The Guru

Author: The Guru

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The Guru

DraftKings – Let’s Go Streaking!

June 25, 2014 | DraftKings | 20 Comments

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It’s been an interesting seven days for your humble-but-nonetheless-handsome Guru as I doubled my bankroll last week where everything I touched turned to gold. Or is it green? Then, suddenly, I went head first into a weekend cold streak that had me considering retiring the turban, questioning whether it was all really worth it and sticking my head in the oven. Then I remembered I have an electric stove, singed my eyebrows off and simply blamed Canada. When in doubt just blame Canada and *poof* cold streak over! I’m back to the winning ways after taking down four of five contests including a first place finish in the Razzball tourney that made a nice bit of coin – no, not Bit Coin, I don’t even know what the hell that is. Whatevs, either way we are building that bankroll and moving one step closer to at winter of umbrella drinks in sunny Cancun. Unless of course I lose it all and find myself forced to spend a winter in Ochiichagwebabigoining, Ontario.

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Have you been partaking in the DraftKings fun? Why not, don’t like money?! Get out of here, hippie! Your friendly Razzaholics even provide you with some of the best tools in the biz: Stream-o-Nator, Hitter-Tron and the mighty DFSbot.

While we are talking hot and cold streaks, let your Guru pull on your coat about player hot and cold streaks. Is there such a thing? There is as much debate about that in our fake baseball world as there is about the value of batter vs. pitcher stats and the sexual orientation of one Tehol Beddict. I’m not convinced hot and cold streaks exist for ball players or us fake ball players. I haven’t seen evidence to prove the hot streak is something you can bank on or if Tehol’s nether regions are not as smooth as a Ken doll. However, I will say this about hot/cold streaks: 1) They certainly feel real when you’re going through one. 2) They always end.

With all the said, let’s get to the plays of the day. I’ll offer up some players currently streaking that may or may not help you start a heater of your own.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

Jam It or Cram It: Get On Your Bad Motor Scooter and Jam

June 22, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 98 Comments

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There have been some Hall of Fame names over the course of baseball’s colorful 2000 year history. C’mon, Guru, baseball’s not that old! Whaddya mean disembodied voice of Razzball Nation that sounds slightly like my ex-girlfriend Brenda? Why do you think the Roman’s called Caligula “Little Boots?” The dude couldn’t field, booted everything. Then he married his sister Helen Mirren. Thanks, Wikipedia (and Bob Guccione). We’re not talking names like the Babe or Dizzy here, I’m talking Pickles Dillhoefer, Johnny “Ugly” Dickshot and Heinie Groh. And whatever happened to Hall of Namer Rusty Kuntz – and where can I get his throwback? One player making a name for himself these days (and making us some DraftKings cash) is Scooter Gennett. The Brewers second baseman has been rolling lately hitting .376 over the last 30 days and has more runs scored than every other second baseman not named Anthony Rendon. Sure the Scooter is no Wonderful Terrific Monds III, but he deserves a spot in the Hall of Names and more importantly a spot in this weeks edition of Jam It or Cram It.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

DraftKings – Braun-Y-Aur Stomp

June 18, 2014 | DraftKings, Fantasy Baseball Overrated | 47 Comments

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I don’t mean to just go on and on about my fake teams or how well I’ve been doing lately, but damn, your humble-but-nonetheless-handsome Guru is on fire. The turban is smokin’! Last night I nearly doubled my bankroll and won a little side wager in which our resident Razzball Radio host must wear a T-shirt of my choice on Thursday’s show. That’s almost as satisfying as cash. Almost. With a few more Benjamin’s we’ll be one step closer to a winter of fun in the sun with enough left over for bail and a possible liver transplant. Thanks, Obamacare!

Have you been partaking in the DraftKings fun? Why not, don’t like money?! Get out of here, hippie! Your friendly Razzaholics even provide you with some of the best tools in the biz: Stream-o-Nator, Hitter-Tron and the mighty DFSbot. Use them and buy us a round later, you know, after the liver has healed up.

DraftKings has eight games on the early slate, seven games on the evening schedule and three late games tonight. There are some high over/unders for KC/DET, MIN/BOS and MIL/ARI that we’ll be targeting today.

Let’s get to it and you could be joining me for sunshine, umbrella drinks and thong watching come December. Here be some of the Guru’s picks for Wednesday, June 18th contests on DraftKings for 2014 Fantasy Baseball.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

Jam It or Cram It: Father Knows SAGNOF!

