Rise & Grind: Thursday, May 7th
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
Balls! – Investigator Ted Wells released his 243-page report detailing a four-month long investigation in deflated balls. At this point, I would like to turn the column over to the sixth-grade version of myself for some quick thoughts. This press conference gives us an understanding of the pregame routine Tom Brady’s balls go through. First of all, he likes his balls a certain way. We knew this from the beginning. Once the balls are perfect, Tom doesn’t want anyone touching his balls. He wants his balls zipped up and locked away until he’s ready to take them out and play with them on the field. He realizes everyone has preference on how their balls should feel. When asked specifically how Tom checks his balls he offered this insight. “It’s just whatever feels good that day, I don’t sit there and try to squeeze it, that’s not part of my process. I grab it, I feel the lace, I feel the leather, if they feel broken in they are good with me.” Sounds pretty straight-forward to me. Why did we need a four-month investigation to determine how Tom Brady likes balls? Rival AFC East fans have been writing about that on comment boards for years.
Return of the King – If you read Tuesday’s Rise and Grind, you saw I had some choice words for LeBron James. If one is going to have the audacity to nickname himself King James, he needs to actually show up in the playoffs when it counts. LeBron read my thoughts, I’m sure of it. For game two, LeBron returned to the more aggressive, headband-wearing version of himself. If LeBron really is a king, it appears the headband is his crown. In game one without the headband, LeBron scored 19 points and the Cavs lost. In game two, with the headband, LeBron scored 33 points and the Cavs won. If you are still playing NBA DFS, be sure to check whether or not LeBron intends to wear the headband for his next game. The edge is razor thin in playoff DFS. Playing a headband-less LeBron is not something you want to risk.
MLB Recap – Yesterday’s early slate had a musical theme to it. You either played the Harp(er) or you played a sad, sad song. Bryce Harper hit a dong in each of his first three at-bats for the rarely seen triple dong. The Cubs ended the Cardinals eight-game win streak in a game where Kris Bryant did not hit his first home run. At this point, it’s worth asking the question whether Bryant is that guy anymore. It appears Bryant and teammate Starlin Castro have been working on getting their fielding in sync. Maybe the power hitting will come later. Seriously though, should we count that as a double play for Castro and Bryant?
Dong Report – In all there were 39 dongs hit yesterday. The longest dong belonged to Mike Trout at 443 feet while the shortest was Shin-Soo Choo at 339 feet. Bryce Harper had the only triple dong, but Evan Longoria and “Young Joc” Pederson chipped in double dongs of their own. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Josh Collmenter and Tom Koehler allowed the most dongs with three each.
Tournament Report – As I mentioned yesterday, thehazyone has all the big tournaments covered in his new Tournament Report. Give it a read later today if you are curious who won the live final qualifiers last night (hint: all of them were Grinders). If you are interested who won some cold hard cash, it was mostly bcalicore. He took down the Monster, eight of the top ten spots in the Grand Slam, and several other GPPs. A full list of yesterday’s links are in this forum thread.
On The Menu
MLB Today – We have eleven games on the diamond today. They are split into five early games and six late games. As always, this afternoon’s productivity outlook is bleak as DFS begin sweating their early only GPPs instead of filing those TPS reports. If you plan to partake in either the early or late slate we have you covered here at RotoGrinders. You can expect the MLB Grind Down and so much more. On top of that, we are hooking you up with an 11:30 AM ET GrindersLive for the Early Slate and then a 4:30 and 5:30 show for the late slate.
#NarrativeStreet – While the advice you can get from GrindersLive is solid you will need to find some plays with a little extra motivation if you want to win a GPP. Let’s take a quick stroll down Narrative Street. You can safely fire up James Loney for a #BirthdayGame tonight. Alex Rodriguez is on a #Milestonewatch as he needs one hit to move into 30th place all time.
Bottom Line – With MLB action split into two slates research should be a bit more focused today. If you find a bit of extra time hop over to the forums and join DraftCheat in the well. DC is answering questions about DFS, his research routine, that Def Leppard shirt he used to own, and pretty much everything else you have always wondered. Even if you don’t have a question give it a read, you might learn something.