Roto Riteup — Presented By DraftKings: July 26, 2014
Seven years ago today “The Simpsons Movie” launched internationally. I won’t touch on too much Simpsons stuff, that is Paul Swydan’s territory, but I will say I enjoyed the film.
On today’s agenda:
1. Wilson Ramos continues to rake
2. A strong start from Drew Smyly
3. A comparison with Zack Wheeler
4. The daily five
Wilson Ramos continues to rake
With at least one hit in 19 of his past 20 games, Ramos has brought his batting average above .300 on the year and over .350 for July. I don’t expect Ramos’ .336 BABIP to continue forever but it has been a fun ride. Going forward with something closer to his career .297 BABIP will bring his current .301 AVG to the mid .270’s, still useful from a catcher. I’d still like to see more power from him — Ramos has gone deep just three times in 176 plate appearances — and I think we’ll see some more balls clear the fence. Ramos owns a 10% HR/FB % this year compared to his career 15.7%. The most realistic best case scenario is to see his rate stats come back down to earth a bit but his power gets a boost. Sounds like a fair trade to me. One downside to Ramos is he has consistently been penciled in the eighth spot in the lineup. He hasn’t hit higher than sixth in the order since June 6th. Ramos and the Washington Nationals are tied with the Pittsburgh Pirates for fourth most runs in the National League — just eight runs behind the third place Los Angeles Dodgers — so his lineup positioning has more to do with a strong offensive team around him than anything else. I’m grabbing Ramos in any league where he is available. In both CBS and Yahoo! formats he can be picked up in about 50% of leagues and almost 40% of ESPN formats.
A strong start from Drew Smyly
His start may have only lasted 5.2 innings but Smyly was able to gather a career high 11 strikeouts against the Los Angeles Angels. He generated an eye popping 20 (!) swinging strikes out of 92 pitches. He didn’t get the win as his two runs allowed gave him the tough luck loss 2-1. Smyly is still putting the ball into the air a bit more than I like to see but he plays in a favorable park for fly balls. His 36.9% ground ball rate puts him the bottom 10 starting pitchers (minimum 80 innings pitched). Even with a lack of grounders Smyly has proved to be an effective stream option, sporting a 3.77 ERA/4.18 FIP/3.99 xFIP through 17 starts. He is currently owned in about 50% of both ESPN and CBS formats though one can grab him in 77% of Yahoo! leagues. In standard 12-team mixed (redraft) leagues I’d stick with streaming him as right-handed hitters have given him a very rough go, hitting .304/.369/.525 against him prior to yesterday’s outing. With rates like that against opposite-handed hitters, I can’t justify rostering him to even spot start him. He’s a stream guy for me until he gets his changeup to be more consistent.
A comparison with Zack Wheeler
A quick comparison between Wheeler and Pitcher X:
| K/9 | BB/9 | IP | ERA/FIP/xFIP | WHIP | CBS/Yahoo!/ESPN% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheeler | 9 | 3.64 | 121 | 3.64/3.47/3.40 | 1.35 | 85% – 61% – 68% |
| Pitcher X | 7.9 | 3.53 | 119.2 | 3.31/3.24/3.75 | 1.31 | 90% – 77% – 89% |
Pitcher X is Chris Archer, someone who is 18-months older than Wheeler. CBS owners have noticed the similarities between the two starters, though Wheeler is still available in too many Yahoo! and ESPN formats. Grab him now and be happy you did.
The daily five
Starting pitcher: Sonny Gray — $9,100
Gray is a very good pitcher. The Texas Rangers are not a very good team.
Starting pitcher: Odrisamer Despaigne — $6,700
The Atlanta Braves don’t hit right-handed pitchers very well — their 85 wRC+ rank 25th — and strike out at the seventh highest rate against them. I expect Despaigne to get his major league strikeout rate in line with his minor league rate and hopefully it starts today.
Infielder: Jonathan Lucroy — $4,500
Lucroy and the Milwaukee Brewers square off against Jon Niese today. Lucroy hits left-handed pitchers to the tune of a 154 wRC+.
Outfielder: Michael Brantley — $4,900
The Cleveland Indians blast right-handed pitchers at the second best rate in baseball. They’ll be up against Jeremy Guthrie today and Brantley owns a 168 wRC+ against righties this season.
Other hitter: Jose Abreu — $5,200
The powerful right-hander is up against the southpaw Logan Darnell today.
Remaining budget: $19,600
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I hope you checked the betting line before you posted your daily five. Otherwise you’re doing us all an injustice. 😉
Man. I knew I missed something!
I just don’t think you understand.
For starters, you both told me that the betting line was set with hopes of getting equal action which is 100% wrong.
You then said that it was set in relation to some public perception; also 100% wrong.
That would make the market BEATABLE by many if they posted inefficient numbers.
The fact that you don’t even observe O/U’s and team totals before setting a daily lineup is laughable for someone who is giving advice. Glad to see you have one ignoramus on your side though.
Any person who invests heavily in daily fantasy would laugh at the notion that you don’t check any betting lines before setting your lineup.
Carry on with your cherry picking of statistics as they suit you; that’s a great strategy. Data mining is always so successful…..
Just as you spoke of Despaigne K-rate but failed to mention his absurdly low BABIP (189) and his absurdly high strand rate (88%). I guess you don’t expect those to regress today, just the K-Rate?
I don’t want to argue with you too much Richard. But I will give an example.
