Sunday, July 28th
Final day for the Dongers Club Contest. After today’s games I will announce the three finalists with the Standings Updated and then those three will receive an invite for the 5 day Championship round each day next week, Monday through Friday.
Dongers Club Appreciation Contest – Day 7 / 7
Leaderboard:
Dongers Club Appreciation Leaderboard
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SUNDAY MAIN SLATE
Ten games on both sites today. Woo Hoo! Hey, remember when I said this was an awesome week because we had no Coors, no Camden, no Arlington, no Wrigley with Wind blowing out and no Yankee Stadium? Fucks sake, that didn’t end well. Instead of someone hitting three homers, we had the ole Denny’s Slate. Honestly, how is Denny’s not the sponsor for MLB these days with all these home runs? And I somehow feel that you can’t be an American who loves Baseball without having that 0.0001% of your body that will always remember eating Denny’s Grand Slam meals in the middle of the summer at like 7am when you were a kid. OK. I’m hungry….. 
That said, if we are ranking greasy, trashy, breakfast spots in America I think we gotta include my favorite The Toddle House. Almost 10000% certain the entire chain is out of business, in fact the one that I went to as a kid ended up as some murder spot where I think half the staff killed each other and then stored themselves in the backroom or something. Just go with the craziest thought you can think of okay? Anyways, their fucking waffles were the GOAT. And don’t let Rob Geriak sway you on this…. The official breakfast for kids rankings are as follows.
- WAFFLES
- Pancakes
- French Fucking Toast
Good french toast is fine, but give me some good fucking Waffles over French Toast any day of the week. This list excludes all breakfast items related to omelettes obviously.
Okay…. Thanks for reading, have a nice day.
WEATHER
All games play.
Sometimes on DraftKings you just find your favorite top arm and then a cheap arm you really love and at that point you should just stop and move on. That’s these first two guys with me today. Everyone after that are just alternative options….
Happy Day Walker Buehler day … Oh, it’s his birthday today too.
Walker Buehler
We missed ya last week Walker as you snuck in a late Sunday afternoon beat down of the Marlins in without being on the main slate. Today Walker is back on our radar against the Nationals in what likely is another less than dominant spot for him. But I gotta scratch the Walker itch so I’ll have Buehler on my radar today for sure. To all the data analysts out there who pound their chest that no writer can give you advice without backing it up with data I say suck it. It’s Walker fucking Buehler.
Elieser Hernandez – South Beach Theory
The Diamondbacks are the original team to invent the South Beach Theory in that they were in Miami for a Sunday afternoon game and they got no-hit by …. Edinson Volquez. Yes, no-hit. And it wasn’t even close, they were as lifeless on a Sunday 1PM as a group of mid 20’s men who spend most of their time out in Arizona would be in Miami on a Sunday morning after they had a vacant Saturday night the night before. If you aren’t following me here people then catch up quickly. The D’Backs and Fish played an ‘early’ Saturday night game last night at 6pm EST. Which meant they got out of the ballpark ‘early’ and … probably were bored and you know what, its late July — our pitcher the next day, Robbie Ray, he’s about to be traded, half the team is on the block … Guys, lets go out and hit the town shall we? … Man how I wish it was Jose Urena back going in this exact spot, but Elieser will do. #SBT
Aaron Nola
Nola is a very tempting play today at a reduced price. The Braves aren’t necessarily a consistent strike out team and they’re obviously playing well in Philly, but Nola’s recent performances and his history at home speak for themselves. He will give up a little bit today to Freeman, but gets through it and gives you a decent performance. Outside of one start against the Dodgers, Nola has six games of 40+ FanDuel points where he went 6+ innings and only gave up 1 HR. I like the way Nola is pitching.
DK PITCHER PAIRINGS RANKED
- Buehler & Hernandez
- Nola & Duffy
FD ARMS RANKED
- Hernandez
- Buehler
- Nola
Projected Chalk: Rays, Twins, Reds, Indians
There are a ton of hitting environments that I like today, most of which are off the projected chalk teams above — outside of the Twins and a little of the Reds.
TWINS vs WHITE SOX
What a blessing MLB can be at times. My cover photo for attacking Fraud Pitchers (which I must say was a great pre-season article) was Dylan Covey on the mound as Max Kepler rounded the bases. The Twins off a let down spot for others last night will bounce back today against the White Sox, but I’m not feeling necessarily that this is a Twins blowout by any stretch. Chicago should do damage off Kyle Gibson as well today and this to me is a good game overall to attack for offense, especially with Angel Hernandez behind the plate calling the game.
