The trouble with daily fantasy baseball is that on some days, everything looks like a bad option.

Sometimes it finally feels like the smart guys who assign value to players hit most everything, at least for a day. There isn’t a glaring value that jumps out at you, and sometimes — even after further inspection — you’re not sure that you can find a hole in the system to exploit. The options may not all be bad, but they’re at least just “okay” or “average,” and that could keep you from being a winner and just falling into the middle of the pack.

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Yesterday, I unveiled another use of a pitcher’s BABIP, besides quickly identifying who has benefited from some good fortune and whose luck should improve. I focused on the K/9 rate and how a low or inflated BABIP could dramatically affect it as it increases or reduces the number of hitters a pitcher will face each inning, giving him additional or fewer opportunities to strike batters out.

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Today is the second day of e3, the Electronics Entertainment Expo, where video game nerds see the previews and trailers for upcoming consoles, games, and apps. The only convention the present author has any desire to attend is BlizzCon. Unfortunately this year is sold out…perhaps next time.

On today’s agenda:
1. Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s hot hitting
2. The return of Peter Bourjos
3. Dilemma, thy name is Adam Dunn
4. Rickie Weeks is heating up
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A few teams are off tonight but you still get 100% of the Bullpen Report (I think)…

• Greg Holland picked up the clean save tonight, striking out two for his 13th save of the year. Since his struggles earlier on in the season Holland has been great and in his last eleven appearances, Holland has thrown 11.0 scoreless frames with 16 strikeouts against only three walks. On the year Holland now has a 1.96 ERA supported by a fantastic 1.33 FIP and 2.13 xFIP. Holland’s control (3.91 BB/9) isn’t perfect, but he makes up for it with a fantastic 13.70 K/9, backed by an equally fantastic ability to miss bats (14.3% SwStr%). Holland hasn’t received as many save opportunities as some other relievers (I’m looking at you Mr. Jason Grilli) but not many pitchers have Holland’s ability to get K’s and he should be one of the better options out of the pen, whether it’s real life or fantasy this season.

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After introducing HURT (hitter injury finder), I am introducing PAIN (pitcher injury finder) today. Besides a list potentially hurt hitters and pitchers, I will examine Ryan Braun, Anibal Sanchez, Kevin Youkilis and report the velocity for some pitchers returning from the D.L.

• Last week I introduced a metric to help look for position players playing through injury called HURT. Today, I introduce PAIN which looks for pitchers with traits of injured pitchers. Mainly it looks for fastball velocity drops and low, dropping Zone%’s from only the previous season. I have weighted in a bit on Pace (hurt pitchers take longer between pitches) and average fastball velocity (I have found harder throwers are more injury prone). I tried to add consistency of release points, but could not get it to work because too many pitchers have more than one release point. Finally, I am going to add in a measure of contact in the future and regress the values. Enough of the boring stuff, here are the pitchers PAIN determines to be a injury risk:

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Well, maybe it’s not so bad. In fantasy baseball, at least, most of the Marlins’ outfielders are owned in deep leagues. Juan Pierre might even be owned in some mixed leagues for his steals. At least when he goes up against the catchers from Tampa, San Diego, Anaheim, either Chicago, and Boston. And maybe it’s not that bad in real life either: the team has more than two wins from the outfield squad, and that’s good for 18th in the league.

But the way that outfield has been managed, and the type of talent that could be on the way, means that the Marlins outfield still represents some sort of crisis. In that it is in flux, and there’s opportunity here if the chips fall a certain way.

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Martin Prado was a fantasy darling in 2012. His positional flexibility has traditionally made him a popular late-round pick, but he provided much more than that. His .345 wOBA ranked fourth amongst qualified second basemen, eighth amongst qualified third basemen, and even top-35 amongst qualified outfielders. Not only was he providing premium positional flexibility, but he was also providing extreme value — especially at second base.

His successful season in 2012 led to a massive uptick in his average draft position (ADP). For the ’12 season, his ADP was 194. That jumped to 100 this year. Fantasy owners paid for a high batting average, double-digit home runs and even double-digit stolen bases.

This year, though, Prado has been nothing short of a disappointment. He’s hitting .248/.297/.340 with four home runs and just one stolen base. His .280 wOBA ranks 16th amongst qualified second basemen, and his 69 wRC+ is the worst of his eight-year career. According to ESPN, he’s been the 22nd-best fantasy option at second base — which ranks worse than Brian Dozier and Daniel Descalso.

Looking at his .267 BABIP this season, it’s easy to explain away his struggles as merely bad luck. Or as the narrative suggests, perhaps it’s a result of pressing at the plate, trying to replace Justin Upton in the Diamondbacks’ lineup. Whatever the reason, it’s disconcerting to glance at his 2011 numbers because they very closely mirrors his poor performance in 2013.

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If you took Jason Heyward in your draft this year you almost certainly spent a pretty penny on him. After a 27 homer and 21 steal campaign and the fact that Justin Upton was acquired to hit directly behind him in the lineup, Heyward was an extremely attractive target on draft day and if you left the draft with him as your top outfielder you probably felt pretty happy about it.
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If you’ve never played a daily fantasy contest, you may be unsure what type of game to play. You have to make a few decisions to find the right game for you.

The first decision is salary cap or pick ‘em. Salary cap is exactly what it sounds like. You have a salary cap ($100,000) to pick your lineup which consists of three pitchers, one player at each infield position, three outfielders and a utility slot. In a pick ‘em contest, everyone picks one player from each tier. Tiers are just small groupings of players.

I prefer salary cap because it requires a little more effort. You have to sift through all the players in a cap contest as opposed to a small number of players in a pick ‘em. If you’re willing to put in the time required to find the value in a cap contest, you may have an advantage. Everyone in the contest may not be willing to take the time to find value. Read the rest of this entry »

Francisco Liriano has been a tantalizing player over his career. Occasionally, he can look like one of the best pitchers in baseball. But most of the time, his performance fails to live up to his elite stuff. There’s been far more of the former version this year. Through 36 innings, Liriano has a 1.62 FIP. Liriano hasn’t thrown enough innings to be considered a “qualified” pitcher, but his strong FIP would rank first among starters. By now, we’ve seen enough about Liriano to know that, based on his career, this breakout is not guaranteed to continue. But Liriano has adopted an altered approach this season that may keep him from his usual roller coaster performance.

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