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Author: cinthree

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cinthree

FanDuel: Hess Trucked

June 12, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel | 2 Comments

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So Didi was activated and played on Friday, and FanDuel surprised the heck out of me by preemptively raising his price to $3,000. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that random price setting guy at FanDuel reads my articles. So thank you, random FanDuel Price Setting Guy for doing the dirty work and making Didi Gregorius $3,000 instead of $2,000, you truly are a Real American Hero (cue the music from those Bud Light ads about Real American Heros / Real Men of Genius). I got nothing else for an introduction today, but the next time I need FanDuel to do something, I shall make sure to include it in the article.

On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: The Shaw Man

June 5, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel | 2 Comments

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The Marlins shocked the world and put up a 16 spot vs the Brewers last night, but the Brewers should get their revenge tonight. Sandy Alcantara is going to be briefly on the mound for the Marlins. And the reason he’s going to be on the mound ‘briefly’ is because his overall numbers of 16.9% strikeouts, 12.9% walks and 46.8% groundballs are quite bad, and worse vs lefties. Alcantara turns the crappiest of left handed batters into studs. He strikes out 11.9% and walks 14.8%. He does get ground balls vs lefties with a 49.1% rate. Luckily the Brewers have a lefty who is good who you may have heard of. Travis Shaw historically has been a good hitter with a career .335 wOBA, and the last 2 years he’s had wOBAs of .361 and .351. This year, however, has been a completely different story. He’s “hit” for a .254 wOBA, and thus his price has dropped to $2,200. His statcast numbers are similar to previous years where he’s ranged from 88.3-88.6 exit velocity, and from 14.6-16.6 average launch angle. This year those numbers are 87.6 and 21.8. Given the sample size, we’re talking about minor differences, and he should continue to be the hitter he was the last 2 years. And at $2,200 he’s a fantastic play. Also, Didi Gregorious is $2,000 and will be returning to the field Friday. FanDuel almost definitely will not fix his price before then. I told you I would bring this up each week until he returns.

On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: Snell The Roses

May 29, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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Two weeks ago I mentioned that you’re going to have to familiarize yourself with all these call-ups because a lot of them are going to be mis-priced as punts/extreme values for the first few games. Let’s see here – D.J. Stewart, $2,300, Jack Mayfield, $2,200, Yaz’s grandson, $2,700 (I’m not going to look up how to spell the last name, even though the whole point of this intro is that a good DFS player should familiarize themselves with all these guys coming up, so okay, fine, Mike Yastrzemski, $2,700). If you’re not making sure to know each and every one of these guys, even someone like Garrett Stubbs (a $2,000 catcher that you’re probably never, ever playing on FanDuel),  then you’re just putting yourself at that much of a disadvantage. Last week I pointed out that Didi Gregorious is $2,000 and will be coming back sometime soon. FanDuel hasn’t fixed that yet and it will happen sooner rather than later. I will continue to include that factoid in every introductory paragraph for this article until he returns.

On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: Wrigley Wind

May 22, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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Veteran DFS players know that FanDuel is horrible about proactively pricing guys who haven’t played so far this year due to injury (as opposed to players who already played this year and then got hurt). This past year in NBA DFS, Kevin Love made his season debut on Feburary 4th, basically four months into the season, and was $3,500 (the bare minimum). He was on a minutes limit so the entire slate became a question of whether he was worth it given the minutes restriction. However, in baseball, when a hitter comes back, odds are (and there are exceptions of course) he’s going to play the entire game (or at least be the DH for the entire game, but DFS lineups don’t care about whether you’re actually in the field). Why bring this up? Because it’s going to come into play fairly soon. More on this after a word from our sponsor.

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: The Coming of Astros

May 15, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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As we move into Super 2 season, we are coming to the point of the season where there are going to be a lot more call ups and you’re going to see names that you may or may not recognize but you should know to succeed on FanDuel. Obviously you will know who Keston Hiura is, but there are a couple hundred players who might get called up due to injuries or just dominating performances. Do you know who Oscar Mercado is? Cleveland called him up after he hit .294/.396/.496 this year in AAA. Given how bad Cleveland’s offense is, he could easily be moved up to the 2-slot sooner rather than later, and I doubt his price will be particularly high. Do you know who Charlie Tilson is? He can’t hit, but he steals bases as good as anyone, and the White Sox called him up and threw him right into the leadoff spot on Monday (and he was $2,600). Do you know who Shed Long is? Yes, that’s his actual name.

