Daily Fantasy Strategy — July 3 — For Draftstreet

Do you like baseball? Cool, me too. I have not watched nearly enough baseball the past two weeks or so, which is disappointing. NBA Draft, free agency, moving…they’ve all conspired to keep me from watching the games. Luckily, we don’t need to watch.

I kid, of course. Watching the games is important, both because it’s fun and because the aggregate numbers can only tell you so much. For the purposes of daily fantasy, where we rely a great deal on projection systems, context clues from Vegas, and analyzing specific matchups, watching the game after you make a pick can be instructive.

But you can get by, for a short while, on the numbers and with reading. That’s what I’ve had to do of late and it hasn’t cost me, but I’m getting to the point where Sunday feels like it needs to be an outright marathon baseball-viewing day. The itch, it needs scratching.

If this all seems a little rambling, well, yeah, sorry. Anyway, here’s an update on how team’s are fairing against lefties, against righties, at home, away and over the best 30 days.

Team	wOBA v LHP	wOBA v RHP	wOBA Home	wOBA Away	wOBA last30
Angels	0.341	0.325	0.323	0.336	0.335
Astros	0.330	0.297	0.312	0.301	0.301
Athletics	0.315	0.331	0.346	0.311	0.307
Blue Jays	0.316	0.345	0.346	0.328	0.320
Braves	0.337	0.292	0.311	0.293	0.298
Brewers	0.312	0.326	0.317	0.327	0.327
Cardinals	0.298	0.302	0.315	0.288	0.298
Cubs	0.328	0.288	0.298	0.294	0.303
Diamondbacks	0.298	0.309	0.315	0.298	0.310
Dodgers	0.299	0.332	0.321	0.326	0.324
Giants	0.324	0.300	0.303	0.312	0.294
Indians	0.296	0.327	0.329	0.309	0.311
Mariners	0.292	0.310	0.290	0.316	0.319
Marlins	0.311	0.311	0.323	0.295	0.282
Mets	0.313	0.294	0.289	0.306	0.303
Nationals	0.333	0.299	0.316	0.299	0.301
Orioles	0.338	0.321	0.313	0.338	0.342
Padres	0.268	0.272	0.272	0.270	0.239
Phillies	0.321	0.288	0.291	0.301	0.282
Pirates	0.310	0.322	0.329	0.308	0.327
Rangers	0.334	0.301	0.305	0.314	0.297
Rays	0.320	0.309	0.322	0.302	0.333
Red Sox	0.312	0.304	0.319	0.295	0.294
Reds	0.292	0.306	0.315	0.294	0.307
Rockies	0.350	0.341	0.390	0.301	0.333
Royals	0.299	0.307	0.300	0.310	0.332
Tigers	0.334	0.338	0.344	0.329	0.355
Twins	0.307	0.309	0.323	0.295	0.306
White Sox	0.294	0.324	0.322	0.311	0.316
Yankees	0.312	0.308	0.319	0.301	0.302

The Daily Five
Carlos Martinez – $10,105
The pitching market is painful today, with several top names cracking $20K and little in the way of great value elsewhere. Enter Martinez, who draws the Giants (they’re mediocre against righties) in San Francisco (they’re mediocre at home), who have been, you guessed it, mediocre over the past month. They’re bottom-10 in wOBA in each of those situations, and with few discounts on the board that’s enough. The concern with Martinez is whether he can go longer than five innings but the strikeouts should be there and the Giants’ set-up means the downside is somewhat limited.

Sonny Gray – $16,445
The Jays are not a bad offense by any means, especially against righties, but anyone below Gray on the price list is quite risky and anyone above him is prohibitively expensive. Surprisingly, Vegas is on board with the call, listing an over-under of 7.5 and suggesting the A’s are heavy favorites. If Gray posts even an average line by his standards, he should return a point per $2,000, but I think there’s more upside here.

Dodgers stack – No, the Dodgers generally aren’t very good against lefties, but Franklin Morales is just not very good, period, and the game is at Coors.
Scott Van Slyke – $5,529
A.J. Ellis – $4,643
Yasiel Puig – $8,954
Matt Kemp – $6,373

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