FanDuel Dinger Tuesday Picks for June 13

Tuesday’s are the best day of the week during the MLB season, thanks to FanDuel’s $5 Dinger Tuesday promotion. This article will break down the promo, show you how to attack it, and give some picks to be profitable!

This year I’ll be tracking my wagers here on eatwatchbet.com. This will include tracking units ($25) won as well as free bet conversions.

How it Works

First, make sure you OPT-IN for the promotion. Then, for every game in which you place a $25 bet on any player to hit a home run, you get a $5 free bet for each home run hit in the game. The free bets pay out regardless of whether your pick hits or not, and you can use this promotion on every single game on the Tuesday slate.

How to Win

We’ll look to pick a player from just about every game. We don’t need to worry about the -EV nature of Fanduel’s home run prices, as the value of the promotion creates an inherently +EV environment for this type of wager.

We are going to look to target games with higher totals, as there is more expected scoring. While we’ll get into more specifics outlined with the picks, in general, you want to look for the perfect storm of hot hitters, poor pitching, high totals, and good weather.

Total result: +$51.25, $100 Bonus Bets awarded

We used $100 in bonus bets during the week on FanDuel’s boosts, converting the 100 bonus bets into $87.50 putting our annual total at +$190.90 (7.6units).

Keep in mind, you’ll need to use free bets within one week, meaning that these will expire tomorrow if you haven’t used them yet. I’ll post picks at the end of the article or on twitter on a weekly article thread.

Weather Report

As more and more accounts get hit with the $50 per day max on Fanduel, we’ll look to limit our selections and prioritize games with the most home runs projected.

We’ll be looking at Citi Field in Queens and Busch Stadium in St. Louis as some of our better options on tonight's slate. Projections are showing 10+ mph winds blowing out to right field for both of these stadiums.

An interesting one to note will be Wrigley Field in Chicago. Winds are blowing out to right field in a notoriously wind affected ballpark (both positively and negatively). However, there are scattered showers projected around game time, suggesting that we should proceed with caution and wait to see if there’s a selection there. Check back with us on Twitter closer to gametime!

San Francisco Giants at St. Louis Cardinals: 7:45 pm EST

We are looking at some friendly hitting conditions in Busch Stadium tonight for a matchup between the Cardinals and Giants. The Cardinals have been quite a streaky team, personified by tonight's starting pitcher, Jack Flaherty. I’ve struggled to pick up on if and when Flaherty will have a good outing.

It starts and ends with Flaherty’s command and we’ve tended to avoid high variance pitchers in terms of walks, as we’d rather pick guys who are giving up more contact. Alex Cobb has given up a 44.2% hard hit rate this year but his saving grace has been his 58% ground ball rate. Cobb’s sinker/splitter combination has caused batters problems, but I’m not so sure I’m buying these results.

His 3.01 ERA isn’t supported by his 4.00 xERA and I’m not convinced he can throw anything but the splitter at this point. I think we’ve seen some unraveling from Cobb’s strong start as his walks have increased towards his career average and he’s still struggling to generate whiffs.

He’s given up five of his six home runs this season to right handers. We’ll be rolling with Nolan Arenado here at +520. While Cobb doesn’t give up the number of homers we usually target, we’ll try to catch lightning in a bottle with Nolan Arenado in his streaky 2023 campaign. Arenado has been hot of late, hitting 3 home runs in his past 6 games.

Arenado also has the highest average launch angle of any right-handed batter on the Cardinals, a key element against a pitcher like Cobb. Cobb is ok giving up hard contact if it’s on the ground, so we want to target a hot hitter whose focus is going to be getting the ball into the air.

I think this plus 85+ degree weather with winds blowing outward is a strong hitting environment for Arenado. +520 is just too long given these conditions and we’ll look to take advantage of what feels like a misprice.

New York Yankees vs. New York Mets: 7:10 EST

Tonight we have 2023’s first subway series matchup between the Mets and Yankees with this edition at Citi Field. The Mets are rolling out Max Scherzer, who was a fade target towards the beginning of the year, but has pitched much better despite an extremely poor outing last time against the Atlanta Braves.

I’m still not sold on Scherzer as an ace due to the velocity drop and barrel rate, but this Yankees lineup is a shell of itself. Players like Jake Bauers and Billy McKinney stand out as value, but these are not the names Yankee fans would expect to back.

We’ll instead look to the other side at Luis Severino, who is making his fifth start of the season after yet another injury saw him start the year on the IL. Severino has not been good upon his return, giving up a 44.4% hard hit rate supported by a .528 xSLG.

He’s given up three home runs in each of his last two starts against the White Sox and Dodgers. I think the power surge against Severino continues as he’s very clearly not the pitcher he once promised to be. Firstly, his fastball velocity at 94.5 is a full mph down from 2023 and a far cry from the 97.5 he averaged in 2018.

It seems that Severino also has lost his slider as he’s historically been a power slider and power fastball pitcher. He’s now looking like a fastball/changeup pitcher, a combination that is not yielding good results for him. Severino has long struggled with his changeup and while it’s yielding a higher run value than years past, his fastball and slider are severely struggling.

It won’t be long before the Yankees shut down Severino again, but they need him to eat up innings until they can get their rotation healthy again. I’m going with Francisco Lindor in this matchup, who’s quietly been one of the best power hitters on the Mets. His batting average has struggled but he’s averaging a career high 18 degree launch angle and 10% barrel rate, seemingly prioritizing hard contact over getting on base.

Lindor is swinging at more pitches in the zone and hitting them harder than in years past, which is a perfect combination for Dinger Tuesday. A price of +500 feels like we’re expecting Severino to be an ace on the mound, which he clearly is not. The rest of the market is sitting in the 400-420 range on Lindor so I’m thrilled to pick up +500 tonight.

Chicago White Sox vs. Los Angeles Dodgers: 10:10 pm EST

I’m going back to the well with JD Martinez in this one, in the midst of his bounce back season with the Dodgers. After a disappointing 2022 in his final season with the Red Sox, many thought Martinez’ power had disappeared. This combined with his declining plate discipline at age 35 limited his offseason prospects.

That being said, he’s found his power stroke with the Dodgers, already hitting 16 home runs in 2023. The days of his double digit walk rate might be over, but he’s improved his average launch angle to 19 degrees combined with an 18% barrel rate. It seems like JD is being more aggressive with his swing in 2023, noted by his zone swing percentage at a high at 79%.

There is more swing and miss to JD’s game than in years past, however, he’s being much more aggressive and driving the baseball when he gets pitches in the zone. You’ll notice some of these metrics and the total home run count has increased from week to week as Martinez has put another great week in the books, hitting two more home runs. He’s continued to hit the ball hard and in the air.

We’ll go up against Lance Lynn this week who provides an ideal matchup, similar to Luke Weaver last week. Despite decent strikeout numbers, Lynn has simply struggled through 2023. When opponents are making contact, Lynn has gotten crushed, he’s given up 19 hard hits and 4 home runs in his last two starts.

Lance Lynn leaves too many fastballs over the heart of the plate and I think JD Martinez will be the ideal candidate to cash in. Lynn has been particularly poor against left handers but I think we’re getting too much value on Martinez here.

FanDuel has a competitive market price at +430 this week. It’s surprising to see him priced lower than teammates Wil Smith and Mookie Betts tonight, given the success that Martinez has had in 2023.

See the full list below: