Daily Fantasy Strategy — May 30 — For Draftstreet

We’ve reached the points of the season where we have a pretty good idea of where our teams stand. Things can still change, but for the most part you should have a pretty good idea of how good your current roster is.

With that in mind, join me in the comments below and let’s talk about our favorite players to own so far. Try to stay away from the usual suspects: Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen, etc. I’ll kick this thing off.

I’m doing my first Ottoneu league this year – currently sitting in third place. Without a doubt my best value has been Brandon Moss. During our draft we took a fifteen minute break. When we returned it was my turn to nominate a player for bidding. I nominated Moss hoping to catch some people sleeping and because most of us had blown through a ton of our money. I’m guessing the entire league was still zoned out, because no one bid. Perhaps everyone was waiting on someone else to bid, or taking roster construction into play. Nonetheless, I ended up with a $1 Brandon Moss. Dividends.

In my other auction draft – 12 teams; 5×5 with OBP, QS, and S+HLD in replace of AVG, W, and SV – I have a $2 Christian Yelich. He was only that cheap because he was the 234th player nominated. So by that point, many of the owners had their lineups set or were running low on funds. Yelich has cooled off a little of late, but he’s already earned his keep. Oh, and it’s a keeper league. So if I decide to keep him he’ll only cost $6 next season; not bad what looks to be a player with a shot at a 20/20 season perhaps as early as this year.

Turn $11 into a share of $50,000 Playing Daily Fantasy Baseball.

$50,000 MLB PickEm Survivor Big Score

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Pick 8 MLB Players from 8 tiers

This Weekend Enter for $11.

DraftStreet Pick’Em is the Easiest and Fastest Way to Win money playing Daily Fantasy Baseball.

Make your first deposit today and get up to $200 Free.

Draft Your 8 Man PickeEm Baseball Team Today for $11.

Weather shouldn’t be a huge concern today. A few games have rain in the forecast, but it doesn’t appear as if either game runs the risk of being postponed. That can change on the drop of a hat, though. Usually if a game is forecasted for light rain/possible delay I’ll stay away from the pitchers involved, but I won’t completely avoid offensive players if they’re a good value.

John Danks is on the mound tonight. Normally, I’m all for stacking against him, but the Padres’ lineup is pretty bad. I like the thought of a Twins stack against Vidal Nuno, but I’d like it even more if Oswaldo Arcia was right handed. The Nationals’ offense has been stop-and-go this year, but they intrigue me versus Colby Lewis. Finally, we come to Jason Vargas – whom I enjoy watching a great deal. Watching him tonight, if you’re rooting for him, however could be a different story. The Blue Jays’ lineup is absolutely terrifying, especially at home.

The Daily Five

Brian Dozier – $7,831
Josh Willingham – $5,632
Joe Mauer – $6,413

Going to roll with the boys from Minnesota today. I love the Blue Jays’ match-up, but their price is prohibitive – as it should be. The Twins might be a little more cost effective if things break right.

Jayson Werth – $5,185

Werth has only homered once since April, but he’s still been getting on base at a good clip (.362). He doesn’t have the platoon advantage today, but I like him a lot for roughly five grand.

Mike Leake – $15,401

Leake’s start will take place in Arizona, which can be a little scary. I’m confident in Leake though, because of his ability to keep the ball on the ground. His 56.5% groundball rate is sixth among qualified starters. He’ll need to continue that trend tonight.

This post, covering one of the leading sites for daily fantasy, is sponsored and made possible by the generous support of Draftstreet. FanGraphs maintains complete editorial control of the postings, and brings you these posts in a continued desire to provide the best analytical information on the latest in baseball.





Landon is a senior writer at The Fantasy Fix. You can follow and interact with him on Twitter (@joneslandon).

26 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
El Brontolone
12 years ago

Leake…………….good luck!

Roby
12 years ago

Is Carlos Gomez a usual suspect? Anyways George Springer has been keeping my team very competative this year. He has been a B-12 shot for me with Arenado and Belt down till July for me.

Will
12 years ago

I don’t think TOR is price prohibitive, just have to plan around it. The key is finding a good fourth who is cheap but has good lineup position and relative power potential.

David
12 years ago

Melky Cabrera. Bought for super cheap and he’s just been awesome this year

Beau
12 years ago

Nelson Cruz. He was an afterthought in a trade at the beginning of the year. Traded Segura and Jim Johnson received Hanley and Cruz. Needless to say, it’s worked out well even with Hanley struggling/hurt.

SeattleSlew
12 years ago
Reply to  Beau

What kind of dummy would trade Hanley and Cruz for Jim Johnson and Segura??? Hanley was one of the top SS in the beginning of the year and many people were expecting Cruz to have success hitting at Candem Yards. I wish there were these kind of people in my league.

weselm
12 years ago
Reply to  Beau

Agree on Cruz. Didn’t target him in my (12-team, mixed) draft, but wound up taking him in round 13.

Got Scott Kazmir in the 21st round of that same draft, and even though I’m shopping him now, that’s good value. Took him in the 17th round of a 15-team league as well.

Mike Morse is my other pick. Got him as a reserve OF in that 15-team draft and picked him up off waivers in another 12-team league.

IUPAC
12 years ago

Brantley as a FA in a 16 teamer

Max Beef
12 years ago

Brian Dozier has been really solid. Low BA but not bad everywhere else.

ldavidjm
12 years ago

$10 for Jose Abreu, and 11th round in my other league. I love Jose Abreu. I just sold (high?) on Springer, traded Tulo, Springer, and Papelbon for Trout, Kipnis and Price

Two Jakes
12 years ago
Reply to  ldavidjm

Jose Abreu, definitely. I got him in the 12th round. Thankfully, since my fifth or sixth round pick on Hosmer is a bust!

diamondhoggers
12 years ago

I read this post daily, religiously; but you are missing on stuff almost every night.

May 27 – “Stack Angels, they’re due” – they were worth like .25 points
May 28 – “Stack Dodgers against Homer Bailey, he can’t possibly find it tonight” – total miss.
May 29 – “Manny Machado is a good choice because he has to start getting RBI soon. Try his friend JJ Hardy because he’s due too” – miss again, badly.

I really like this column but I think we’re getting into a habit of ‘player X has to do something soon so he’s a good choice’.

ldavidjm
12 years ago
Reply to  Landon Jones

Daily fantasy is high variance, Landon and the other writers do a great job of giving good places to look each night for value. But its baseball. If anyone can predict each nights box score they’d be a billionaire.

Max Beef
12 years ago
Reply to  diamondhoggers

I’ve seen you on the draftstreet chat complaining too….Are you paying for this advice? Last I checked it was free so either continue to follow or go find someone else. It’s baseball and it comes with a lot of variance, get used to it.

Max Beef
12 years ago

Another guy drafted in the last couple rounds was Angel Pagan. Banged up a bit lately but has been very good for avg/run/steals