The Daily Grind: Assets, Locke, Turner

Agenda

1. How I View Players
2. Daily DFS – Pairs
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Locke, Niese, Turner, Burns
5. Factor Grid

1. How I View Players

I discussed this topic in the offseason when I highlighted my plan to turn some combination of Chris Owings, Wilmer Flores, and Jonathan Schoop into a useful player in my ottoneu league. All three middle infielders fit a risky, high upside profile. By managing them as a portfolio, I diversified my risk. Owings hasn’t hit, Flores has performed decently, and Schoop was showing signs of a breakout before he was waylaid by injury. The plan has kind of worked. I’ll admit, I was hoping for a little more.

I look at my players two ways. When I believe I have some actionable information that can’t be found on a standard FanGraphs stat page, I’ll incorporate it into my valuations. Sometimes these are nothing more than a guess. When Bryce Harper debuted, I expected 60 steal attempts per season. Not because he was a great base thief. I thought he’d be too overeager to do everything. Surprisingly (to me), he took a restrained approach on the bases. The anticipated eagerness shone through on defense. Usually I have better reasons for these individual evaluations.

If I don’t have some specific reason to expect a breakout or decline, I mentally re-cast my players as assets. Managing a fantasy team is exactly like managing a financial portfolio, except there are more arbitrary constraints in play (and usually less transaction costs). You want as many A+ rated assets as possible – your Paul Goldschmidts and Anthony Rizzos.

You should have drafted some high upside, modest floor players like A.J. Pollock or Avisail Garcia. These are your breakout bets, and it’s usually necessary to spike a few of these to win a league. You also need to consider some cheap, reliable core performers like Torii Hunter. Drafting Pollock isn’t enough if you’re also trying to squeeze something out of Odubel Herrera and Steve Pearce in a starting spot. And of course, everything has to be balanced by position and the measured categories.

Fantasy baseball is hard…

2. Daily DFS – Pairs

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: There are five early games. The only pure hitters park is Houston. Boston is a nice alternative location for offense so long as it doesn’t rain.

Tim Lincecum is starting to look like a pumpkin. By now, most DFS owners know to avoid non-elite hitters at AT&T Park. A Mariners stack could work as a sneaky, unpopular play with decent upside. I know I’ll be looking in a more conventional direction.

Late: The remaining 10 games are available in the evening slate. Matt Harvey is the big gun by cost, but I prefer Jake Arrieta tonight.  You have no shortage of stacking options, the challenge is finding a pitcher beyond the top two.

Trevor Bauer has a nice matchup against the strikeout prone Cubs. Unfortunately, you’ll find Arrieta against him. A win for either pitcher is uncertain. Garrett Richards has averaged six FanDuel points over his last two games. One of those was a lovely 16 point evening. The other was a negative four point performance. Maddening.

Jose Quintana and Charlie Morton are paired up. With the game at PNC Park, I will consider using one of them. Just like with the Chicago game, it’s unfortunate that one of them doesn’t have an easier path to a win.

Stack Targets: Chris Rusin, Julio Teheran, Wade Miley, Jerome Williams, Chris Tillman, Michael Lorenzen, Kyle Ryan, Scott Copeland, Nathan Eovaldi, David Phelps, Alex Colome, Tanner Roark, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Matt Garza, Jeremy Hellickson

3. GB / FB Splits

The following hitters are recommended based on the works of Shane Tourtellotte and Dan Fansworth. They show ground ball hitters perform better against fly ball pitchers and vice versa. Using three-year values for hitter OPS and pitcher GB%, here are today’s top recommendations. Use this link for Jeff’s full list.

An even 25 today. Here are the bestest.

Adam Lind and Ryan Braun vs. Chris Young
Dexter Fowler vs. Shaun Marcum
Josh Reddick vs. Andrew Cashner
Jonny Gomes vs. Wade Miley
Matt Wieters and Nolan Reimold vs. Jerome Williams
Denard Span vs. Alex Colome
Ryan Howard and Ben Revere vs. Chris Tillman

4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Locke, Niese, Turner, Burns

Pitchers to Start: I like when forces contradict each other. Jeff Locke will face the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field. Force number one: Locke is…how you say…bad. Specifically, Locke has these periods when he has very fine command. He’s a solid pitcher then. He also has periods where his command is just ok (like now). Not so solid.

Force number two: the White Sox offense is execrable against left-handed pitching. After last night’s drubbing by Francisco Liriano, they’re down to a 42 wRC+. Woof.

Force number three: U.S. Cellular Field is a fantastic place for right-handed power. Contrary to what the team wRC+ indicates, the White Sox do have some right-handed hitters. We’ll see how it all shakes out.

Also consider: Tsuyoshi Wada, Drew Hutchison, Chase Anderson, Jesse Chavez, Ubaldo Jimenez

Pitchers to Exploit: The Blue Jays really slaughter left-handed pitchers. I had hoped Eduardo Rodriguez might prove to be an exception. I was wrong.

Lesson learned. Load up on Jays bats against Jon Niese. The Mets lefty has career worst splits this season. Righties are hitting .293/.353/.484. I’m sure it doesn’t help to know that your job has already been given to some guy in Triple-A (yeah, go run and pick up Steven Matz for his early July debut).

Also consider: Jose Urena, Joe Kelly, John Danks, Joe Blanton, Mike Fiers, Tommy Milone, Kyle Kendrick, Odrisamer Despaigne, Kevin Correia

Hitters (power): Justin Turner is Yahoo eligible at all four non-catcher infield positions. A 32 percent line drive rate coupled with one of the lowest soft hit rates in the league have allowed him to post strong numbers for a second consecutive season. Even though he’s not quite an every day guy, I highly recommend acquiring a share. He’s opposed by Wandy Rodriguez. If you have the roster flexibility, hang onto him.

Also consider: Alex Guerrero, Yasmany Tomas, Randal Grichuk, Francisco Cervelli, Jung-ho Kang, Kelly Johnson, Danny Valencia, Mike Aviles, Giovanny Urshela

Hitters (speed): Billy Burns hasn’t stolen a base since Sunday. He’s due. That’s how this works, right?

Also consider: Scooter Gennett, Jace Peterson

5. The Factor Grid

The table below indicates which stadiums have the best conditions for hitters today. The color coding is a classic stoplight where green equals go for hitters. The weather conditions are from SI Weather’s home run app. A 10/10 means great atmospheric conditions for home runs. A 1/10 means lousy atmospheric conditions.

The Rangers game looks like it will start wet. After the first hour, there is a 50 percent chance the rain will continue. Keep an eye on conditions. Games in Boston, New York, and St. Louis could also be wet.

The Link.

This post is not brought to you by any DFS platform. The current author is quite pleased to present a DFS ad free environment.