Daily Fantasy Update – 5/27/13 – For Draftstreet

Home runs are obviously the best way to pick up points in a Draftstreet contest. You get credit for a point per total base, so home runs are worth four points. But in reality they are worth at least seven points because you also get a point and a half each for the run and the RBI. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to go for power in every slot on a salary cap team. The guys who hit consistently for power are priced accordingly, and you can’t afford to take a consistent power hitter in each slot.

Find yourself a stud or two with a favorable lefty-righty matchup against a bad pitcher and try to get your power there. But elsewhere, you’re going to have to find points in other ways. And one other way is to identify good situations for base stealers. A stolen base is worth two points, but really it’s worth 2.75-3 points because the player has to walk (.75 points) or get a single (one point) in order to attempt a steal.

In the preseason I took a look at the pitchers and catchers who are the best and worst at preventing stolen bases. Below are two charts. One shows the catchers who were the worst at preventing steals according to caught stealing percentage and rSB from 2011-2012. rSB gives the catcher credit for throwing out runners and preventing them from attempting steals in the first place. The other shows the starters who were the worst at holding runners on from 2011-2012 based on stolen bases against them divided by stolen base opportunities.

Catchers

Name	CS%	rSB
John Buck	0.229437	-7
Joe Mauer	0.225989	-4
Victor Martinez	0.214724	-3
Michael McKenry	0.206349	-2
John Jaso	0.197279	-5
Ryan Doumit	0.174963	-10
Francisco Cervelli	0.141304	-7

Pitchers

Name	SB	SBO	SB/SBO
Felix Hernandez	48	665	0.07218
Tim Lincecum	48	621	0.077295
Edinson Volquez	38	488	0.077869
Ervin Santana	44	562	0.078292
Mat Latos	42	527	0.079696
Cole Hamels	46	535	0.085981
Ubaldo Jimenez	56	610	0.091803
Josh Beckett	50	468	0.106838
A.J. Burnett	62	562	0.11032
Tommy Hanson	61	411	0.148418

The Daily Five

Shin-Soo Choo — $8,997

In addition to not being good at holding runners on base, Ubaldo Jimenez is also not good at keeping runners off base. He is allowing almost a hit per inning and is walking almost one every other inning. The probabilities of getting on base and stealing a bag are in Choo’s favor against Ubaldo.

Norichika Aoki — $8,499

Whether it’s Joe Mauer or Ryan Doumit behind the dish in Milwaukee tonight, Aoki will be facing a catcher who is below average as far as preventing steals. He will also be facing Kevin Correia who has a 4.77 SIERA and paltry 9.3% K%.

Craig Gentry — $5,025

With a lefty (Tyler Skaggs) and a righty (Trevor Cahill) going tomorrow for Arizona, Gentry and Leonys Martin are likely to split the center field duties for the double header. Cap contests tomorrow appear to be using only the early game, so Gentry is the play against a rookie left-hander.

Alfonso Soriano — $4,604

This is a really good price for a right-hander facing a lefty (Jose Quintana) in the most homer-friendly park in the league for righties according to our handedness park factors.

Jeff Samardzija — $15,413

The Shark has a sweet matchup today against the cross town rival White Sox. The Sox are currently 29th in wRC+ both against righties and at home. The struggles against right-handed pitching make sense. The only three regulars who hit from the left side are Alejandro de Aza, Jeff Keppinger and Adam Dunn who have batting averages of .243, .210 and .159, respectively. The struggles at home make a little less sense given that their home ballpark is the fifth most hitter-friendly according to our park factors. But they’re third worst in walk-to-strikeout ratio (0.32 BB/K), and plate discipline isn’t affected by the park.

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