Agenda

1. The World Cup
2. Daily DFS
3. Tuesday Picks
4. Table

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The Brewers made a move last week to put Scooter Gennett in the leadoff spot and, while it doesn’t drastically help his fantasy stock, it does make him a bit more appealing.
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On Friday Dave Cameron had an excellent piece detailing how good rest-of-season projections are at, you know, projecting what will happen in the rest of the season. In the piece, Dave cited the work of Mitchel Lichtman at length. Go read the piece and you’ll see convincing evidence that if you want to know how a player is going to perform from here on out, you should just go look at his rest-of-season projections. Throw out what the player has done so far this year. Just look at the projection.

This topic is one of the utmost importance to daily fantasy players. This research tells us that, on the aggregate, the projection systems can tell us with virtual precision what’s going to happen the rest of the way. How is that not valuable to a daily fantasy player? The problem is, of course, that little qualifier I used: on the aggregate. The projection systems can take a group of players and tell us what they’re going to do on the whole. They can’t tell us which players are going to over-perform and which are going to under-perform so that the group reaches the expected average. And they certainly can’t tell us what each player will do on each specific day along the way. But the good news is that if you trust the system throughout, you’ll receive the positive results along with the negative results to bring you to the expected result, which is what you wanted all along.

I’ve mentioned several times that I use rest-of-season projections as the basis of my DFS system. I use the knowledge I have that the projection system doesn’t from time to time, but for the most part I just go with what the numbers tell me. And the evidence tells me that’s a good idea.

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A couple months ago, I told you it was too early to worry about Justin Masterson. Well, we are more than half-way through June now and if I wasn’t worried before, I am now.

Dropping velocity, a lot of walks, and some bad batted ball luck were major factors in Masterson’s slow start, and all three continue to be an issue. But the walks are the real cause for concern.

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Today I continue on updating my Pod’s Picks, comparing my rank versus the other three RotoGraphers. We moved on to the first basemen this time, of which the consensus rankings were published two weeks ago. I’ll generally only consider those first baseman I ranked within the top 20 for the bullish category and those the rest of the crew ranked in the top 20 for the bearish category.

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Hopefully enough of you Roto Riteup readers watched the San Antonio Spurs absolutely trounced the dumb Miami Heat for the third straight game. If not, I don’t approve of your life, and I think you should leave.

On today’s agenda:
1. On tap: Rubby De La Rosa and Carlos Martinez
2. Erick Aybar hurts his hip
3. Nick Martinez impresses the author
4. The Finite Five

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Episode 129

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is now live! Special guest Larry Schechter, author of “Winning Fantasy Baseball,” joins Nicholas Minnix to discuss Sergio Romo, the Rays’ bullpen, the Cubs’ bullpen, Jesse Hahn, Vance Worley, the effect of Miguel Gonzalez’s return on Kevin Gausman, Oscar Taveras, Eugenio Suarez, Gio Gonzalez’s return, Shane Victorino’s return, left field for the Red Sox, Jeff Samardzija, and the Royals’ offense.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode.

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• Hector Rondon owners slept much better last night after hearing that the Cubby closer made it through an 11-pitch bullpen session healthy. Everything sounded so good, it appeared likely Rondon would be available on Sunday. However, with a 3-0 lead, it was Neil Ramirez, not Rondon, who notched another save for the North Siders.

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Happy Sunday, and happy father’s day, if you happen to be one of those. If not, well, way to play safe.

There are no off days for any MLB dads today, as we’ve got a full 15-game slate, with 10 of those starting at 2:15 of earlier. That means when rosters lock around 1:05, you should have a large enough pool of will-play players to avoid the risk of surprise off days. Sundays are great for that (although, as always, I have to write this well before that point, so be sure to check the recommendations are suiting up).

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Today is the the 26th anniversary of “Bull Durham” being released. The “I believe” speech is a pretty great rant (warning: language), even though I personally like the designated hitter.

On today’s agenda:
1. Jake Peavy’s strong start
2. The return of A.J. Ellis
3. Some (very) early thoughts on Eugenio Suarez
4. The daily five

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