Agenda

1. One week down
2. Thin day DFS
3. Normal fantasy on Tuesday
4. Look at the colors

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I had Jonathan Villar late last season in a league I needed some extra speed in (net stolen bases) and he gave me a solid 10 steals over the last third of the season. I had him in a dynasty league as well so I have been monitoring him for some while. The Astros have had a solid core of shortstops in their system with Villar then on the verge of major league play and Carlos Correa and Nolan Fontana further down the minors behind him. Villar got overshadowed due to Correa’s incredible upside, but he is now becoming a more common name among fantasy circles due to his impressive speed.
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Last year I took a look at the catchers and pitchers who were the worst at preventing stolen bases. The idea was that you could pick good base stealers when someone in the opposing battery was friendly to steals. Recently a reader asked me to update that study to include 2013’s stats. I was planning on doing just that, but the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s not a strategy you should employ on Draftstreet.

On a quick side note, if I had updated that study, it would have been more beneficial to just look at pitchers. As Blake Murphy pointed out on Thursday, Max Weinstein has recently done some research showing that the pitcher bears more of the responsibility of preventing stolen bases.

But the bigger reason the study isn’t worth updating is because of what I discussed last Monday, lineup stacking. Research has shown that upside increases the bigger your stack, and Draftstreet only allows you to use four players from the same team in a lineup. Research has also shown that downside decreases with each step down from no stacking to four man stacks before it starts to rise. That makes four man stacks an obvious strategy.

In a Draftstreet lineup that has nine slots for hitters, it makes the most sense to use two four-man stacks or three three-man stacks. If you use the three-man stacks, there’s not an extra slot in your lineup into which you can slot a speedster with a good matchup. And if you’re using two four-man stacks, you usually don’t have the flexibility for that last hitter slot to get a speedster into it. You should be picking your two stacks, picking your three pitchers, and then filling your last slot with the most expensive guy that fits in your remaining budget and has the platoon advantage.

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A few weeks back, I talked a bit about holding or targeting players with season long injuries in ottoneu leagues. The idea in that piece was to treat injured players like Prospects – you can’t be sure when they will be back, nor can you be confident in how they will perform.

When players are underpriced (say you have a $1 Patrick Corbin), you might as well hold them (or target them in trades). But when prices rise to more typical levels (say a $10 Corbin), there may be a different path forward, particularly for pitchers returning from Tommy John surgery.

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The CBS Sports league site has a Roster Trends section that is always interesting. I use it for the Deep League Waiver Wire column as it displays the ownership percentage of a select group of players. In addition, it provides a list of the most added and dropped players, comparing the current week’s ownership percentage to the next week. These lists provide a snapshot of what other fantasy owners are doing and could offer ideas for player pickups. So let’s take a gander at who is being added in leagues and determine whether fantasy owners have the right idea.

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Today’s Agenda
1. Mark Trumbo loves being a Diamondback
2. Alex Cobb rebounds against the Rangers
3. Ben Revere starts out hot
4. The Daily Five

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Ahh, the first true Sunday of the baseball season. Is there anything better than a lazy Sunday with 15 games? Sure, it’d be nice if they were staggered a little better (there are only two 4 p.m. starts), but your day from lunch to dinner should be pretty damn sweet.

It’ll be extra sweet if you can make a few ducats, so let’s take a look at the daily fantasy situation, where we’re projected to go rainout-free with sunshine all around the league. It’s like the sky is one big Munenori Kawasaki smile today.

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Agenda

1. The role of luck in DFS
2. DFS Info
3. Monday fantasies
4. The standard table

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Apparently there were some shootie-hoops games yesterday. Given my bracket had half of my elite eight teams eliminated opening weekend, I think I’ll just stick to baseball.

On today’s agenda:
1. Ryan Braun’s thumb injury
2. Thoughts on Michael Pineda
3. Taijuan Walker’s soonish return
4. The Daily Five

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• The J.J. Hoover experiment likely came to a crashing end this afternoon. Once anointed to be Cincy’s closer until Aroldis Chapman makes his return in mid-late May, a string of poor spring training outings left his grasp on the ninth inning weakened. Bryan Price turned to him Saturday, however, in an attempt to polish off a would-be victory against the New York Mets. A few baserunners later and Ike Davis made sure the BS was being hung on Hoover, walking off in dramatic fashion by swatting a grand slam off the righty. Hoover’s velocity has been fine this year (he’s almost exactly in line with his career marks) but his spring training control issues have not abated.

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