Mmmmmmarrrrggghhhh. I have some extra hangover, would you like some? I made my first final table of a poker tournament in a long time yesterday. I haven’t played very many poker tournaments in the last year and a half. I finished 6th for $11k and celebrated by drinking a case of beer and bottle of whiskey while ravaging the Allies controlled by roommate in a game of Axis and Allies. He went to bed and then I played Stratego with another roomie. I don’t remember going to sleep but I remember waking up at 1:30 in the afternoon today.

Full slate tonight. I’m only playing GPPs and will likely only play GPPs until football season comes around and brings us FREE MONEY TUESDAYS. MLB has got much tougher this time of year. The dead money has either dried up or gotten better at playing DFS so edges have reduced. Check out the scores needed to cash in 50/50s now compared to in May, and check out what those scores are in September when new NFL money shows up. And especially check out those scores on Tuesdays, the day after all those new NFL players get paid and need to fill their DFS void.

The whole key to GPPs is finding the unpopular guy with just as much upside as the popular plays. It is almost universally correct to fade the chalk plays in GPPs in sports with lots of variance, which pretty much means every sport except for basketball. Mike Trout can always go 0 for 4, but LeBron James will always score you a bunch of points. NBA is the most predictive of the games and has the least variance. Therefore my picks, while still based on numbers, are also considering how likely I feel a player is to be owned, and in MLB, how likely that guy is to dong.

Pitching in baseball is the most predictive. I make my pitching picks based more on the math involved and less on ownership, because the top pitching option is very likely to score the most points. The top hitting option on the night very rarely scores the most points. I am always looking for pitchers that can strike guys out as strikeouts provide a nice floor as well as unlocking a high ceiling.

Strasburg, Arrieta, Keuchel, and Syndergaard are all fine pitching options tonight. I like Strasburg the most based on price, but he will be the most popular tonight. He has the highest K upside and is throwing at home. Arrieta will go overlooked at his price tag and nobody likes taking pitchers against the Giants, but AT&T is a better pitcher’s park than Nationals Park. Keuchel will also go underowned facing the potent Yankees in the bandbox that is Yankee Stadium and it’s short porch in right field that allowed 10 more rows of seats. Keuchel is also a lefty, holds a 0.221 wOBA v LHB to go with a 25.7% K rate and a ground ball rate over 60% to hitters from both sides of the plate. That short porch in right field doesn’t scare me. Both make excellent GPP options – nearly as much upside and scoring projections as Strasburg and Syndergaard, but extremely lower ownership due to matchup and price.

Karns looks great at 8.3k but I think he is still on a pitch count restriction of around 80 pitches so his ceiling is capped. Chavez and Quintana are great $7.5k options, and I can get behind Montgomery and Foltynewicz for super cheap options.

Jaso is the play again at catcher. He has been underowned in my opinion lately so I will be rolling him out in all formats. Schwarber, Lucroy, and Gomes make nice GPP pivots, but I don’t think we need to pivot off Jaso since he isn’t popular yet. Ben Paulsen looks great at 1B. He donged last night in Colorado and he takes his usual 5th spot in the order against righties, and this righty is Foltynewicz who leaves the ball high too much and thus gives up a lot of dongs. I like the whole Rockies lineup really, they get ignored outside of Coors and can still score a bunch of runs tonight. Daniel Murphy will be the chalk at 2B tonight but Chris Coghlan is a much better value. Slide Murphy over to 3B. Nothing exciting at SS, take who you want. Tulo, Hanley, Correa, Desmond, Peralta, and Flores are the most likely to dong. People think Hanley is broken so he will likely be lowest owned. If you don’t play Murphy at 3B, his colleague Kelly Johnson looks really good. Jerome Williams is arguably the worst pitcher in baseball, and the Phillies HAVE the worst defense in baseball. The Mets will likely be the highest owned stack tonight. At OF I like Cespedes, Granderson, Blackmon, Puig, Heyward, Fowler, and a bunch of punts including Byron Buxton, Scott Van Slyke, Desmond Jennings, Colby Rasmus, Jason Werth, and Jason Bourgeois.

So we need to nail down how highly the Mets will be owned tonight. They are the top option on the night, but how highly owned will they be? If they are over 20% they seem like an auto fade for me, less than 15% has my attention. I like Colorado, but I feel like they are getting more attention than teams like Toronto, who scores more than anybody and is in Texas where it’s hot and humid today or Baltimore who hits almost as many home runs at Toronto but is in the pitcher’s park that is Kaufman Stadium. Everybody will be on Strasburg so I like a Padres stack… they actually look like a really good value to me tonight. Now I need to go make a Padres stack.

Devo