We all know how important the platoon advantage is to daily fantasy. It can be important for those who platoon slots on their roto rosters as well, but it’s a part of almost all decisions made in daily fantasy. We almost always want our hitters to have it with the exception of the elite hitters who can handle pitchers of either handedness and a weirdo here and there with reverse splits like Adam Jones. There are also some pitchers who have reverse splits, and there are some pitchers who follow the traditional split to an exaggerated degree. Below is a chart showing the best and worst pitchers against batters of each handedness from 2012 to May 31. After the chart and the jump I’ll discuss some of the names.

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Agenda

1. A reminder about relievers
2. Daily DFS
3. Thin Thursday
4. Table

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Usually I don’t talk about myself very much. At least I try not to, mostly because I’m a shy person. I’m going to today, just for a second, though. I’m assuming sabermetrics – Fangraphs, specifically – changed the way you played fantasy. The first few years I played fantasy baseball, I knew nothing about sabermetrics. That changed three years ago. I stumbled onto Fangraphs, thanks to Twitter. I was quickly enamored with the numbers and principles behind them; learning about FIP, BABiP, small sample sizes, and their nuances forced me to do a complete 180 degree turn in the way I thought about the game.

For example, Pablo Sandoval was dreadful in April. In earlier years, I might have sold low. I would have essentially thrown out his entire body of work for a minuscule sample. Learning more about the game changed me. FIP is a go-to statistic for me now. Without it, or Carson, I would not have known a thing about Corey Kluber last year. I would have seen his ERA around draft time this year and said: “Oh cool, another mediocre pitcher.” Once again, I would have been pissed for either missing out on him, or worse, dropping him.

You’re on Fangraphs, so I’m preaching to the choir here, but learning something new is awesome. In this case, learning something new made a hobby into something even more fun.

If you’re wondering where this came from, I was in my cube at work yesterday thinking about the first year I played fantasy baseball – a salary cap league on Sporting News. It was 2003, Runelvys Hernandez posted a 1.58 ERA during the first month of the season. He struggled in May, got hurt, and his owner dropped him. I thought: “Man, what an idiot,” – I was 12, so cut me some slack. (sorry if that makes you feel old) – and picked him up in preparation for his return. In his final eight starts, he posted an 8.15 ERA while striking out 10.9% of the batters he faced. That guy knew more than me. He knew he didn’t miss bats, among other things. Damn shame it took me so long to figure out that it wasn’t hard to look for signs of a fluke. And granted, now that I’m older, with a career, fantasy takes up a little more of my time because I can’t sit at home and play Final Fantasy VII all summer or play wiffle ball with friends like I did was I was 12. Fantasy is an escape. And thanks to Fangraphs, I’m a little better at fake life.

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White Sox outfielder Dayan Viciedo may have started living up to the hype. Viciedo was signed out of Cuba in 2008 as a power-hitting outfielder. While the pop has shown up in spaces, Viciedo’s poor plate discipline and low batting averages limited his upside. Even entering 2014, it appeared Viciedo would platoon to open the season. An injury to Avisail Garcia opened the door, and Viciedo has responded with his finest performance since his rookie call-up.

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To clarify the second sentence of yesterday’s Roto Riteup intro…it is is 100% accurate.

On today’s agenda:
1. Wil Myers out for eight weeks
2. Thoughts on Denard Span
3. A pair of disabled list activations
4. Quick hit on Dylan Bundy
5. The daily five

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Agenda

1. Process Reorientation
2. Daily DFS
3. Wednesday Picks
4. Table

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In the comments I’ve had some interesting interactions lately. Because of that I wanted to address a few things here, in case some of you don’t make it down to the comment section.

First off, thanks for reading these. It feels like the pieces are getting bigger responses.

Secondly, when I make picks I’m doing my best to give you value options. For example, the Blue Jays’ offense is ruthless. You know that, and you definitely don’t need me to recommend them four days a week because you’re more than smart enough to do that on your own. I usually pick a stack against one of the pitchers that has a lot of green cells in the chart I embed. I alluded to it last week, but you could probably pretty easily throw together a stack, or play match-ups, against any of the pitchers I mention in the blurbs under the chart.

Lastly, I was asked why I recommend a three man stack instead of a four man option. My response and, later, my further explanation is below:

It’s honestly kind of just personal preference. Most of the time when I enter GPPs I use multiple three man stacks. This is a good read (http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/daily-fantasy-strategy-march-31-for-draftstreet/). I’ve just usually had better a little better luck with a three man stack. Sorry if that seems like a cop-out. I may start including a fourth option for you guys though now that you’ve mentioned it.

…

Yeah, I should have worded that a little better. Usually I have two three man stacks against two of the five or so pitchers I highlight in the blurb. I usually then try to find two upside plays on the same team – around $5,000-$6,000 or so a piece. Then I just fill out the last position with a cheaper guy who happens to have a nice matchup. It rarely works out to where I find three stacks I like, but when it does the results have been nice.

I mostly try to save my money on pitching. Usually I can find two to three options for under $15,000 that I’m comfortable with. Sometimes I get burned on that, but at their price I’m not expecting them to carry me anyways.

I hope that helps explain the process/reasoning I undertake before making my picks. And hopefully we have a little better luck this week. Only Thursday was kind to me last week.

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You poor Roto Riteup readers are stuck with me today. Because Wiers and I are swingers, is why.

On today’s agenda:
1. It’s Jonathan Singleton time
2. Robinson Cano returns
3. Jeff Samardzija to Colorado would suck
4. Yordano Ventura to start Thursday
5. The Fudged Five

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Agenda

1. Random Facts
2. Daily DFS
3. Tuesday Picks
4. Table

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Let’s talk about the fact that Draftstreet doesn’t allow late swaps. In a minute, how to prepare for it, but first, how to potentially take advantage of it.

On weekends and on travel days there are usually early contests encompassing all games and late contests that only consist of the late games. In the early contests, rosters lock when the first game starts. When someone in your lineup playing in a late game isn’t in the lineup, there’s nothing you can do about it. As a result, I’ve generally tended to avoid early contests all together and just play the late contests so that all lineups are usually posted before rosters lock. Or if I play in early contests, I’ll skew towards teams playing in the early games and avoid stacks for teams playing late games.

Yesterday I did things different. I entered the early contests and used plenty of hitters and stacks in late games because I liked the matchups and values, the A’s and the Dodgers in particular. In the GPP I entered, the four Dodgers I used all had an ownership percentage of 3% or less, and Josh Donaldson was the only Athletic that was widely owned.

I have the suspicion that this is partly due to other players sharing my aversion to the risk of using players that can’t be confirmed in their team’s lineup before rosters lock. It’s also possible that enough people just didn’t think the Dodgers/A’s stacks had as much upside and/or value as I did. But I’m thinking this may be a situation where you can zig when everyone else zags. And zigging with good players is a strategy I can get on board with.

If you’re going to use players in late games, you’ve got to do all you can to avoid players who are left out of the lineup. First things first, avoid any guys who have any sort of injury concern at all. I usually just check each player on the ESPN fantasy page and see if any recent updates mention anything about an injury.

Second, you should be aware of how teams use platoons. Some players are obviously part of a platoon and should be avoided in matchups where they don’t have the platoon advantage. But teams often order players differently against lefties than they do righties. Be aware of that when using stacks so you can be reasonably certain that the players you stack will be hitting next to or at least near each other in the lineup. The best way to see how teams usually order their lineup is to take a look at their most recent lineups, which can be found at MLBDepthCharts.

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