Daily Fantasy Strategy — April 24 — For Draftstreet

I chose a bad day to write about shifting projections in a very marginal way by examining a day’s lineup. Thursday has 11 games, but you’ll be hard pressed to set a lineup where you know for sure who is playing and who is hitting where. That’s because there are six early games with slightly staggered start times – you may be able to see lineups for five of them by the time rosters lock – and then five late games, only four of which you’ll probably know the lineups for at roster lock.

Anyway, I pulled the numbers, so bookmark this one for a day when you’re selecting rosters from a largely “known” lineup pool.

So what does a lineup position matter? In a single game, maybe not a whole heck of a lot, right? After all, we know the impact of lineup construction at the team level is fairly small, only adding up over the course of a season when a team has shifted 50 or so plate appearances to lesser players. But for single-day lineups, your run and RBI totals could be at risk if a player – say a Brad Miller – is shuffling around the batting order. Home runs rule the day in daily, but runs and RBI are worth 1.5 points each, too.

Order Position	R/PA	RBI/PA	R/Chances
1	12.90%	7.83%	39.79%
2	12.51%	9.27%	39.33%
3	12.80%	12.88%	36.49%
4	12.10%	13.95%	35.55%
5	11.33%	12.51%	35.14%
6	10.47%	11.16%	33.03%
7	9.69%	10.65%	31.66%
8	9.41%	9.46%	30.97%
9	8.33%	7.61%	33.96%
(2012-14)

The Daily Five

Nationals stack – the Nats are baseball’s best offense against southpaws so far with a .374 wOBA and they draw lefty Eric Stults, who has a 4.35 ERA that looks fortunate given his inability to miss bats or pitch in the zone so far this year.

Bryce Harper – $5,116 – comes at a discount because of the platoon disadvantage but has fared well against lefties and soft-tossers, going 8-for-20 last season on fastballs below 91 MPH.

Danny Espinosa – $4,208 – check to see if he’s playing best you can but he’s started at second every day since April 12 with Ryan Zimmerman on the DL, so it seems a safe bet.

Ian Desmond – $5,991 – his early-season returns against lefties have been brutal but he’s generally been slightly better against them for his career.

Brett Oberholtzer – $12,958 I don’t necessarily love going against the Athletics with a somewhat untested starter, but the A’s have just a .281 wOBA against southpaws in the early stages of the season. They tend not to strike out a ton, either, but the pitching slate today is fairly devoid of cheap plays (no offense that is bottom-eight against righties or lefties faces a pitcher of that handedness who checks in below $15,000).

Nate Schierholtz – $4,749 I wanted to go with Justin Ruggiano here for just a hair more but he’s going for an MRI on his hamstring and is too risky for a 10 a.m. column. Instead, the struggling Schierholtz gets the nod. He has just a .190 wOBA against righties in the early going but fed off of them the past two seasons, and he goes up against the relatively uninspiring Michael Bolton Michael Bolsinger

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