Welcome back to our Chalkies and Cheapies article. This is where you find the most obvious plays of the slate, and where you find the cheapest viable plays of the slate. Finding the chalk (popular) plays is helpful in knowing where the crowd is going. In cash games, you don’t mind these popular guys being on your rosters. In tourneys, you might consider intentionally going another direction to set yourself apart. Of course, you can’t set yourself apart from the crowd if you don’t know where the crowd is going. You will hear me say “know the chalk to get off the chalk.”
Baseball is perhaps the hardest sport to nail the chalk. There are several options each day. I will give you a couple. Then, I will give you the best cheap play in a decent matchup to start your roster construction. In the Army, we promote a “bottom up” lineup construction. VIP members can access several videos on the subject here —–> Dinks and Dunks. Look for “Bottom Up” and “Process” videos. Essentially, start with the “cheapies” and start upgrading later. It’s actually a very fun way to build a lineup as well.
First, on a huge, full slate like Fridays, it’s going to be hard to correctly nail the chalk. We will get close, though. Kershaw and other high priced names will help because the salaries are restrictive enough people are going to be punting all over the place. In looking up and down the slate, my first thoughts go to the New York Yankees. They will be facing Mike Pelfry, a noted target for bats. They are also heating up, are always popular, and are fairly cheap for how they’ve been rolling. Those are pretty heavy chalk indicators. Look to the cheaper players like McCann, Castro, Gregorius, and Refsnyder/Parmalee to be popular in your lineups tonight. However, if looking into DET, you will find some Cameron Maybin. If smart, you might find some Victor Martinez. He’s the same price as McCann and the better player.
Second, I love looking into PHI when Kershaw is on the slate. Phillies and Kershaw seem to go hand in hand like peanut butter and jam. But, when facing Strasburg, we won’t be finding PHI punts unless someone is being contrarian. Honestly, being contrarian in cash formats is kind of stupid and is an indicator of a fishy player you can write down the name of and come back to for some free bankroll building over time. WAS has a few names you’ll find. But, they are going to cost people. I don’t think you’ll see as much as a mini-stack from this game often in your contests tonight.
Let’s just roll down the games and pick out the names. This seems a little easier to do today…..
STL will push a lot of Jhonny Peralta in to your lineups. Until he gets to $3500, he’s just gonna be pretty chalky. He doesn’t draw a great matchup, but he’s cheap as a whore running a summer special. The sub-3k PIT bats are in play, too. I don’t know how popular they’ll be, but you should be looking at them for your Kershaw lineup.
In BAL, Kim is still too cheap. So is Pedro Alvarez for how he’s been playing. Kim will be chalky, Alvarez won’t be. Russel Martin, Devon Travis, and even Darwin Barney offer cheap exposure to the Blue Jays tonight.
I think OAK might be where we find some chalk tonight. Sitting in CIN’s ballpark and facing a guy making his debut? It’s a pretty good spot to play hard if you need the savings off Kershaw. Look at these prices! Only Danny Valencia is over 3k. Vogt should be chalky.
Cubs are largely unaffordable with Kershaw, but you could use OAK and mini-stack Cubs. If you did, I’d be looking at Baez then a bigger bat in this order. ATL is another cheap option for Kershaw slates, but they just aren’t good yet. I don’t see many people punting with them in more than one spot in their lineups.
Hanley Ramirez and Travis Shaw are cheap in BOS. Looking for big offenses to get some exposure to is a premium technique on big pitcher slates. Trevor Plouffe is always a good one to look for when needing savings on the MIN side of things.
Wilmer Flores has the tendency to occasionally lead off for the Mets. I’d be on him if he does. The Mets are actually a team in GPPs where I can see people reaching for balanced savings due to that ballpark advantage. Mets prices have come down quite a bit from a month ago. I don’t think anyone will be on MIL taking on Matt Harvey since he’s been rolling better his past two starts.
Let me explain something to you about KC. These guys can be cash options. Tonight vs Sale, they will NOT be chalk. But, I want to share two of my favorite cash plays. Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain. Neither are hot right now, so that part sucks. But, they both have history with Chris Sale. Alcides has 56 ABs against him and displays a .860 OPS and .380 wOBA. I won’t compare those numbers to his career averages before calling it……………..those are above his average. He’s cheap, too, at 2200 on FanDuel. Lorenzo is stupid cheap for what he’s done to Chris Sale as well. 2800 somehow for a guy that has 46 ABs, a .978 OPS, and a .420 wOBA with 3 homers in the heart of the damage KC might inflict. This is actually a very smart place to be on a Kershaw slate and you won’t find a crowd with you. I hope it pays off. On the flip side of the game, there are some value plays that won’t be all that chalky, either.
Everyone will be trying to squeeze their way into Coors with whatever money they have left. I’d grab my punt/deep value from NYY and OAK or those KC players I mentioned and come into this game to bust my nut over the rest of my bats. Your going to have to work at it, but DJ LaMahieu has turned it on a little bit of late and even Trevor Story’s price has come down. The catchers in Norris and Hundley are fairly cheap, too.
I don’t see the ARI game being terribly filled with chalk, but it’s viable for sure. There are some nice price points in there facing two mediocre lefties. Look at the splits and don’t fear reaching for a bat or two from this one.
The other games are a little putrid for my taste, so I don’t see heavy focus on them from the crowds. Sure, you may find some sprinkles of bats here and there, but you wouldn’t likely consider them “chalky.” Hopefully this helped you get an idea of where the crowds might go. But, again, they will be rather spread out on such a large slate.
In fact, let’s do a little lineup building with Kershaw on the slate. Follow me this way —–> http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cD162jio5H
These are the types of quick-hitting videos you get as a VIP with strategy tips and whatnot. These are the Dinks and Dunks series linked above. Feel free to cruise through and watch them from time to time.
Join us again for another edition of Chalkies and Cheapies down the road. Speaking of down the road, my wife is motioning I give this thing a wrap so I can pack the car for our weekend trip………….down the road.
That should be enough to get you rolling. Look for Boomer’s Bombers to come out later today along with our stat compilations and ratings……….HOOAH!!
Boomer’s Bombers ——> Cheatsheets