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: Fiers & Ice

May 8, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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I’ll get to the FanDuel slate in a minute, but Ohio baseball teams had quite the day yesterday. They started the day in Cleveland, where Lucas Giolito, he of the 5.32 ERA, shut out Cleveland pretty easily through 7.1 innings. Though after years of being sub replacement level, Giolito actually is showing signs of being decent and increasing his strikeout rate from 16.1% to 28.9% in only 23 innings. Then, later in the day, Cincinnati forced Mike Fiers (6.81 ERA and 5.33 xFIP) to throw 131 pitches in 9 innings while getting no hits and managing only two walks. This isn’t new, both teams have been playing like horse poop all year. Cleveland has now tied with the Marlins for most futile offense in the Majors with a 67 wRC+, and the Reds are 25th with a 78 wRC+. Both of these teams were expected to actually have decent offenses and just aren’t any good so far. Anyway, I have nothing to say here, just that yesterday, these 2 Ohio teams were awful and have been awful all year.

On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: 4 Aces

May 1, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel | 3 Comments

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It’s a 4 ace slate today on FanDuel and we have to figure out which one we want to play in cash. Let’s see how the numbers compare:

Aaron Nola – 26.3% K, 7.2% BB 3.34 xFIP

Max Scherzer – 34.5% K, 5.5% BB, 2.96 xFIP

Corey Kluber – 25.6% K, 5% BB, 3.4 xFIP

Jacob deGrom – 32.9% K, 5.9% BB, 2.68 xFIP

Obviously Scherzer and deGrom are the best pitchers of the group, but how do their matchups compare?

Tigers (vs Nola) – 26.6% K, 8.6% BB, .138 ISO

Cardinals (vs Scherzer) – 21.3% K, 9.2% BB, .191 ISO

Marlins (vs Kluber) – 27.5% K, 7.1% BB, .110 ISO

Reds (vs deGrom) – 23.9% K, 8.2% BB, .164 ISO

The best pitcher of the group gets the worst matchup, and the worst pitcher gets the best matchup (for the purposes of this exercise, because this is DFS and we care about strikeouts). Power is way up this year, and Scherzer has a propensity to give up bombs. He also has the worst matchup, and costs the most, so he’s not my cash game pitcher. Jacob deGrom is the next best pitcher, but the Reds have some pop and they don’t strike out as much as the Marlins or Tigers. Especially this year, we want to target teams that have trouble hitting the ball out, and the two teams that really struggle with hitting for any kind of power are the Tigers and Marlins. The Tigers lose the DH from a team that already strikes out a lot and don’t hit for power, and the Marlins are the worst offensive team in the league and will swing at any pitch remotely near the plate. I would play the matchup and go with Kluber, since the Marlins are really bad. But, if you need the money to get to the studs you want to get to, I don’t have a problem with playing Nola at the $1,000 discount.

On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: The JV Slate

April 24, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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I don’t actually have much to say today before getting to the picks, in large part because this FanDuel slate doesn’t really seem that attractive. I won’t ever tell my loyal readers not to play on a certain day, but today’s slate is definitely one of the more unappealing ones I’ve seen in a while. There’s a blatant chalk pitcher and there aren’t that many offenses in particularly juicy spots. There’s also not that many value guys. It’s not so much a “bad” slate, it’s just a boring and unattractive slate. But I know people will want to play, so like any good professional, I will do my job and break it down for you guys. Also, don’t leave Damian Lillard open from 37 feet with your season on the line.

On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: The Gallos Pole

April 17, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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Loyal readers of mine know that from time to time, I will offer DFS advice that is not specifically tied to a pick or a player or even just that day’s slate on FanDuel. This is because while I am sure the vast majority of you reading this are well aware of the particulars of any game theory concept relevant to DFS contests that I could write upon, there are some out there who don’t know about the concept, or could use a reminder about its usage. Usually I try to tie the tactic to that slate, but sometimes there’s nothing and I just write. But, today, there is one! More after a quick word from our sponsor:

