Every day this season, our team will share who we believe has the best chance to leave the yard. We’re calling it the “Dinger of the Day”. From one-off plays to core parts of daily stacks, we hope this fun article will help you build winning lineups along the way.
Today’s Picks
James: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – “Trying to break my drought here, I am taking Vlad Jr. tonight against Indians starter Eli Morgan who is making his Major League debut. Morgan has an elite changeup, though not much more to fall back on as he doesn’t have a ton of velocity on his fastball and his breaking stuff has been said to be hit or miss. Morgan has been average at the Triple-A level (3.95 ERA/1.573 WHIP), though he does average a shade more than a strikeout per inning. That being said, the Blue Jays are a tough draw for your Major League debut and Vlad Jr ranks in the top 5% of the league in almost every major statistic. Of his 16 home runs, eight have come on fastballs and just two on offspeed, though he is still managing to slug the offspeed stuff at a .533 clip. I view this as a complete mismatch and love the chances for Vlad to go deep tonight.”
Zach: Paul Goldschmidt – “Goldy didn’t go deep for me yesterday but he still had a really good game with a double, walk, two runs scored, and an RBI. I am going right back to him tonight as I still love his elite Statcast numbers that I mentioned in yesterday’s article and due to the fact that he faces a left-handed pitcher in Madison Bumgarner. MadBum has been a decent pitcher this season on standard metrics but his Statcast numbers have been awful. This season Bumgarner is allowing an average exit velocity of 90.3 miles per hour with a 24.0-degree launch angle. The launch angle is what stands out to me as 25-degrees is the sweet spot for home runs to be hit.
Jared: Kyle Seager – “I don’t often go back to the same guy on back to back days, but with a high variance sport like baseball, it’s not a bad idea to do so. Especially when a matchup jumps off the page quite a bit. Jordan Lyles has allowed the most HR among SPs on the main slate today (on the 2021 season), with 15 barrels and an extreme fly ball bias. LHB have a career .357 wOBA against Lyles (his worse split) and Seager’s hitting the ball harder per EV than any other Mariner over the last 2 weeks (92.6 mph) with a team best 21.4% barrel% as well, along with a mid-teens (and HR-friendly) launch angle. He has as good of a chance as anyone on the slate at connecting for a big fly here.”
Overall Standings
| James | 7 |
| Zach | 8 |
| Jared | 17 |
