Rise & Grind: Tuesday, August 11th
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
Last Grinder Standing – Are you tired of losing because other players have a bigger bankroll? In a contest where everyone gets just one entry, could you outlast the field? FanDuel and RotoGrinders have teamed up for a contest that will let you find out. Click here to reserve your spot in the “Last Grinder Standing” Survivor contest. The entry fee is $5 and the contest will run for 10 weeks, with payments starting in Week 3 for those who advance. Best of all FanDuel has chipped in an extra $2000 which means the contest will have guaranteed overlay.
PGA Millionaire Maker – The PGA Open Championship starts on Thursday. This is the fourth and final major of the season. This is probably the last PGA Millionaire Maker that DK will run. If you want to become filthy rich playing PGA DFS, this is your last chance until next year. If you want to get into the Milly Maker for cheap, DK is running some super-sized satellites tonight. If you are ready to start building your teams, we’ve got a course breakdown from hokie, Notorious already has his expert picks submitted, Gibbathy has his coming soon, and Devo, Gibbathy, and STLCards will be on GrindersLive After Dark tonight to run through the entire field. Also, LeoTPP, who is one of the editors here, provided his lineup building spreadsheet on Twitter yesterday.
Big Winners – Plenty of Grinders won in the five digits last night. One of them gets an extra special shoutout though. Haskele, aka Ethan Haskell, took down the FanDuel Grand Slam. Ethan currently works for DraftKings, but he used to work right here at RotoGrinders. He helped develop many of the tools on this site. He’s also pretty fun to troll on Twitter. We had some other winners besides Ethan though. djeagle2 took down the FD Monster, phillyfan007 won the Rally, thewrightime won the Squeeze, yoyomah won the Slugger, slipsitz won the Line Drive, pasokid won the Sac Fly, and hyperboyya won the Home Run. Over on DraftKings, theclone won the Perfect Game, seven different players tied for first in Swing for the Fences, okbosox26 won the Payoff Pitch, Samenole won the Gold Glove, mistermoney won the Hot Corner, rainxoverxyou won the High Heat, and paulbertini took down the King of Miami qualifier. If you would like to look through the links yourself, they are right here in this thread.
Obligatory NFL Mention – If you hadn’t noticed, preseason NFL started on Sunday. That means we need to start including random NFL stories in the Rise and Grind. I could mention the ongoing DeflateGate story, but honestly who still cares about that? Instead I would encourage you to sign this petition started by Eagles fans. Eagles QB am Bradford has injured his knee each of the past two seasons. Eagles fans are hoping that when the Pope visits Philadelphia in a few weeks he can bless “(player-popup)Sam Bradford”:/players/sam-bradford-11617’s knee. I’m an Eagles fan, but I don’t fully understand what is going on here. The Eagles already have Tim Tebow, who I assumed was roughly on the same level as the Pope. Why not just have Tebow bless Bradford’s knee?
NFL Preseason – While we are on the subject of NFL, DraftKings just released more games for the six-game set on Thursday. FantasyAces will also be running preseason contests. If you are like me and already sick of MLB, these contests are a great way to pass time until CFB and NFL start.
On the Menu
MLB Tonight – Today is Super Tuesday! As usual, we have a full 15-game slate. That also means we will have a full slate of content here at RotoGrinders. That will include the MLB Grind Down, JMtoWin’s Edge, Advanced Pitching Stats, Six-Pack, and so much more. Once you take in all that content, be sure to come back at 3:30 ET for 3.5 hours of GrindersLive.
MLB GPPs – With a full slate of action, there are some nice-sized GPPs across the industry. DraftKings has the aforementioned Milly Maker satellites as well as a $400K Special ($100K to first), a $250K Perfect Game, and a $160K Moonshot. Not to be outdone, FanDuel is running a $160K Grand Slam, a Super-Monster qualifier, $100K Rally, and a $60K Squeeze.
#NarrativeStreet – If you want to win one of the GPPs above, you are going to need a few against-the-grain plays. Here are some picks based on narratives to help set your team apart. Pablo Sandoval, Colby Rasmus and Melky Cabrera all have birthdays today, which means the #BirthdayGame bump. The Oakland/Toronto game will also be full of #Revenge as Danny Valencia, Brett Lawrie and Josh Donaldson all face off against their former teams. On the #MilestoneWatch front you can pretty much bank on a Dan Haren win, as he needs just one to reach 150. Last but not least, several hitters have positive BVP in the Daily Batter Hub. Since we like HRs, Trevor Plouffe, Robinson Cano, and Neil Walker get the nod as our BVP plays. They each have two home runs in 7, 29, and 13 at-bats respectively. Fire them up if you believe in BVP and narratives!
Bottom Line – It is with mixed emotions that GrindersLive will be saying goodbye to Al_Smizzle tonight. Al has been doing the 5:30 ET GrindersLive show pretty regularly for the last few years. If you tune into GrindersLive frequently, he has probably won you some money. Al is moving onto something bigger which will be announced soon. In the meantime, be sure to tune into Al’s last show tonight at 5:30 ET. If #NarrativeStreet is a real thing, (it is) Al is going to win someone a lot of money tonight. It could be you. With that, I’m out of here. See you later!