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: The Long View

April 10, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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If you are reading this article, it’s a safe bet you follow Major League Baseball, and it’s also a safe bet you know about the plight of Chris Davis. So I don’t need to get into the details of how historically bad he’s been. What I do need to get into is something that anyone playing today’s slate must be aware of. Chris Davis is priced at $500. That’s right, $1500 below the standard minimum price. This has happened before, either by accident (Kike Hernandez was $220 one day a few years back) or due to FanDuel running a silly promotion (on Alex Rodriguez’s final game, they made him $660). This is the first time FanDuel has priced a player at this low a price simply as a strategic/gameplay decision. So, what do we do? Well, first, there’s the chance he is not in the lineup. If that’s the case, he’s not a play even though accepting a 0 for $500 can allow you to get an extra high end bat or two. The lack of a truly expensive pitcher, the lack of Coors Field bats (since they’re on the early slate, and that’s if they even play since Denver is apparently going to be completely destroyed by a bomb cyclone snowstorm this morning) means that you simply won’t need to take the automatic 0 if he’s not in the lineup. But what if he is in the lineup? Absent an unusual amount of quality value that isn’t tied to the underpricing of a player currently failing at an historically bad rate, I think he’s a lock. Simply put, he’s a snap play regardless of whether you think he is truly this bad (not -76 wRC+ bad, but pitcher level bad), or whether you believe it’s simply impossible for him to be this bad and he will likely recover to below replacement level, but better than a pitcher. Let’s start with the easier case after a quick word from our sponsor.

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: Stripling the Slate

April 3, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

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Welcome to day seven of the 2019 DFS Baseball Season! First, to my returning readers – the most loyal readers for the greatest weekly column in existence – I hope your off-season was quite relaxing (and profitable if you played the other sports in DFS, of which I contributed an NFL column to the site to keep me busy during the long winter months). Second – to any new readers – this  article is for Daily Fantasy Sports only – so for season-long questions, head back to the main page and check out all the season-long tools that Razzball has to offer. The purpose of this article is to help you Daily Fantasy players out there build your lineups. One key point I must stress – the analysis and advice in this column will primarily be for FanDuel Main Slate cash games. This is a critical fact – many touts just spew their “top plays” without regards to the site or to the type of contest – which is as foolish as trading the best WR in the league because he dances in the end-zone and has funny-colored hair, for two draft picks and a run-stuffing safety who struggles in pass cov…wait, this is an MLB column, back to that. It’s important to know that the majority of this article will be focusing on FanDuel cash plays. This leads me to something I want to really stress for 2019 – user feedback. I want to hear from you guys (you can hit me up on twitter). Disagree with me on a player? Let me know! Have a follow-up question? Let me hear it! I’m not perfect, sometimes I will miss a detail or overlook a fact. Ideally, we can get good conversations going in the comments section of each article and provide even more assistance in building lineups that crush the souls of our competition and rake in all the monies. One last thing – if you’re reading this article, you’re looking for an edge in your DFS contests. The single biggest piece of advice I can give is to sign up for DFSbot here at Razzball and to incorporate the projections into your daily analysis. Yes, I fully admit that my endorsement feels like a shameless plug, but frankly, I don’t care, because Rudy’s projections are the best in the business. If you’re looking for sustained DFS success, it’s a massive mistake to not sign up for the DFS tools here at Razzball.On to the picks… New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
cinthree

FanDuel: Another Year Done the Full Go Round

September 27, 2018 | DFS, Fanduel |

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This is it! The last baseball article (for me) of the year, which means the end of the baseball regular season is near. I want to thank you, loyal readers for taking time out of your day to read this article every week and hopefully helping you win some contests. There are going to be a lot of players who wind up sitting and there’s going to be a lot of value opening up throughout the day so you must pay attention to all the released lineups. Additionally, many teams, both those with nothing to play for, and those who playoff-bound but are entirely set in terms of playoff positioning, will look to pull their players (both pitchers and position players) at the earliest opportunity. In short, there will be a lot of randomness and it won’t be easy to predict. To be quite honest, you shouldn’t be playing cash games on this slate with all the randomness. But, as I’ve stressed throughout the year, I’m a professional at cash game picks columns. If some of those ridiculous three or four game slates earlier in the year on Thursdays didn’t stop me, then the randomness of one of the final days of the season can’t stop me either. One general piece of advice I can give is to focus on the teams that still have something to play for – and while there are still a bunch of teams that have something to play for, most of them are either not playing today or playing in the early slate. There is exactly one team on the main slate that has something to play for – the Chicago Cubs. And while Trevor Williams is not the juiciest of matchups, the fact that the Cubs have something to play and no other team has anything to play for means I would target them first and foremost in cash games. Period. Then fill out with the values that will open up because teams are playing some of their rookies and call-ups at this point. Or just don’t play cash. On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond?  Well be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.  Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
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