The Daily Grind: Fear, Duffey, Ross, Span

Agenda

1. Fear
2. Daily DFS
3. GB / FB Splits
4. SaberSim Hi/Lo
5. Tomorrow’s Targets – Ross, Wolf, Cron, Span
6. Factor Grid

1. Fear

Twice a week I participate in the Field of Streams podcast. When discussing a couple players yesterday, I mentioned I was afraid to use them. This mostly applied to right-handed Diamondbacks hitters versus Jaime Garcia. The Cardinals hurler had a strong outing so my fear appears justified, but that’s not the point. Should we let fear influence our decision making when building fantasy and DFS rosters?

As is often the case, I think the answer is “it depends.” The cop out is that everybody is different. My fear is not your fear. When I’m worried about using hitters who should mash a lefty sinkerballer, I know I’m simply drawing on other inputs beyond the ones I usually consider. In the case of Garcia, he’s a less sliderific Dallas Keuchel. Garcia (and Keuchel) can shut down any team on any day. Even the Blue Jays. With much better (and affordable) DFS exploits available, it made too much sense to go in another direction.

Ultimately, when you realize you’re afraid of a certain matchup for reasons beyond the normal statistical measures we use, you should attempt to rationalize your fear. Rationalization is an error-fraught process, but it can also help us to discover unconscious motives and new points of analysis.

Your treatment of fear should should also depend upon how you play. If you fancy yourself a numbers crunching professional gambler, then there’s no place for the irrational. If you merely seek to dabble, you can derive greater utility (aka pleasure) by listening to your gut – even if your gut loses you money on occasion.

2. Daily DFS – Corbin, Duffey, Eickhoff

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: There are two early games. The good news is that nobody will have to decide whether to start or exploit Felix Hernandez. FanDuel doesn’t have any contests with these early games.

Late: A quartet of aces appears! Which pokemon do you choose? Chris Sale, Chris Archer, David Price, and Johnny Cueto all have solid matchups. They also run between $11,500 and $12,500 on FanDuel. You know at least one of them will have a 20 point performance. That makes it very hard to dip into the bargain bin for pitching. You’ll need to get very lucky to spike enough points to make up for passing on a stud.

Luckily, there are a few options. You can start with expensive known quantities like John Lackey and Tyson Ross. They both have their share of successful outings and cost about $3,500 less than the average ace. SaberSim loves Shelby Miller against the Rockies. I never use Miller, especially not for $8,300.

For $6,800, you can roll the dice with Patrick Corbin. To say he’s been frustrating is an understatement. The Cardinals actually aren’t very good against left-handed pitching. In his last six starts, Corbin has three starts of over 15 points – exactly what you’ll need today from a bargain. He also has two start of zero or fewer points. Woof.

We discussed Tyler Duffey in some detail yesterday. Aside from about a strikeout per inning, I have no idea what to expect. He has a plus changeup and a good curve. The Rays are weak against right-handed pitching.

The riskiest of the usable bargains is Jerad Eickhoff. He had a strong debut while showing off back-of-the-rotation stuff. He costs $5,000 today. I’m going to hazard that he’s a $7,000 true talent pitcher. The Mets offense is en fuego, but I don’t see them as a serious threat against a good pitcher. Eickhoff isn’t really one of those so it could go sideways.

Stack Targets: Bartolo Colon, Eickhoff, Hector Santiago, Cody Anderson, David Holmberg, Jeff Locke,  Chris Narveson, Colby Lewis, Rick Porcello, Jake Peavy

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.

The splits are back after a one day hiatus. You have options today, oh so many options. Below are my favorites.

Kyle Seager and Seth Smith v Chris Bassitt
James McCann, Miguel Cabrera, and J.D. Martinez v Hector Santiago
Salvador Perez v Wei-Yin Chen
Jonny Gomes v Yohan Flande
Marlon Byrd and Gregor Blanco v Kyle Hendricks
Dexter Fowler v Jake Peavy
C.J. Cron, Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Kole Calhoun v Justin Verlander

4. SaberSim Hi/Lo

Wrong: I’m not a fan of listing Miller as the fourth best pitcher today, but I can at least see how the projection system came to that conclusion. Miller can pitch deep into a game, and he can strike out more than a batter per inning. It’s just that he isn’t a smart bet to do either. The Rockies aren’t a terrifying lineup, but they have plenty of solid hitters. Miller’s still more likely to succeed than Mike Foltynewicz yesterday.

I didn’t mean to say so much about Miller because Narveson is the pitcher rating that really confuses me today. Despite a low likelihood of a win, he’s ranked as the sixth best pitcher. the soft-tossing lefty isn’t stretched out to start. He’s unlikely to last five innings let alone his 6.48 inning projection. Then there’s the matter of strikeouts. SaberSim says he’ll notch 6.22 punch outs in 6.48 innings. That’s 8.64 K/9. He only approaches that level of success out of the bullpen. Narveson will be lucky to score seven FanDuel points. He’s projected for nearly 12.

Right: SaberSim likes left-handed Yankees against homer prone Collin McHugh. Only David Holmberg is projected to perform worse than McHugh today. That portion of the projection is a little strange. McHugh actually has wonky reverse splits driven by BABIP and HR/FB rate. Other than those so-called luck stats, he’s platoon neutral. With the short right field porch in play, I’m inclined to follow SaberSim’s lead. Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran, Brett Gardner, Chase Headley, and even Didi Gregorius are worth a look.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets – Ross, Wolf, Cron, Span

Pitchers to Start: Joe Ross is my favorite pick up for tomorrow. He’s not the most consistent, but I like him at home against Andrew Cashner and the Padres. He missed facing his brother by a day. The Nationals are going to shut him down at some point in the next few weeks. He’s worth rostering right up to that point. With a 3.56 ERA, 8.60 K/9, and 1.34 BB/9, he’s capable of helping in all four starting pitcher categories.

Also consider: Tommy Milone, Drew Smyly, Vidal Nuno, Carlos Rodon

Pitchers to Exploit: Randy Wolf’s 2015 debut was solid, but he’s still a blow up risk against the Angels tomorrow. Historically, Wolf is a fly ball pitcher. The Angels mash such pitchers, and they hit better against southpaws too. The Detroit bullpen is bad. Any Angels you can sneak into the lineup tomorrow should be valuable.

Also consider: Anthony Desclafani, Andrew Heaney, Chris Tillman, Yordano Ventura, Jon Niese, Aaron Harang, Justin Nicolino

Hitters (power): The Angels’ most eligible waiver claim is C.J. Cron. He’s available in 96 percent of Yahoo leagues. He’s a pure masher with a .878 fly ball OPS. Tomorrow’s game is in Detroit which is an offensive improvement from Angels Stadium.

Also consider: Trevor Plouffe, Logan Forsythe, Kelly Johnson, Michael Conforto, Darin Ruf, Jeff Francoeur, Nick Castellanos, Andre Ethier, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley

Hitters (speed): Denard Span is back in action. He’s only 42 percent owned on Yahoo. Look for Span to share time with Jayson Werth and Michael Taylor. It’s unclear if he’ll be a base running threat over the rest of the season. He did swipe one bag while on rehab assignment.

Also consider: Tyler Saladino, Cesar Hernandez, Darnell Sweeney, Gregor Blanco, Rajai Davis

6. 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.

Huzzah, another day without rain.

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.