesterday’s FanDuel and DraftKings links can be found in this thread.
MLB Roundup – If the dog days of summer aren’t officially here, they are getting pretty close. In the last two days, we have seen single-team run totals of 19, 17, 12, and 10. We have also seen six position players take the mound to pitch. Some of the names on that list include Jeff Francoeur, Alexi Amarista, and Ryan Raburn. None of them were particularly spectacular, but every one of them is better than what the Phillies have in their starting rotation. If you are wondering what players you needed to have last night on FanDuel, bhdevault did a nice little recap in his Daily Roundup. Give it a read if you are curious and have a second.
On the Menu
MLB Action – Every single MLB team is in action again today with fifteen games on the schedule. Those fifteen games are split up as five early games and 10 games starting at 7:05 ET or later. If you enjoy stacking Coors Field, the early slate is the one for you. Good luck finding any pitching though. Colin McHugh might be the best pitcher on the slate, and he’s the guy going up against the Rockies in Coors. The early slate might be a good opportunity to just uncheck “show probable starters” and grab the cheapest guy you can find who isn’t pitching. You are pretty much guaranteed a zero, but that’s also the worst you can do. The late slate offers ten games and some slightly better options but probably not anything that will knock your socks off. Be sure to give Notorious’ MLB Grind Down and both the Starting Pitcher Articles a read today if you are struggling to find an arm worth using.
#NarrativeStreet – If none of the options in today’s expert pieces jump out at you, another option is to find some plays based on narratives. Here are a few guys who may have a little extra motivation for one reason or another. Chris Coghlan, Caleb Joseph, Jason Castro, and J.B. Shuck all have #BirthdayGames today. If any or all of them are in the lineup, they make fine plays. If you listened to me yesterday on #MilestoneWatch plays, you did okay. Prince Fielder got one of the two homers he needed and is now just one shy of 300. Alex Rodriguez needs just three hits to reach 3,000 and he should get all three of them today. Pitching for team #MilestoneWatch will be Jeremy Guthrie. He needs just nine strikeouts to reach 1,000 and he will easily accomplish that against the Brewers. If you prefer your narrative plays backed by some numbers, we can do that too. As you know, Batter-vs-Pitcher (BvP) numbers would never lie. This means you can’t ignore the Yankees stack against Mat Latos. Beltran, Young, Ryan, and McCann are a combined 22 for 58 with four dongs of Latos. Three of those dongs belong to Beltran, so he’s the one guy you can’t fade in that stack for sure. At least not if you believe in BvP.
With that Grinders, I have to get out of here and go check on my losing PGA lineups. Hopefully yours do better than mine and maybe I will be writing about you becoming the next Millionaire on Monday. Good luck and as always, see you tomorrow!