One thing I always like to reference when digging for starting pitchers on a given slate is total team strikeouts. If a team is striking out a ton, that only increases upside in a given match-up. It’s for this reason I tend to avoid using pitchers in DFS who are facing the Kansas City Royals. The Royals do in fact stink, but as a team, they don’t strike out as often as say, the Padres do. So, pick your crappy team carefully. Tonight, on this juicy 11 game slate, I’ll be using quite a bit of Zack Godley ($16,800). Godley was a big target of mine coming into this year and he’s disappointed, there’s no getting around that. However, he gets a match-up in San Diego that een he should be able to handle. He’s still rocking a 9+ K rate, but his 4 walk rate has killed him. Fortunately, the Padres are also near the bottom in total team walks (24th of 30). Couple that with their league worst .660 OPS vs. RHP and I think you’ve got yourself a winner.
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Monthly Archives: August 2018
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Prospect Podcast: Minor League Hitting Adjustments
August 18, 2018 | Prospect Podcast, Razzball Podcast | 4 Commentsby: Geoff
Adjustments! This episode is dedicated, partly at least, to the brave minor league players that adjusted their game in 2018. Players like Cavan Biggio, Taylor Ward, and Bryse Wilson come to mind, but there’s others as well. We start the show off with some news around the minors, talk promotions, and as well as some recent performances. Of course, we update you on Brendan McKay’s last week, before diving into a quick discussion on a recent article from former big leaguer Nate Freiman. Next up is our featured topic of player adjustments. We end with our weekly Five By Five, as we each highlight five players of note from the minor leagues over the last few weeks. It’s a jam packed episode, per usual. As always stop by Rotowear.com and support our sponsor, by using our promo-code SAGNOF to get 20% off all you purchases through the site. It’s another week of the Razzball Prospect Podcast.
Buy eLoy At Your Next FAAB Auction
August 17, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 283 Commentsby: Grey
[brid autoplay="true" video="279908" player="10951" title="Fantasy Baseball Buy Sell Hold Week 21"]
Alex Trebek, "The $500 clue is, 'Now.'" "The time I pooped my pants on national TV." "Sorry, that's not correct. Susan?" "What is now? Like now? Now now? What kinda answer is now?" "Sorry, we can only accept your first question, 'What is now?' and that is incorrect. Grey, you buzzed in last because you were on your phone picking up a streamer for tomorrow. The answer is, 'Now,' your question is..." "What is the time to pick up Eloy Jimenez?" "That is correct. You control the board." "Okay, I'll take 'Uber/Lyft for $500." "Your neighbor uses this World War II pun when describing them." "What is Taxis of Evil?" "Right again!" Any hoo! As Alex Trebek illustrated in the most roundabout way, now is the time to pick up Eloy Jimenez if you have room. He is absolutely tearing the cover off the ball in Triple-A like he's putting the finishing touches on his Roy Hobbs Halloween costume -- 11 HRs, .345 in 37 games. I mean, over-the-internet friend, he's 21 and doing that? He's going to be special. Only question now that ends in a period is will the White Sox call him up when rosters expand in September. My guess is they do and he starts the year with the club next April. He's going to be a star with little Jeopardy. Anyway, here's some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:
Minor League Update: Bryse Yourself For Wilson’s Arrival
August 17, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 9 Commentsby: Geoff
We might be standing on the precipice of a seemingly non-stop string of Braves hurlers to emerge from their system. We've seen bits and pieces of Mike Soroka, Touki Toussaint, and Kolby Allard. Both 2017 first rounder Kyle Wright and my favorite Braves arm, Bryse Wilson, are at AAA. While another rotation worth of arms stew below; players like Ian Anderson, Kyle Muller, Joey Wentz, Huascar Ynoa, Freddy Tarnok, Etc. There's reinforcements coming, and Bryse Wilson, after last night's performance, might be squarely on the callup radar. In his third AAA start Wilson went 8 scoreless innings, allowing 1 hit, walking none, and striking out 13 batters, facing the minimum amount of batters for a 99 gamescore. A few weeks ago I discussed Wilson's transition from a two-seam fastball to a four-seamer, and the subsequent results following a rough stretch early in AA. There's obviously a great deal of credit that goes to the Braves staff, but ultimately it's on the player. The fact that his transition was so swift and seamless, speaks to the intangibles of that prospect. While it's somewhat unlikely, seeing Wilson in the bigs for some pen work or a few spot starts wouldn't surprise me.
