Gotta be honest, it’s getting real tough to come up with preambles of value at this point in the season. With just a week and a half left, I’d suggest players get a bit more aggressive turning profits into more profits, while those who have lost this year probably shouldn’t chase bad money with good money.

However, there’s a question here that more data could answer – how does enrolment change late in the year? Or even on Thursdays, when there are far fewer games?

And, while we know we generally need about 40 points for a “double up” format, what’s our goal for a winner-take-all?

These are the kind of questions I’m hoping to answer in the next week or so, or possibly with a year-end wrap post, assuming DraftStreet is able to kick us some data (they seem receptive to the idea). So, what kind of questions would you want answered if I could get my hands on some Draftsreet data?

(In addition, any topics you’d like tackled in preambles this weekend? I’m nothing if not obedient.)

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Just because your roto team is scuffling along to a ninth place finish (or you are so far out in front of your opponents it’s not fun anymore), your fantasy season doesn’t have to end!

The good news for those daily league fiends (or those who have lineups to ponder over in head-to-head matchups), it looks like a dry day across all of baseball. And by dry, I mean really dry (there’s a chance of an ever-so-light shower in Colorado. Maybe). So get all hands on deck.

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I did this on Monday as well, but below you’ll find a chart showing how today’s probable starters have fared against hitters of each handedness this year. This chart is something I create in the leaderboard section of the site, and it’s extremely helpful when picking hitters for the day. Unfortunately, the list must be created manually as there isn’t a filter for the day’s probable starters. Because inputting all the names takes a little time, I figure I’ll just do that work for you. After the jump we’ll use the chart to pick some hitters for the day. And we’ll pick a couple of starters, too.

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Sorry folks, no preamble for today but we’ve got some very gimmicky picks for you after the jump!

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Unless I’m just missing it, I don’t believe you can create a custom leaderboard of the day’s probable starters here on the site. Other sites might have some data on the day’s starters, but I’m not aware of it. But every time I pick a lineup I want to look at how each pitcher fares against hitters of each handedness and how homer prone they are. So below you’ll see a screenshot of a custom leaderboard I created to help me pick hitters today.

If some other site is already providing something like this, please let me know and I’ll avoid posting something similar in the future. But if this is something you’d like to see again, let me know. And if you have any suggestions about different or additional stats you would find helpful if included, let me know that as well.

After the jump is the chart, and we’ll use it to pick some hitters.

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Does it feel like you’ve been getting slightly more bang for your hitter dollars the past week or two? Alternatively, has it felt like this year has been a bit tougher to get an edge at the plate?

If either of those thoughts had crossed your mind, one or more of the following is true:

a) You’re dealing with a bit of a fundamental attribution error.
b) You’re very perceptive to incredibly small changes over very large samples.
c) You’re Ike Davis.

B is what we care about, because it turns out that so far, September has provided more fantasy points on a per-plate appearance bases than earlier in the year despite there not being an accompanying wOBA jump. Additionally, fantasy points per plate appearance are down slightly this season compared to 2011 and 2012, which shouldn’t be that surprising since offense is down a tick league-wide.

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Have you had a really bad beat in daily fantasy this year? I’m sure you have – ace pitcher at a decent price or a mid-level pitcher at a bargain with a strong set-up, only they end up getting lit up. Or maybe you nail an opposing pitcher breakdown and just happen to grab the wrong player from the team while everyone else goes bananas.

These happen, plenty. I’m interested to hear the most costly ones, though. These are time when you were within X points of finishing in Y place but Z happened.

I’m not convinced it’s interesting enough yet, but if there are a few comically bad beats, I’ll spin them into the preamble over the weekend.

Forgive me if today’s opening topic is a bit of a reach, but it’s September and new ideas are virtually non-existent. That said, I want to take a look at some of the pitchers who have struggled with men on base slash out of the stretch. This is something I’ve come to look at quite often because it helps me identify guys I might otherwise fall for as pitchers to avoid. There have been multiple occasions where I’ve fallen in love with a starter’s above average strikeout and walk skills and failed to recognize that they struggle from the stretch and thus don’t produce an ERA that their K-BB might suggest they are capable of producing.

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Yesterday we talked about trying to avoid our early season mental anchors for teams, refreshing the leaderboards for team batting against righties and lefties.

Keeping with the trend of avoiding anchoring, it’s prudent to examine changes in team performance from one half to the other. While half-splits are arbitrary endpoints and not statistically significant ones, they’re also ones that are calculated for us.

While they may not tell the whole story, they at least give us some idea of teams that have gotten better (acquisition, strong call up, players improving) or gotten worse (traded player, injuries, players declining). Let’s have a look.

It’s easy to create mental shorthand early in the year and forget to update it. The Marlins offense is bad, the Astros strikeout a lot, and so on, are all fine quick tips to keep in mind. But it’s critical to update those shortcuts with teams that are joining or leaving the list of cherry match-ups.

For example, did you realize the Cardinals are a pretty nice fantasy target if they’re facing a lefty? Or that the Astros are not a layup but a high-risk, high-reward play against southpaws? It’s time to update who we identify as easy prey.

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