Rise & Grind: Thursday, May 21st
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
DFS For Ryan – Yesterday, I mentioned the story of RMTHawk, who is battling cancer. A GoFundMe was set up by Ryan’s family to cover expenses. The DFS community has stepped up and generously donated to that effort. FantasyFeud has taken it a step further than that. FF has donated $2000 worth of tickets to tomorrow’s $50K GPP to players who will play on behalf of Ryan. Grinders who wish to participate can join in this thread until tickets run out. They will then use those tickets tomorrow and all winnings will be sent to Ryan. Good luck to everyone else who signed up. Let’s go win one for Ryan as he beats cancer. Also, a huge shoutout to FF for running this. If you haven’t tried out FF, sign up through the RG links for a deposit bonus plus free FF incentives for one year.
Qualifier Roundup – Congratulations to stevietpfl for winning the $5 PFBC qualifier on FanDuel. Stevie needed a 7th inning home-run from Buster Posey to vault him to first. Don’t be surprised when Stevie writes up Posey at catcher for the rest of the year in his picks. Can you blame him though? BeepImaJeep will also be joining Stevie at the PFBC after he took down the $1065 qualifier last night. Over on DraftKings, BeepImaJeep also took down the $1K FWBC qualifier and has now maxed out at five entries for the event. Last but not least, Kcannon won the King of Boston qualifier.
GPP Roundup – Last night’s big winner was jdaddy3535, who rode a Cardinals stack (plus Posey and McCutchen) to victory. Jdaddy3535 scored 182.2 points and turned $3 into $100,000 in the $300K Swing for the Fences. Jdaddy wasn’t the only person to claim some cash though. The_big_lombardi took down the FD Monster, SteveAvery took down the DK Perfect Game, and finsince82 took down the Payoff Pitch. For the rest of yesterday’s links, check this forum thread.
Rankings Update – Here at RotoGrinders we strive to make the player rankings as accurate as possible with the data available. As you may or may not know, the rankings only include top 20% scores at this point. This results in credit not being received for cashing in a 50/50 contest unless you place in the top 20%. A fix is still being worked for that issue, but some other updates have been made to hopefully make the rankings more accurate. Riley has a full explanation of the changes made so far in this forum thread. The cliff notes version is that site diversity is no longer used and sport diversity has been updated. If you have questions about the rankings, other than why you aren’t ranked higher, drop a question in that thread and Riley can explain.
Harper Ejection – If you didn’t win all the money last night, hopefully it wasn’t due to a bad beat. In the third inning of the Washington Nationals game, umpire Marvin Hudson called a questionable strike against Bryce Harper. A few words were exchanged and Harper stepped out of the box. Hudson warned Harper to step back into the box – Harper did but then Hudson gave him the old “Yerrrrrrr Outta Hereeeeee!” Here is the video if you would like to see it. I have to warn you the video is graphic though. Many bankrolls and dreams died as a result of Harper’s ejection. I apologize if it is still too soon, but we have to ask the question now. Is it too much of a risk to play Bryce Harper? This makes twice in a week that Harper has been ejected. If we extrapolate this week’s results to the rest of the season, we are looking at roughly 35 more ejections for Harper. That seems like a pretty big risk.
Cavaliers/Hawks – Game 1 of any playoff series is always important. The winner of Game 1 will win a seven game series more than 50% of the time. Great players are aware of this probability. If you were banking on the Cavaliers winning this series, you weren’t worried at all about their best player showing up. LeBron James J.R. Smith did just that. Smith hit a career-high eight three-pointers en route to 28 points off the bench. The only confusing part is why JR comes off the bench. David Blatt coaches this team though, so you have to expect things like that from time to time.
On the Menu
NBA/NHL – The playoffs continue tonight in both the NBA and NHL. For DFS purposes, the games offered are rolling two-day slates. In NBA, the Rockets and Warriors square off in Game 2. Make sure to check the status of Dwight Howard before the game. If he sits, fire up all the Clint N’Dumba-Capela. Yes, that’s his legal name, even though it is just listed as Capela on the DFS sites. No, it wouldn’t be a “dumba” move to use him tonight. In fact, you will be singing a victory song ah, capela if you do have enough faith to use him on all your teams. As far as NHL goes, the Ducks and Hawks square off tonight after playing a never-ending game on Tuesday. If Goldberg still plays for the Mighty Ducks, I would take him. If not, I’m not sure what you should do except maybe ask around in the forums for some good picks.
MLB Today – Today is split-slate Thursday as usual. We have 12 games on the schedule with six included in the early slate and six in the late. Content will continue to roll in all day long for your clicking pleasure. There is even an early edition of GrindersLive with BritDevine and headChopper, which you might be missing right now if you are reading this instead. Later today, you can also catch CrazyGabey and stevietpfl at 4:30 ET and then Brit and STLcards at 5:30.
#NarrativeStreet – The guys on GrindersLive give out great picks. That is evidenced by the fact that stevietpfl won a PFBC with the picks he gave out on the 5:30 show last night. The problem is that everyone else watches these shows. If you want to set yourself apart from the crowd, you need to identify some picks based on things besides splits and stats. Here are today’s #NarrativeStreet picks to help you take down a GPP. We kick things off with today’s most obvious pick. Is Miguel Cabrera playing a day game? Yes, that means you want him in all your lineups based on his splits this year. He only homers in day games guys. A case can easily be made to play Martin Prado in a #RevengeGame as well. Nelson Cruz is almost always a must play, but in a #RevengeGame against the Orioles he’s even more of a must-play. Last but not least, we have our #BVPPlayOfTheDay. Alexei Ramirez is 8-of-10 off Danny Salazar including one dong. That’s an .800 batting average. You can’t fade that!
Bottom Line – You didn’t win $100K last night and sadly neither did I. We can still keep trying though. DraftKings is running a $1M Perfect Game tomorrow with a $100K top prize. There are plenty of satellites available in the lobby. If FanDuel is more your style, they are also running a Super-Monster on June 2nd and qualifiers are in the lobby. Go play in some satellites today, win a ticket to a contest you can’t afford, and supercharge your bankroll. Good luck out there, and see you tomorrow.