June 15, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 95 Comments

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Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Go do some dad stuff today. Put on some plaid pants, play some golf, watch some baseball, fire up the grill, drink some Schlitz, and tell them kids to get off your lawn. When it comes to Papa Guru *cue “Cat’s in the Cradle”* I got my love for baseball, gambling and fine scotch from the man we kids called “Run, dad’s home!” When it comes to this fake baseball game we spend way too much time on while ignoring our own kids it all started for me when Papa Guru introduced me to Strat-O-Matic back in the 80’s. I was forever hooked on baseball stats. It was a fun game for father/son bonding until the old man got sent to the hoosgow for safecracking – not the best profession for a man that suffered hearing damage in ‘Nam. No, he wasn’t hurt in the war, he just got a little too close to Ning Pam during her flaming ping pong ball trick. Think The Deer Hunter crossed with Porn Hub. Since I basically played Russian roulette with closers on all my RCL teams this year I’ve been getting my face blown off by the likes of Grant Balfour and Jim Johnson all season long. I’m not hurting so much with steals, but could use a multi-positional bench SAGNOFer to maximize at-bats and grab some cheap stats. Let’s fire up the Jammer Crammer© machine and see if there’s anything left for us SAGNOF! starved Razzaholics to salvage. Since it is Father’s Day, I’ll let Papa Guru give his opinion on each player – he’s going to do it whether we let him or not. It’s time for an encore edition of the SAGNOF! Jam it or Cram it.

If you’re looking for some bonus jams and crams, check out Razzball Radio where Nick and your well turbaned Guru talk jams of the week and I share why I hate the World Cup.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

DraftKings – Miggy, Tulo and Trout, Yu Look Mahvelous!

June 11, 2014 | DraftKings | 10 Comments

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Happy Hump Day, my Razzballin’ degenerates. I just did that in my best commercial camel voice and GEICO owes me 27 cents. It’s back to the grind and by grind I mean making green on DraftKings. Unfortunately, for your humble-but-nonetheless-handsome Guru, I’ve hit a bit of a cold streak. I believe it was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus that said, “Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away, Know when to run.” However, I’m not foldin’ and I’m not running. Tonight I sacrifice my Steve Balboni bobblehead to the fantasy gods in hopes the cold streak runs hot. I’m almost at my goal of a winter of fun in the sun, umbrella drinks, thong watching and a likely call to the Cancun bail bondsman.

We have 13 games on the evening slate tonight at DraftKings with a few aces on the mound and teams to stack in Colorado, Baltimore and Detroit (stay away rain and random drive-by shootings). I’ll be digging deep into the research and convening with my good friends DFSBot, Stream-O-Nator, HitterTron and Islay scotch to find the best matchups to grow the bankroll. If you haven’t given Draftkings a shot yet, today’s the day you get in the game. Just hit the Razzball promo link to get a first time deposit match and come play with the Razzball gang in a 50/50 contest.

Here are some of my top picks and value plays for Wednesday, June 11.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

Jam It or Cram It: WillingJam or WillingCram?

June 8, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 125 Comments

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With a quarter season of jamming and cramming behind us, it may be time to start taking some serious inventory. No, not a fearless moral inventory, that’s 12-step talk and I ain’t no quitter – just ask my liver. I’m talking about taking an honest look at where your team is good and where it absolutely sucks donkey dongs*. We have enough data behind us now that we know Matt Kemp is actually Milton Bradley in disguise, Billy Butler needs a mansiere (It’s called The Bro!), Jedd Gyorko is more myth than man (and mercifully on the DL), Troy Tulowitzki is really good at baseball, and Nelson Cruz can hit a ball a long way with or without his juice. Now I’m not saying to go and blow up your team and drop Dustin Pedroia  because he has just two more homers than the late Johnny Pesky this year. What your humble-but-nonetheless-handsome Guru is pulling on your coat about here is that it’s time to drop the dead weight wasting away on your bench for some fresh meat that could save your fantasy season. I’ve played this fake game long enough to know that we have about two weeks to go until disgruntled owners completely abandon their teams for fantasy Cricket which cuts down on our trade options, but increases our chances of moving up the leader board. It was around this time last year that I bailed on Josh Rutledge and Jason Heyward for Jean Segura and Dominic Brown. I eventually traded them off for Ian Desmond and Hunter Pence. That worked, and all the cash and glory (and glory holes) were mine. Let’s scour the waiver wire for players owned 50% or less in most leagues and see if we can discover some riches for our bankrupt roster. It’s time to jam it or cram it.

*Donkey dongs is a technical sabermetric term taught at Mathew Berry’s Fantasy Baseball College for the Criminally Insane.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

DraftKings – Josh Dongaldson Is The Bringer Of Rain

June 4, 2014 | DraftKings | 44 Comments

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As I look over my rosters for the year on DraftKings, the team I’ve won the most cash with is the Oakland A’s. The combination of Brandon Moss (who had two homers last night), John Jaso, Derek Norris, Yoenis Cespedes and even Josh Reddick have made bank for me all season. However, the player I’ve targeted most often is Josh Donaldson – especially against left-handers. Dongaldson has 15 jacks on the year and six of those have come off lefties in just 24 games. Guess who King Dong is facing today? The southpaw of suckitude known as Vidal Nuno. Stack them A’s and make sure the Bringer of Rain (as he calls himself on Twitter) is on your team – he’s your Guru’s dong of the day. *note to self: Buy Dong of the Day domain name, sell it to Brazzers, make millions, spend it all on DraftKings and expensive scotch, get liver transplant*

