Daily Fantasy Update – 5/29/13 – For Draftstreet

If you are like me, you spend 10 or so minutes every morning going over your rosters, making moves, and setting lineups before you head in to work for the day (or… whatever you do during the day). While I also come home and typically glue myself to MLB.tv, there are days when those early morning roster moves have to hold for that night’s games. So I got a bit above and beyond using that period for merely making sure I have a lineup in the event of a simultaneous power and cell phone network failure.

In a daily league like Draftstreet, understanding which players will play on any given day is a necessity. In roto, if a guy gets benched for platoon splits, oh well, you still have that game to use under the cap later in the season. However, in a daily salary cap league and you aren’t near a computer and player X isn’t taking the field for his 9:05 start? Big fat zero. Fangraphs posts lineups on our leaderboard as soon as they are posted, so you have ways to tease out guys riding the pine hours before the game. However, you also should be keeping an eye to the sky. Well, not literally, but always, always, always check the weather.

After Jeff Zimmerman’s post on the subject of weather/run-scoring last week, I’ve started to use this site for all my big league forecasts. Like a fantasy football player trying to avoid the passing game in a blinding snow, my first pass at a Draftsheet team always excludes those under a substantial threat of weather-related issues. Yesterday, I didn’t touch Anthony Rizzo (whose game was eventually called off). Tonight, there is a high chance of rain in the Twin Cities, which could potentially affect Twins and Brewers players. I originally had Ryan Doumit listed in the space below, but with forecasters calling for a 70% of thunderstorms, and the fact that I won’t be around at 6:30 to make that call, I played it safe and left him out of my lineup. If you are worried that you won’t be able to get back to a computer before tonight’s suite of games, I recommend you do, too.

The Daily Five

Matt Joyce — $9,894

At .304, Joyce has the tenth best ISO in baseball over the last month. When Joyce sees righties, boom goes the dynamite. When Joyce sees rookie righties (in this case, Tom Koehler), well, it’s probably like an early, illegally-fireworked Fourth of July or something.

Adam LaRoche — $6,646

LaRoche definitely doesn’t want to see the calendar turn since he’s put up a .341/.422/.648 triple slash in May. Heck, he has raised his average 24 points in the last five games alone. He seems criminally undervalued at a price tag under $7,000, and a matchup against the not-so-strikeout-artist Chris Tillman only helps.

Jedd Gyorko — $7,023

Like LaRoche, Gyorko is another guy riding a hot month of May. A popular sleeper pick before the season, many owners abandoned ship (sidenote: thanks owners!) before the middle of April was up, as Gyorko was suffering from BIP issues and a lack of pop. With both of those issues seemingly resolved, he’s a nice value option to help you save a couple dollars for a big-ticket pitcher.

Brandon Moss — $6,710

Power-hitting platoon option number two, Moss would have 40 home run potential if left-handed pitching just didn’t exist. Luckily for Moss, he’s taking on Tim Lincecum and his 16.3% HR/FB%. If Moss gets wood on the ball, there’s a good chance it’ll fly.

John Lackey — $13,017

On a day when guys like Jordan Zimmerman and Lance Lynn would also be great options, the “value pick who could turn in an ace-like outing” seems to be Lackey. Dan Wade covered him on Tuesday, but essentially the slimmed-down Texan has put up some of the best peripherals of his career during his first few months back from Tommy John surgery. Maybe the spirit of Lewis Yocum will be with him.

One Day FREE Fantasy Contest – $300 in cash prizes
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This free contest will be Pick ‘em style drafting. The way Pick ‘Em leagues work is you have eight tiers of players and each tier will have players to choose from. You select one player from each tier. Nothing to lose and it takes five minutes to build a team. You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts on this Friday, at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.

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.