You will often see the football betting line change Thursday or Friday from the Tuesday start. Many times it’s because of new information or injury. But often it is changed simply because there is too much betting on one side. And yes, astute gamblers will watch this and bet the other side after they see it. The sports book doesn’t care to maker a killing on one bet. They simply care about their 10%. If you gamble any amount you know this. So in the end they’ve changed the odds for 1. to even out the gamble. and 2. Because of public perception that one team is bet on too heavily. This ain’t rocket science. It’s the way it’s done. There are other ways they simply take the risk. Such as giving odds on picking 4 or 5 or 6 correct. But the odds on these are set way in their favor. But you know this too. If you don’t know this, well……you are Richard!
In regards to Wheeler, would you rather have him over Jacob deGrom or Jose Quintana? I have very solid pitching for the most part and those two are probably my most “flexible” in terms of guys I am willing to move. Quintana has been very good this year so I would have a tough time moving him, but deGrom is open to discussion since he might be shut down at some point in September.
I’d rank em Quintana > Wheeler > deGrom.
Question Dave: I’m currently rocking B McCann and D Norris in my pretty standard scoring H2H league. Norris gives me great rates but not a ton of PT, and I feel like McCann has to regress to something playable, but I’m wondering if it might behoove me to move on from one of them and pick up Ramos. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks. Oh, it’s a ten teamer.
I’d stick with Norris for now, but keep an eye on AJ Pierzynski. He just got picked up by the Cards and should be the starting catcher going forward.
Mark, please stop talking. You have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. Why do people who have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about chime in as experts? My goodness. No astute gambler plays a number after it moves; the line is now more efficient and the edge that may have existed before at the previous number no longer exists. Lines move based on sharp money, not square money. A line moves solely because it was inefficient at it’s previous number, not because of money bet on one side over the other. If 1,000,000 of square money came in on one side of a wager, the line wouldn’t move an inch.
It is tough to read someone who has such little clue telling me about something in which I am very well versed. Just as stock price changes, no market price is set upon open because the openers are not the most efficient number.
A sportsbooks goal is not to balance action on an individual event. If the market is efficient, as it is in this case, the action will balance over a much larger sample. By attempting to balance action, you reduce your hold.
If you have $80,000 bet on one side of a game, and $10,000 bet on the other side. The result is as follows:
YOUR WAY (with a two game scenario)
$10,000 on BAltimore+3
$90,0000 on INDY-3
YOUR WAY suggests that it is smart for the bookmaker to call off 80,000 of his action, and “guarantee” himself ($1,000 profit), I say guarantee as if we are talking about post up money.
GAME 2
90,000 on Denver-4.5
10,000 on Miami +4.5
YOUR WAY again suggest calling off 80,000 (80% of your action, you’ve generated by advertising, promoting, and earning a solid reputation) in order that you GUARANTEE yourself $1,000 profit.
So, your way, we have NO RISK and guarantee a grand total profit of $2000 of 220,000, a hold of 1%…wooooo hooooo.
THE SHARP BOOKMAKERS WAY(given a large enough bankroll)
GAME 1
$10,000 on BAltimore+3
$90,0000 on INDY-3
GAME 2
90,000 on Denver-4.5
10,000 on Miami +4.5
THE MATHEMATICALLY SAVY bookmaker keeps it all, expecting to win 50% of all decisions, regardless of how heavy or inbalanced the sides are…He splits here, losing 79,000 on the Indy game and Winning 89,000 on the Miami game..for a NET PROFIT of 10,000 of of 220000 (net hold of 4.54%), the mathematically expected vig earned by a good bookmaker
So, unless you just plain DON”T believe in math, you’re way is WRONG! Take these two examples and do the calculations over 2000 games and see which results you like best, and stop calling sharp bookmakers, idiots, Please!
Wow. So this is still a thing we’re arguing? Enjoy the game, guys
My apologies Richard. You’re absolutely right.
Have a great day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_betting#Spreads_in_sports_wagering
http://www.thespread.com/sports-betting-articles/091107-pointspreads-explained-how-bookmakers-set-the-betting-line#.U9P-cPldVqU
http://sportsgambling.about.com/od/sportsgambling101/a/spreadmade.htm
Ahhhhhhhh! I have to reply because I think you mis-understood what I wrote. The sports book/bookie never calls off a bet. Or at least not without extreme circumstances. I can’t give an example of this. He changes the odds or spread so that future bets even out the gamble. Please read from Andrew below.
Yes, let’s use About.com and Wikipedia to determine the correct answer.
Once again, the line moves because the number at the time is not efficient. It has nothing to do with evening out action. As noted, if it was about evening out money a sportsbook would move the line based on all action/bets taken – they do not do so. A book does not move off of square money; it moves off of sharp money.
A sportsbook couldn’t care less about even action on an individual event.
Andrew’s quoted posted is terribly wrong, and the person who wrote it couldn’t be more misinformed. He states that a book wants even action, when in reality it doesn’t matter and they don’t care. As long as the number is efficient – meaning the event is a 50/50 proposition (which is why pretending that lines are set to draw in even money, and not to make the outcome a 50/50 proposition is so wrong) – the book will make money. Their goal is to set a line that is closest to a true valuation of the teams; not to draw in some fictitious even money. I can’t explain this anymore.
http://www.donbest.com/horse-racing/part-2-interview-legendary-oddsmaker-roxy-roxborough-a-14917.html