- TWINS: Twins 1-4 and Schoop
UPDATE: No Abreu for Chicago … Eloy is back and I still like Moncada, but … sheesh… Cmon White Sox.
SNEAKY SPOTS
METS
Archer chalk on a day game? Nah. McNeil, Conforto, Big Pete, Robbie Cano and Amed Rosario stack here in a game that is going OVER.
DODGERS
Very warm day and Strasburg on the mound for those who buy into the idea that he stinks in very warm weather games. I’m buying more into the Dodgers not leaving Nationals Park without a big HR game and that being today. With lots of other chalk teams out there today getting Joc-Bellinger-Muncy ownership fairly low here is a good tournament dart in my mind.
BLUE JAYS
Yonny Chirinos likely gets a decent amount of love today because he throws sliders over 20% of the time and folks still think the Blue Jays are a horrible team against Sliders. They have one — if not the — best hitters in the league against sliders in Lourdes Gurriel and Eric Sogard and Billy McKinney are two new faces who werent around in prior years to fit that narrative whom have good overall numbers against sliders as well. So throw that out of the window and we have a nice leverage contrarian stack here today with those three specifically. Also feels like a Justin Smoak day.
Games I am underweight on for offense, which if you wanna go opposite after the Braves/Phils game last night I wouldn’t scream at you
- Indians / Royals … I’m trusting Duffy to pitch another decent game.
- DBacks / Marlins
- Rockies / Reds … Ian Desmond and Nick Senzel homer, that’s about it….. Just dont msg me when the game is 16-12 in the 5th inning okay? I’ll get the point.
I’d like to point out the CarGo theory with a couple of really hot hitters today… The CarGo theory for those who forgot is that all CarGo hot streaks end with a Double Dong…. Well, I am applying that logic and theory to Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Ramirez today. Both of these guys have been on absolute tears over the past week with Goldschmidt homering in a ridiculous six straight games now and Ramirez has homered in back to back games and overall he has multi-hit games in 5 of his last 6 overall.
CATCHER
I wouldn’t spend a dollar here if I didn’t have too. What a dumpster dive on DK today.
- Tucker Barnhart
- Roberto Poerez
- Wellington Castillo
FIRST BASE
Easily the best of the infield positions on this slate and probably the one with the most tilt and HR from it today.
- Paul Goldschmidt … I gotta write him up so we can put this HR streak to the test here. Six straight games and now he gets a below avg lefty in Wade Miley and he’s only $4400 on DK.
- Justin Smoak … This is a 1% at best ownership play and good value on DK
- Anthony Rizzo
- Joc Pederson … I told you this position is loaded — Dodgers very sneaky today.
SECOND BASE
- Jonathan Schoop
- Jose Altuve
- Robinson Cano
THIRD BASE
Equally as good as first base. Bryant owns Davies and the Cubs win today. Jose Ramirez is on a roll and obviously a good play for the Indians lovers. But Yoan Moncada and Jose Abreu are gonna do damage off Kyle Gibson today, Moncada is my favorite here.
- Yoan Moncada
- Kris Bryant
- Brian Anderson
- Jose Ramirez … Better power vs RHP but should see a righty out of the Royals pen today.
SHORTSTOP
- Jorge Polanco
- Freddy Galvis
- Miguel Rojas
- Amed Rosario
OUTFIELD … Mt Rushmore Today
- Kyle Schwarber
- Harper, Bryce
- George Springer
- Max Kepler
/ Eddie Rosario
OUTFIELD – Off the wall
- Lourdes Gurriel Jr
- Nick Senzel
- Jorge Sunday Soler Power
- Michael Conforto
OUTFIELD – Value
- Joradn Luplow
- Ian Desmond
- Jason Heyward
- Jake Bauers
THE CHAIRMAN
- Kyle Schwarber – OF – Cubs
THE REST
- Justin Smoak – 1B – Blue Jays … because touting Goldschmidt would be too easy
- Kris Bryant – 3B – Cubs
- George Springer – OF – Astros
- Jose Altuve – 2B – Astros
- Amed Rosario – SS – Mets
- Tucker Barnhart – C – Reds
- Bryce Harper – OF – Phillies
- BONUS ……………………………………… Joc Jamz – 1B – Dodgers
