To clarify the second sentence of yesterday’s Roto Riteup intro…it is is 100% accurate.
On today’s agenda:
1. Wil Myers out for eight weeks
2. Thoughts on Denard Span
3. A pair of disabled list activations
4. Quick hit on Dylan Bundy
5. The daily five
In the comments I’ve had some interesting interactions lately. Because of that I wanted to address a few things here, in case some of you don’t make it down to the comment section.
First off, thanks for reading these. It feels like the pieces are getting bigger responses.
Secondly, when I make picks I’m doing my best to give you value options. For example, the Blue Jays’ offense is ruthless. You know that, and you definitely don’t need me to recommend them four days a week because you’re more than smart enough to do that on your own. I usually pick a stack against one of the pitchers that has a lot of green cells in the chart I embed. I alluded to it last week, but you could probably pretty easily throw together a stack, or play match-ups, against any of the pitchers I mention in the blurbs under the chart.
Lastly, I was asked why I recommend a three man stack instead of a four man option. My response and, later, my further explanation is below:
It’s honestly kind of just personal preference. Most of the time when I enter GPPs I use multiple three man stacks. This is a good read (http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/daily-fantasy-strategy-march-31-for-draftstreet/). I’ve just usually had better a little better luck with a three man stack. Sorry if that seems like a cop-out. I may start including a fourth option for you guys though now that you’ve mentioned it.
…
Yeah, I should have worded that a little better. Usually I have two three man stacks against two of the five or so pitchers I highlight in the blurb. I usually then try to find two upside plays on the same team – around $5,000-$6,000 or so a piece. Then I just fill out the last position with a cheaper guy who happens to have a nice matchup. It rarely works out to where I find three stacks I like, but when it does the results have been nice.
I mostly try to save my money on pitching. Usually I can find two to three options for under $15,000 that I’m comfortable with. Sometimes I get burned on that, but at their price I’m not expecting them to carry me anyways.
I hope that helps explain the process/reasoning I undertake before making my picks. And hopefully we have a little better luck this week. Only Thursday was kind to me last week.
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Let’s talk about the fact that Draftstreet doesn’t allow late swaps. In a minute, how to prepare for it, but first, how to potentially take advantage of it.
On weekends and on travel days there are usually early contests encompassing all games and late contests that only consist of the late games. In the early contests, rosters lock when the first game starts. When someone in your lineup playing in a late game isn’t in the lineup, there’s nothing you can do about it. As a result, I’ve generally tended to avoid early contests all together and just play the late contests so that all lineups are usually posted before rosters lock. Or if I play in early contests, I’ll skew towards teams playing in the early games and avoid stacks for teams playing late games.
Yesterday I did things different. I entered the early contests and used plenty of hitters and stacks in late games because I liked the matchups and values, the A’s and the Dodgers in particular. In the GPP I entered, the four Dodgers I used all had an ownership percentage of 3% or less, and Josh Donaldson was the only Athletic that was widely owned.
I have the suspicion that this is partly due to other players sharing my aversion to the risk of using players that can’t be confirmed in their team’s lineup before rosters lock. It’s also possible that enough people just didn’t think the Dodgers/A’s stacks had as much upside and/or value as I did. But I’m thinking this may be a situation where you can zig when everyone else zags. And zigging with good players is a strategy I can get on board with.
If you’re going to use players in late games, you’ve got to do all you can to avoid players who are left out of the lineup. First things first, avoid any guys who have any sort of injury concern at all. I usually just check each player on the ESPN fantasy page and see if any recent updates mention anything about an injury.
Second, you should be aware of how teams use platoons. Some players are obviously part of a platoon and should be avoided in matchups where they don’t have the platoon advantage. But teams often order players differently against lefties than they do righties. Be aware of that when using stacks so you can be reasonably certain that the players you stack will be hitting next to or at least near each other in the lineup. The best way to see how teams usually order their lineup is to take a look at their most recent lineups, which can be found at MLBDepthCharts.
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We are more or less one third of the way through the baseball season. Like real life baseball, now is the time to review your rosters and to start looking at trade options to either make a run this year or build for future seasons.
On today’s agenda:
1. Lonnie Chisenhall is on fire
2. A setback for Michael Pineda
3. A pair of Matt’s to the disabled list
4. Thoughts on Jacob deGrom
5. The Daily Five
Before you get down to watching some baseball today, how about doing some spring cleaning? To help aid the process, here is a lovely spring cleaning themed song from “Rocko’s Modern Life.”
On today’s agenda:
1. Welcome to the big leagues, Oscar Taveras
2. Good news for Andrew Cashner
3. A.J. Pollock continues to rake
4. Josh Willingham hits another dinger
4. The Daily Five
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.
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Happy Friday, everyone! We’re another week closer to summer officially beginning, though I’ve already ran my air conditioning several times.
On today’s agenda:
1. Zack Wheeler’s strong start
2. Jaime Garcia is looking good
3. Josh Collmenter cruises
4. More homers for George Springer and Edwin Encarnacion
5. The Daily Five
Usually I riff a little on pitching. There are two reasons behind that: I love pitching and I find it easier to analyze because the pitcher, for the most part, controls most of their fate. Sure defense plays a role, but I usually look at stats that take that into account in the first place.
If there was ever a pitcher that embodies “peripherals are more important at this stage of the season,” it’s Shelby Miller. If you focus on traditional stats, Miller hasn’t been that bad. He’s racked up six wins (!) and has a 3.18 ERA. As we know, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Miller’s been very, very lucky; not just with babip, either. Miller’s wiggled out of trouble a ton, evidenced by his 87.7% LOB%. His strikeout rate has plummeted ~5% while his walk rate has increased ~5%. All in all, Miller’s k-bb% (perhaps my favorite metric) has decreased nearly 10 percentage points. Not good.
Surely you, the astute Fangraphs reader, have known for a little while that Miller’s pitching on borrowed time. If you haven’t shopped him yet, do it quickly.
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Memorial Day is behind us. Hopefully your long weekend treated you well. Fortunately there was a full schedule yesterday; today, the same. Brandon Moss kept on raking yesterday. As did Derek Norris, who has been the best hitting back stop by quite a margin. The Athletics are fantastic, in case you were wondering what my point was. I will continue to keep gushing about them.
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I hope everyone who got a three day weekend enjoyed it. Maybe you did some grilling, played some golf or just sat on the deck and watched baseball (which is what I did). Regardless, back to work and back to the Roto Riteup.
On today’s agenda:
1. Tommy Milone gets his third win
2. I’m buying Carl Crawford
3. Thoughts on Brandon McCarthy
4. The Daily Five