Archive for Daily Fantasy Strategy

The guys who write our daily posts on consecutive days have a tough gig. I write one per week and it’s hard enough to come up with new general thoughts on playing daily. But since I’m filling in for Mr. Jones, I’m having to come up with something for the second day in a row. To make things easy, I’ll piggyback on what I discussed yesterday which was using super cheap starting pitchers like Scott Carroll and hedging against them.

Carroll’s price was only $2,700 yesterday, and he delivered massive value by allowing just three base runners and zero earned runs over 6.2 innings with five strikeouts. He also got the win which pushed his point total for the day to 12.92. To put in terms of value, Carroll only cost you about $209 per fantasy point he got you. Getting that kind of value from any other spot on your roster is virtually impossible. The last time a hitter hit it big for me was Steve Pearce at the end of June when he hit two home runs and scored 17 points. At his price he cost you $461 per fantasy point. That’s still an excellent number, but it’s more than double what Carroll did yesterday.

More importantly, Pearce was one of 350 or so hitters to choose from that day and was the only one who hit two bombs. Sure, maybe only 100 were really capable of going yard twice, but that’s still impossible to predict. But Carroll was the only insanely cheap starter yesterday. Sure, the odds of him producing that kind of value weren’t great, but you knew one guy was capable of producing that kind of value, not one of a hundred you could choose from. When the only risk is how the player will perform and not which player will perform well, you have a much better chance of getting that insane value.

As for hedging, the more I think about it, the more it only truly makes sense with a super cheap starter. What I mean is it only makes sense if you’re only disappointed with your pitcher play if he doesn’t score at least three or so points. If the starter musters less than two points, it’s unlikely your hedge stack didn’t do anything for you. It doesn’t mean they went off and won you a GPP, but they likely return some value in that scenario. If you were hoping the value play pitcher would get you eight or nine points, it’s much easier to envision a scenario where he disappoints and a hedge stack also disappoints. So on those days when someone super cheap is out there, take a flier on them and hedge.

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A week ago today, in this very space, I devoted a couple hundred words convincing y’all to start Joe Saunders at the low, low price of $3,658. Saunders gave up  four home runs, seven runs total and has since been released by the Rangers. So yeah, good call by me. But I can live with being very, very wrong in a public forum because I hedged against the Saunders call, stacked some Orioles in a GPP lineup, and ended up winning the $2 GPP last Friday. Give me money over being right any day.

Obviously I wasn’t the only one who stacked Orioles against Saunders, and some other things had to go my way for me to hit. But the results have me wondering if hedge plays are the way to go in GPPs. To give another example from personal experience, I ended up pretty Brewers-heavy in my lineups for the July 4th $50K Big Score, and they mustered just two runs on six hits. Despite having the Brewers in roughly half my lineups, I did not have the opposing starter, Alfredo Simon, in a single lineup. It would have been nice to have his 8.33 points in a non-Brewers lineup.

To be fair, I was also pretty Dodgers-heavy in my lineups, and I wasn’t about to throw Jair Jurrjens into a lineup. But Simon has had success this year, albeit success not backed up by peripherals. Anytime you’re heavy on a lineup and there’s at least some reason to think the starter could be decent, you should probably throw the him in at least one other lineup. In fact, once your lineups are drawn up, look and see if you’re heavy on any particular play and try to hedge it in one spot. And for clarity, this only applies to GPPs. Which, by the way, I think may be the way to go unless you’re a shark/grinder. But that’s another conversation for another day.

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Welcome to the final week before the All-Star Game! Time to make moves to win now or rebuild for next year.

On today’s agenda:
1. My affection for Christian Yelich grows
2. Thoughts on David Freese
3. Tommy La Stella is hitting
4. Quick thought on Odrisamer Despaigne
5. The daily five

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I hope everyone had a grand day yesterday! Between eating, baseball (including a massive trade by my favorite club, the Oakland Athletics) and having a beer or two, yesterday was a grand time for yours truly. I’ll leave the fantasy implications of the trade to smarter minds but I can’t imagine two starting pitchers ever complained about going from Wrigley Field to the Coliseum, even when factoring in the NL to AL difference.

On today’s agenda:
1. A glance at two Mets hitters
3. Brandon Belt’s return
4. Logan Morrison’s hitting
5. The daily five

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Much has been written about Justin Verlander’s struggles this season. He’s undoubtedly hurt – if not outright killed – fantasy title hopes for a ton of people. Glass half full, though. Over his last two starts, he’s looked a little more like the Verlander we all know and love. In those 13 innings – a measly sample, but we’re being positive! – he’s struck out sixteen batters while walking two.

