Welcome to the Dongers Club for Thursday, April 5th. I am looking at the early slate as the night cap is a different beast by itself and we’ll address that separately. This early slate has six games on it but does not include the earliest of them all the Mets @ Nationals. Imagine that, an Early slate without the Early game. Smart.
WEATHER
The weather is still cold in many spot with 4 of the 6 games being below 50 degrees and two of them having snow concerns. All games should play as there are no precipitation concerns to worry about, but we do have strong winds and cold temps in Boston as well as some really cold temps in the Chicago and Minnesota games. All in all, I expect all games to play but monitor that Chicago and Minnesota home openers.
PITCHING
James Paxton … Paxton is a darling in the DFS industry and someone who has high upside each time he is on the mound. I don’t think he is a must own today but I really like the matchup with the Twins. I expect some may jump on David Price and that’s fine, but for me I think Paxton is the top arm to roster today in bad hitting conditions in Target field.
Nick Pivetta … This is my guy on FD. The Marlins lineup is trash and he should navigate through the Castro-Bour part of the order. He’ll get plenty of run support in my mind and is the guy I trust the most to win.
David Price … I hate playing Price in fenway and not at the chalk he will be today. It’s not that he is seeing the Rays for the second time already this season as much as it is the wind blowing out and the fact that I don’t think he will pitch deep today. I prefer Paxton on DK as SP1.
STA…. TEAMS
ROCKIES … Colorado’s got a good matchup against the rookie Joey today and more importantly the Padres bullpen. Long term Luchessi might be a nice option but he’s likely to not go that deep again today and Colorado has one of the better hitting environments to jump on today. Arenado-Desmond is the main combo I like from Colorado today and DJ LeMahieu is in a great spot too.
PHILLIES … Pure talent pick here. I love the top of the Phils order that they rolled out with Kingery batting third in his home debut. Hernandez-Kingerny-Hoskins is where I am starting my main lineup
RANGERS … I think they wake up today and blow up on Mengden… Ole Daniel…
POSITIONAL TARGETS
CATCHER
- Chris Iannetta
- Jorge Alfaro
- Wilson Ramos – Add him to go against Price
FIRST BASE
- Matt Olson – Love him today even in LvL matchup
- Miguel Cabrera – Chalk, but I dont want him in cold temps
- Joey Gallo
- Ian Desmond
SECOND BASE
- DJ LeMahieu
- Cesar Hernandez
- Rougned Odor – TEX stack
THIRD BASE
- Nolan Arenado
- Rafael Devers
SHORTSTOP
- Scott Kingeryyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (2B/3B on DK)
- Xander Bogaerts
- Elvis Andrus
OUTFIELD – Tier 1
- The Walrus!!!!!!!!!!!! Shin-Soo-Ca-Chooooooo
- Rhys Hoskins
- Andrew Benintendi
OUTFIELD – Tier 2
- Kevin Kiermaier
- Mitch Haniger
- JD Martinez – His first HR will definitely come this weekend
- Nomar Mazara
THE DONGERS CLUB
- Shin-Shoo Choo – Chairman
- Nolan Arenado – 3B
- Rhys Hoskins – OF
- Scott Kingery – SS
- Mitch Haniger – OF
- Matt Olson – 1B
- DJ LeMahieu – 2B
- Chris Iannetta – C
- BONUS …………… Andrew Benintendi – OF
