The Daily Grind 2 – Coming to a Theater Near You

All living beings must adapt to new conditions or else be drowned under the sands of time. The Daily Grind began in 2012 as a streaming column. I picked some pitchers and hitters I liked for the current and next day using the “sophisticated” measures that were popular over half a decade ago. At the time, TDG was hosted by The Hardball Times Fantasy Focus. It lives a pseudo-existence as an archived site.

Here’s an example from April of that inaugural year. A few highlights with comments in parenthesis:

• In shallow leagues, Chris Sale and Trevor Cahill may be available. (I’m not sure which of those is funnier)
• Carlos Gomez is creeping toward a full-time role by never striking out. (emphasis mine)
• Eric Thames will get the start against Jason Hammel. (proof of my long love affair with Thames, I actually recommended him twice)
• Dale Sveum has powers akin to the Pope. After a Carlos Marmol blown save, Sveum absolved Marmol of his sin. (younger me had funnier words)

It is with a heavy heart that I announce an end to an era – The Daily Grind will no longer feature streaming picks. The column will continue purely as a Daily Fantasy resource. DFS began infiltrating TDG in 2014, and its influence has grown every year. Streaming is my greatest love, but it was time to uncouple it from my DFS content. Informal polls suggested that most RotoGraphs readers already thought it was only a DFS column.

Admittedly, the decision was at least partially self-serving. I’ve sold my streaming content to two other sites (Rotoworld and RotoBaller). Come hunt me down on either site if you read the Grind for streamers.

This season, the DFS crowd can expect more of the same with a few key additions. Here’s what I have planned:

Yesterday’s Hijinks (NEW)

A look at the flukiest performances from the previous day. Maybe GIFs? I always say this, but it sometimes takes me as long to find/make a good GIF as it does to write the rest of the column…

Weather Reports

(advice: don’t wear this shirt to Trader Joe’s unless you want every employee to overenthusiastically complement you)

Pitchers to Use and Abuse by slate

Just like last year, I’ll analyze a few pitchers I like and list the stack targets. Sometimes, there may be overlap.

Fade, Fade, Fade (NEW)

Time to find some unpopular overperformers.

SaberSim Says…

You know the drill, what does our favorite daily projection tool think?

TDG Invitational and Leaderboard

It’s baaaaack. Return for the contest, stay for the leaderboard. So long as they maintain separate existences, we will use both FanDuel and DraftKings.

And now some general notes:

Fans of the 2015 edition of TDG frequently requested a return of the GB/FB splits. The way we had those set up was cumbersome and not particularly adaptive. I’m still very much interested in exploiting these matchups – particularly fly ball hitters against bad sinker ballers. I’ll be using the pitcher and fade sections to find a few of these that fly under the radar.

There are so many DFS pick’em columns scattered around the webs. I consider myself to have two differentiators. The planned content is… well… not quite unique but less common that the typical position-by-position run down with inscrutable charts. Also, I like to think I bring a certain whimsy to the process. Even if Carson wouldn’t hire me for NotGraphs!

Last but not least, this is your chance as a reader to offer suggestions before the start of the season. You know where to find me (preferably the comments). Please don’t come to my house. I’ll see you all on Monday!