Rise & Grind: Tuesday, April 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
The Coors Effect – If this is your first season of DFS, I would like to introduce you to my friend Coors Field. I’m sure you have heard about my friend’s prowess at making any offense look better. Yesterday, you may have been thinking, “Yeah, I get it, Coors Field. These are the Padres though.” Well guess what, the Padres hung a crooked number, 14 runs to be exact, on George of the Roses, aka Jorge De La Rosa. If you didn’t get a chance to partake in last night’s festivities, me and all my friends are doing it all over again tonight. Same time, same place.
I Challenge Your Challenge – With all eyes on Coors last night, most people missed what might be the strangest thing I have seen all year. In the fifth inning of Pirates/Cubs, Kris Bryant singled scoring Jorge Soler and Anthony Rizzo. Pirates manager Clint Hurdle challenged that Rizzo was thrown out at the plate and the call was overturned. As soon as the play was overturned, Cubs manager Joe Maddon came out to challenge the challenge. Maddon challenged that Pirates catcher Cervelli blocked the plate. His challenge was denied. Hasn’t Maddon seen Dumb and Dumber? You can’t triple-stamp a double-stamp and you definitely can’t challenge the other team’s challenge.
Dong Report – Even though 17 runs were scored at Coors, most were not the results of dongs. There were only 13 dongs hit yesterday. Luis Valbuena was the only player with a double dong. The longest dong belonged to Ryan Braun at 430 feet. The shortest dong belongs to Brett Hayes at only 365 feet. The most generous pitchers were Hisashi Iwakuma, who continued his home run problem, and Matt Shoemaker. They each allowed two dongs.
NBA Playoffs – Game two of MIL/CHI and NO/GS was played and in both cases the favorite won and took a 2-0 lead. Let’s be honest, you could get your NBA recap from anywhere. You come to the Rise and Grind for the narratives. What did we learn from a #NarrativeStreet perspective last night? First of all, we learned maybe this guy isn’t as crazy as we thought for telling anyone who would listen that Jimmy Butler and Klay Thompson are pretty good. Both players came up big in the fourth quarter and sealed the game for their teams. We also learned that Anthony Davis is pretty good but he can’t do it by himself. The Brow played 42 minutes last night, but despite his best effort, it just wasn’t enough. We also learned that the Knicks are going to overpay Draymond Green this offseason. Every three pointer Green sunk last night roughly equals another million the Knicks added to their offer. Last but not least, we saw Zaza Pachulia and Nikola Mirotic get tangled up and both got ejected. Keep an eye on these storylines going into pivotal game three.
NHL Playoffs – Last night saw contests between NYR/PIT, STL/MIN, and ANA/WPG. The Rangers, Wild, and Ducks all won. The Rangers and Wild now lead 2-1, and the Ducks are up 3-0. The narrative to watch in these NHL playoffs isn’t even happening on the ice though. After Sunday’s game between the Islanders and Capitals things got a little out of hand. No, there wasn’t a riot. This was much worse, an Islanders fan stole a Capitals fan’s licenses plate. There are just some things you don’t do. Look for the Capitals to avenge their fans tonight. You don’t steal someone’s license plate and get away with it.
Winner! Winner! – On FanDuel, bobbybcc took down the Grand Slam, dmac1977 took down the Squeeze, a few other people hit some big scores but the real story of the night was Cruzin2Victry. If you aren’t aware, Cruzin is the guy who makes sure all the research tools on this site work properly. From time to time, some of the tools need a little polishing and Cruzin always delivers. Last night the “tool polisher” took down third place and $7,500 in the Payoff Pitch. If you seem him around, shoot him a thank you for his hard work and a congratulations on the big score. For the rest of last night’s links, click here.
On the Menu
NBA Tonight – The short slates continue tonight with game two of the NBA playoffs for three different series. The Celtics/Cavaliers, Wizards/Raptors, and Mavericks/Rockets square off tonight. Thanks to a little peer pressure you also have the option to play tonight’s slate as a two-day set including tomorrow’s games. Notorious has a detailed look at tonight’s games right here in the NBA Grind Down. If you want to dig a little deeper into the narratives we have a few of those as well. Wizards SF Paul Pierce is nicknamed “The Truth” and he is never shy about spouting off his truths along with trash talk. When asked about the Raptors, Pierce said they just don’t have “it”. Raptors GM Masai Ujiri responded with a rhyme that implies they don’t really care about “it”. Obviously, this narrative can be attacked from many angles but I side with “The Truth”. When he talks, he usually backs it up. Fire him up in a game where he looks to prove #HeStillHasIt as he shows Toronto what “it” is.
NHL Tonight – With four playoff games on the schedule, NHL DFS action continues. There won’t be an NHL Daily Plays column, but you can always join the strategy discussion in our NHL Daily Thread. Also, don’t forget about the stolen license plate above. Fire up a Capitals stack as they look for #revenge tonight.
MLB Tonight – With 15 games on the schedule, tonight is Super-Tuesday in the industry. FanDuel is running a $175K Grand Slam at $25 and DraftKings is running a $500K Slugfest at $33. The latter includes a $50,000 first place prize. If that kind of money is something that interests you, RotoGrinders stands ready to help. Unless, you are planning on just running out a Coors field stack (not necessarily a bad plan) you will want o give the advice pieces on this site a read. Later today, Notorious will have a detailed look at every game in the MLB Grind Down. You can also expect the usual MLB items including the Pitcher Breakdown, Hitter Breakdown, GPP Plays, and the Six-Pack.
Bottom Line – As I mentioned, someone is going to win $50,000 tonight on DraftKings. I hate to break it to you but me and 15,000 of my friends already thought of the Coors field stack tonight. Sure, you can run different iterations, half Rockies, half Padres, Rockies 1-6, Padres 1-6, etc. It might work, but you won’t be the only one who tries it. Instead, focus on your research today. Lean on the tools here at RotoGrinders and build the best team possible. Don’t rule anyone out just because theya ren’t playing at Coors field. It’s still possible to hit a home-run in other parks. It’s been done a few times this year. Good luck out there tonight. Hopefully, I’m writing about your success tomorrow in this very column. See you tomorrow!