#Braves pitching prospect prowess ... Bryse Wilson, the @Braves' No. 13 prospect and just their 9th-highest-ranked pitcher, faced the minimum in 8 scoreless frames while setting a @GoStripers strikeout record: https://t.co/JMrfIJaqqM pic.twitter.com/YqS1rAHkWI
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) August 16, 2018
Friday's back and we've got another 14 game main slate on FanDuel. This is going to be a tough slate to get through, as most of the bats I like are high end. We'll lead with a mini-discount SP in Kyle Gibson ($8,100), who faces a Detroit team who ranks 29th in wOBA vs RHPs. Detroit is only projected to have one bat in the lineup with an ISO > .200 in Niko Goodrum, and while I admit Niko is a super badass name, Niko alone does not strike fear into my heart. Saving a little money with Gibson opens the door up a little to pay up for some of the day's big bats. Let's take a look at the rest of Friday's slate on FanDuel.
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The Other NY Team Scored 24. Did Anyone Phil-Met?
August 17, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 205 Commentsby: Grey
In Philly, a celestial light shines down on a book. A deep breath, and someone blows dust off the book so we can read its title, "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Scoring In Philly." A hand opens the book, turning to the first page, reading, "To all my loving fans, but mostly the females." We pull back to reveal, reading is its author, Pat Burrell. For reasons we can't explain, he wears a dead parrot on his shoulder. The Mets could easily have written that book after yesterday's first game. Putting up the reedonkeylicousness: Amed Rosario went 6-for-11, 7 runs, 4 RBIs and a slam (6) and legs (14) across both games. In the first game, Rhysus (3-for-7, 4 RBIs and his 24th and 25th homer) and Amed both homered. Halleberrylujah! Jose Bautista (3-for-7, 3 runs, 7 RBIs) hit his 10th homer as he continues to turn back the clock to 1987, when he was a 7-year-old and hit barely .200 with some occasional pop off garbage lefties who would put it on a tee for him. Michael Conforto (6-for-12, 3 runs, 5 RBIs) hit his 17th homer, and now has three homers in the last week, and is finally showing signs why people are always saying, "The Mets are bad, but I like that Conforto guy." The Mess had so much offense I don't even have time before my Carpal Tunnel kicks in to mention Kevin Plawecki (4-for-5, 4 runs, 3 RBIs). A shame, because Plawecki deserves a mention outside of being mentioned for not being mentioned. The big takeaway, on our 7-day Player Rater of hitters, Amed Rosario is in the top 30 and worth a look. Amed to that. Or Amen. Or Apeople, if that's how you roll. Anyway, here's what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
The role of a museum is to collect and preserve objects of cultural and historical importance. Often, the contents within remain relatively static over a short period. Everything can't be great! Over time, though, things do become great and are eventually moved into a museum. Most are small enough to not cause a stir, but there are a select few times when it's Must See TV. In October of 2012, I remember when the Space Shuttle Endeavour was transported from LAX to the California Science Center via the streets of Los Angeles. A site to behold before arriving at its final resting place. Those feelings I had back in 2012 are the same ones percolating within me now when I see Ryan Zimmerman (41.4% owned - increase of 27.8%) doing his thing. He missed close to three months due to injury, but since his return on July 20th, this is what Zimmerman has been doing: .365/.443/.731 with 4 home runs and 7 doubles in 61 plate appearances. The walk rate is 9.8% and strikeout rate is 18%. The ISO is .365! The hard hit rate is 50%!! There's obviously going to be regression, but don't forget that he hit 36 home runs last season and has gone yard 260 times in his career, which puts him tied for 207th all time! Zimmerman will be given occasional rest days and there's always the chance that he gets sent to the museum sooner rather than later, but until then, you won't find a better hitter with the combination of power and plate discipline on the waiver wire. TREASURE
Rolling In The Deep: Will Cedric Entertain You?