The small sample size caveat applies, a ton, but perhaps Verlander is closer to being back. He thinks he is:

After giving up seven runs to Kansas City on June 16, Verlander sat down with manager Brad Ausmus and pitching coach Jeff Jones to pour over film, new and old. They saw that the right-hander was moving laterally in a way that needed to be changed. They wanted him to move more toward home plate. Verlander said it was the biggest midseason change he’s undergone.

Ausmus said pitcher’s often make changes of this nature during the offseason. Verlander is no common pitcher, however.

“I felt like this was something we have to do to get him back to where he was,” Ausmus said. “As pitchers get older and more mature, they have to make adjustments because, physically, they’re going to change.”
So between starts, Verlander has been throwing 25-30 pitches in an extra bullpen session. The more he does it in practice, the less he has to think about doing it during a game.

“It’s probably more strenuous than I would like it to be,” Verlander said. “I’m the kind of person that wants to get out there and repeat it, repeat it, repeat it until the muscle memory kicks in.”

We’ll see if his good work continues tonight versus a very potent Oakland lineup.

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Nothing Mike Leake does is overly exciting, excluding his 12 strikeout performance versus the Giants last week. Over his last 47 starts(a little over 300 innings), Leake has posted a 3.38 ERA. His FIP during that time is 3.90. Throughout his career, he’s beaten his peripherals, so we keep waiting for him to fall back a little. So far, he hasn’t. In fact, he’s even taken a few steps forward this year.

Leake’s striking out more hitter than he ever has, even if you remove his impeccable effort last week, his K% this season sits at 17.4%; a career high. His walk rate, which has always been good, is also at a career low. And he’s posting the best groundball rate. All of that, plus a little more, is leading to the best year of his career.

Perhaps Mike Leake is a little underwhelming. It’s not hard to overlook him considering how many flamethrowers populate the game today, but he’s still pretty darn good. He’s facing the Padres tonight, who, as Blake noted on Sunday, are perhaps the best team in the majors to bet on pitching against; they do have a team wide wOBA of .270, after all.

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Nine teams currently have a wRC+ over 100 for the season. Anytime you’re looking to stack hitters from the same team, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to just pick a team or two out of that group of nine with the best matchup for the day. But this is just a quick reminder that some of those top offensive teams are much better against pitchers of a certain handedness.

For example, the Blue Jays are tied with the Angels for the best wRC+ in the league at 112. But the Jays have a 116 wRC+ against right-handed pitching, which they see two-thirds of the time, and have just a 102 wRC+ against left-handed pitching. The simple fact that the majority of pitchers are right-handed is what makes them the best offense in the league. If the majority of pitchers were left-handed, the Jays total wRC+ might be something like 104. Long story short, they’re not as good of a stacking option against lefties. Which makes sense because their lineup features left-handers Adam Lind, Juan Francisco and Colby Rasmus as well as two switch hitters who are better from the left side of the plate in Jose Reyes and Melky Cabrera.

Here is a chart showing you how the top nine offensive teams fare against pitchers of either handedness.

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Ten years ago today the pop punk group Midtown released their third album titled “Forget What You Know.” I didn’t like it as much as their first two albums, “Save the World, Lose the Girl” and “Living Well is the Best Revenge” but I do like the track Is it me? Is it true? My favorite track by them will always be Like a Movie.

On today’s agenda:
1. Mookie Betts gets the call
2. Bryce Harper’s return?
3. Another quality start from Marcus Stroman
4. The daily five

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For the most part, I’m a positive person. At least I try to be. That’s why I usually focus on guys who are performing well. It just feels better to highlight someone’s success. Today, though, let’s talk about how bad Eric Stults has been this season.

He was decent in 2012; pretty good in 2013; and he’s been atrocious, so far, in 2014. His strikeouts are down some, but his walks are basically where they were last season. He’s never missed bats, so when he’s pitching well, he’s getting by off of weak contact, especially considering he’s a flyball pitcher. Well, he hasn’t been able to outrun a .323 babip this season after being fortunate enough to squeak past a .302 number last season. He’s stranding the same amount of runners, so what gives? Dingers. Lots of them.

Stults has allowed 15 home runs so far. He allowed 18 total last season. And we can’t exactly blame luck, because the majority of them can be blamed solely on poor location. Nine of the fifteen home runs Stults has given up have came off of fastballs. Eight of those fastballs have been at least belt high. When your fastball averages 87 mph, you can’t really miss up in the zone, unless you’re Chris Young (maybe?).

After roughly 290 innings in San Diego with a HR/FB rate around 7%, Stults’ rate is currently 14.6%. Will it stay that high? Maybe not, but I still like the Diamondbacks tonight. Paul Goldschmidt, anyone?

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Today is the 23rd anniversary of the film “The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear” being released. The boxing knowledge clip seems like a throwaway, but later on it is relevant in the rescue scene.

On today’s agenda:
1. A big day from C.J. Cron
2. Thoughts on Michael Bourn
3. Dylan Bundy’s progress
4. The daily five

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