Daily Fantasy Strategy — July 5 — For Draftstreet

Damn, I wish DraftStreet held 5,000-person tournaments with big prize money every day. The 4th of July tourney was a lot of fun, and a No. 257 finish out of 4,811 was good for a 173 percent profit. Four people even broke 100 points on the night, which, yeah, I hope you all had Chris Sale if you were in standard tournament formats.

Here’s also hoping you’re not too hungover to get things together in time to play Saturday, with a 16-game slate and nicely staggered start times. Matter of fact, if you are hungover, I can think of few better cures than watching baseball all day.

As we’re roughly at the halfway mark, it may be helpful to take a quick, high-level look at players who could be undervalued right now after a slow start to the season. To find those values, the table below shows the players with the highest “expected wOBA gain” among qualified hitters, found simply by comparing Steamer rest-of-season wOBA to wOBA to date.

Name	Team	PA To Date	wOBA To Date	PA ROS	wOBA ROS	wOBA Dif
Domonic Brown	Phillies	312	0.262	253	0.326	0.064
Billy Butler	Royals	346	0.292	308	0.350	0.058
Nick Swisher	Indians	279	0.273	272	0.328	0.055
Eric Hosmer	Royals	379	0.287	306	0.336	0.049
Nate Schierholtz	Cubs	284	0.262	242	0.311	0.049
Allen Craig	Cardinals	352	0.296	265	0.344	0.048
Brian McCann	Yankees	295	0.292	245	0.339	0.047
Chris Davis	Orioles	299	0.317	278	0.362	0.045
Jean Segura	Brewers	337	0.263	266	0.306	0.043
Brad Miller	Mariners	272	0.274	294	0.316	0.042
Austin Jackson	Tigers	320	0.294	313	0.335	0.041
Joe Mauer	Twins	339	0.308	311	0.349	0.041
Everth Cabrera	Padres	343	0.245	311	0.286	0.041
Jackie Bradley Jr	Red Sox	275	0.267	248	0.306	0.039
Jason Heyward	Braves	375	0.319	301	0.356	0.037
Norichika Aoki	Royals	292	0.295	229	0.331	0.036
Aaron Hill	Diamondbacks	337	0.288	296	0.323	0.035
Zack Cozart	Reds	306	0.255	268	0.288	0.033
David Wright	Mets	354	0.320	304	0.353	0.033
Jed Lowrie	Athletics	349	0.284	268	0.316	0.032
Dustin Ackley	Mariners	276	0.281	269	0.312	0.031
Chris Carter	Astros	274	0.301	246	0.331	0.030
Joey Votto	Reds	268	0.364	274	0.394	0.030
Buster Posey	Giants	311	0.335	284	0.365	0.030
Evan Longoria	Rays	386	0.325	289	0.355	0.030
Pablo Sandoval	Giants	340	0.316	296	0.346	0.030

The Daily Five
Mike Bolsinger – $10,748
On June 29, I wrote the following: “Look, I’m not a big Bolsinger fan, but Steamer likes him for a 19.3 percent strikeout rate the rest of the season, he does a terrific job keeping the ball on the ground and he’s got the Padres, who are basically playing The Show with the difficulty cranked all the way up and the controller out of batteries.”

In that outing, Bolsinger gave up two runs over six innings with six strikeouts. The Braves are not the Padres, but they are the league’s fourth-worst offense against righties and strike out just as much as the Cubs and Padres. This play is a little more volatile than last week’s but you don’t need an enormous outing to turn a profit on a $10K arm.

Jose Quintana – $16,006
I also dialed up Quintana on the 29th, and there’s something to be said for roster continuity…right? Well, no, but Quintana draws the Mariners, who own just a .288 wOBA against southpaws and strike out 22 percent of the time. This game is the second-lowest over-under on the day, by the way.

If Quintana’s price tag doesn’t do it for you, Odrisamer Despaigne ($12,440, 6.5 over-under against the Giants) could be a nice value and let you swing big with a third arm.

Dodgers stack – It’s tough to get a good read on Jorge de la Rosa, who does a good job limiting fly balls but almost all of them leave the park, and he’s not a great command pitcher. Is he a victim of Coors (his xFIP is 0.6 runs below his ERA, and 0.46 below for his career)? It doesn’t really matter, because he plays at Coord on Saturday, with a ridiculous over-under of 11.
Yasiel Puig – $8,844 (grab him or Hanley Ramirez, your pick for the anchor)
Scott Van Slyke – $5,952 (crushes lefties, this price is silly)
Matt Kemp – $6,241 (he has a 124 wRC+ projection for the rest of the year, and he hasn’t been as bad as narrative would suggest)
Drew Butera – $4,047 (obviously check to see if he’s getting the nod but if he does, he’s an extreme fly ball hitter who has hit lefties well in very limited action; otherwise, start A.J. Ellis at $4,674)

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