August 16, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Deep Leagues | 5 Commentsby: Laura Holt
If your fantasy baseball league is anything like (most of) mine, your trade deadline has probably come and gone, and scouring the waiver wire is your only option for help and reinforcements for the rest of the season. In the deepest of leagues, said waiver wire is likely picked to the bone, especially since we're still two weeks away from September call-ups, but press on, my friends. In a tight fantasy pennant race, you never know when a few strikeouts or a couple of runs might make a standings-changing difference at the end of the year. As usual in our deep corner of Razzball, you won't find any fantasy monsters on today's list, but you may find a guy who can give you that tiny handful of extra strikeouts or runs scored... or in some other way help you out in NL-only, AL-only, and other deep leagues.
Given that I’m here to give you my cash game picks for FanDuel (with some references to GPPs where appropriate), I’m never going to tell someone not to play FanDuel on a given day. That said, when the top pitchers on a slate are Clay Buchholz, Jon Gray (facing a good Atlanta team) and Sam Gaviglio (and this might be a rain game), I’m really not sure there’s really any reason to be playing cash. If you truly believe one of those three is way ahead of the other two today, then by all means, play cash, because those are the three top pitchers and if you think one of them is way ahead of the other two, that’s your edge in cash games. If, like me, you think it’s just an RNG dart throw between those 3, then the volatility of the pitchers make the cash game viability of this slate zero. It’s still a GPP-able slate, so for you GPP players, I’d try to make the choice between those 3 based on expected ownership (fading the chalkiest of the three) - as of right now my guess is Buchholz is the chalk of the 3 but I’m not a GPP-ownership-expert and you may think it’s someone else.
On to the picks…
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Nimmo Captains Offensive Attack Against Baltimore
August 16, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 269 Commentsby: Grey
[brid autoplay="true" video="279068" player="10951" title="Fantasy Baseball Mailbag Week 20"]
Yesterday, the Mets exploded for 16 runs. Leading the way was Todd Frazier going 3-for-6, 2 runs, 4 RBIs with a slam (12) and legs (7). Actually, Frazier, Jose Bautista (1-for-3, 1 RBI), Jose Reyes (2-for-5, 2 runs) and Austin Jackson (2-for-4, 2 runs) are all starting to click! Wait, that's their bones and it's from arthritis. Shoot, my b. The true star, however, Brandon Nimmo (5-for-5, 3 runs, 3 RBIs) rose from the depths of the deep, dark water. That's not a Finding Nemo allusion. He plays in Flushing and we know what water is associated with that. Nimms -- Can we call him that? Sure, right? -- is hitting near .350 in the last week, and homered a few games ago (precise!). For most part, it's been dank Nimms but he's no longer unDeRWaTEr aND HitTinG WeLL. Anyway, here's what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Ambulance Chasers, Week 20: Bauer Is Stressed, Now So Am I
August 15, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Injury Report |by: Kerry Klug
As a Trevor Bauer investor this year I’m tempted to just write: &$*3$*@#& and that’s it. Since Grey was his biggest advocate before the season, I know he’d understand. Stash or Trash: Stash for now. He’s a top-3 Cy Young finalist if not for this injury and we’re waiting for more news. That dastardly Jose Abreu lined a pitch of Bauer’s ankle in their game on Saturday. A stress fracture often occurs due to repeated compressive force on a bone (often in the leg, foot or ankle.) This type of injury is common in frequent runners. Bauer’s was obviously caused by the velocity of Abreu’s line drive hitting at just the right spot. Here’s the bad news: the typical healing time for a stress fracture in your fibula is 6 weeks. However, everyone is different -- some can need more time or less -- it’s hard to predict really. I’m labeling Bauer a stash until we find out more. If we find out tomorrow that it isn’t a complete fracture or that he’s got that Adrian Peterson DNA he might be back sooner. Fill In: Tyler Glasnow (19.3%.) Let’s get this easy one pick up out of the way -- if you’re in a league where Tyler Glasnow isn’t owned yet you need to remedy this situation. Glasnow is now back to being a starter after going from the Pirates to the Rays. He’s made three starts so far each one inning more than the last. 12 innings pitched total with 20 K’s to only 3 walks and 6 hits allowed? His next start will be his biggest test against the Red Sox. Why haven't you hit CTRL-T yet?!
Points Leagues: Do. Or Do Not. There Is No Treinen.
August 15, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Points Leagues | 2 Commentsby: malamoney