If you’re a DraftKing shark feel free to skip this section and get right to the lineup. If you’re a newbie to DFS play, here are your humble-but-nonetheless-handsome Guru’s top 5 tips for building your bankroll. 1) Don’t wing it. Only play if you have time to do the research. Your friends here at Razzball make that pretty easy with the DFSBot and the Razzball Hotsheet. And, if you follow me on the tweet machine, I do tweet out roster 411’s and weather updates – give me a follow. 2) Don’t blow all your bankroll in a day. Ha! I know it looks enticing to stick your “optimal lineup” into 45 contests hoping to win billions. However, as a rule, most sharks will tell you never wager more than 10% of your bankroll. 3) If you’re really new to the game, experiment with lineups and enter them into all the free contests that the fine folks at DraftKings has to offer. You won’t win cash, but bragging rights and experience go a long way towards future riches. 4) Ok, here’s one I learned the hard way: Trust your instincts. Sure, it’s not very scientific, but gut instincts are usually based in some sort of knowledge (if you’ve done your research). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bailed on a guy at the last minute just to have him go off. I did it last night when I faded Brandon Moss for Justin Morneau when the rain in NYC scared me off. Moss hit two homers. 5) Don’t get stressed by a cold streak – Sky, get your head out of the oven! We all go through cold streaks. If you hit one, play cheaper games or free rolls and remember DFS is for “entertainment” purposes only. Ha!

With all the said, let’s get to the plays of the day. I’ll offer up some big names and some values plays. Let’s make it rain.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

Jam It or Cram It: My Jammer Has a First Name, It’s O-S-C-A-R

June 1, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 159 Comments

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Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland, “The rule is: jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today.”  Carroll also was blasted out of his mad hatter on opium and really liked little kids (in a weird Michael Jackson-Jesus juice kind of way). However, your humble-but-nonetheless-poppy-fueled Guru says jam yesterday, cram tomorrow and jam it twice today. Now pass the hookah and pardon me while I pull on your bloomers about something here, Alice (and it completely applies to the jamming and the cramming we’re about to do): This Super Two nonsense is damn annoying. Not to just us fantasy ballers, but to anyone that’s a fan of young talent wasting away in the likes of Iowa and Indianapolis. Bring up Javier Baez and Gregory Polanco now! Don’t give me the ol’, “He needs more seasoning” B.S.. How much seasoning does Polanco need? He’s hitting .350, with six homers, 45 RBI and 11 steals in 50 games. I think this meat is tender enough, get him on the grill now. Of course teams put money above winning (and our fake teams), that’s why four watered down Sam Adams’ cost me a kidney at Fenway last week. What exactly is Super Two? As simple as I can put it is: once a player gets promoted, they start to accrue MLB service time. A player needs three years of MLB service time to qualify for salary arbitration. However, the top 22% of players promoted first in the season that have more than two years of service time, but less than three years, qualify for salary arbitration under the “Super Two” status. Get all that? Becoming arbitration eligible obviously means a significant bump in the bucks. So, it’s a big money grab by a bunch of Spaulding Smails that fart in the general direction of fans and our fantasy teams. And, while the Pirates playoff chances slip away, you pay $75 to park at PNC, and my Polanco has to have dinner at the Indy Applebee’s. Now that we’ve hit June, this Super Two stuff is about to end and there will be a bunch of prospects making their way to the party. At least the Twins called up Oswaldo Arcia and the St. Louis Cardinals came to their senses by bringing up  Oscar Tavares on Saturday. If the waiver wire in your league is full of Super Two’s, grab them now and screw the Queen of Hearts. With my Sunday rant out of the way, let’s head down this rabbit hole – it’s time to jam it or cram it.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

DraftKings – Woke Up With wOBA

May 28, 2014 | DraftKings | 18 Comments

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If you’re a regular listener to the Razzball Hot Sheet and Razzball Radio then you know I wear a handsome turban and we Razzicians love our wOBA. “Guru, what the hell is wOBA?” That’s a great question disembodied voice of Razzball Nation that sounds slightly like my ex-girlfriend. Brenda, stop stalking me! When it comes to my daily routine for DraftKings there are a few things I do: 1) Drink a Bloody Mary. 2) Check the daily salaries, cross out the overvalued guys. 3) Check the weather and the Vegas lines. 4) Look at batter vs. pitcher stats then ignore them. 5) Dive into the wOBA and drink another Bloody. Basically, wOBA (weighted on-base average) is a way to measure a hitter’s overall offensive performance. wOBA is calculated by giving a value to each type of offensive stat including walks, singles, doubles, etc. with the player’s totals for each being combined and then divided by their total plate appearances to arrive at their weighted on-base average. That explains why I have this tattooed on my chest all Memento-style: (0.72 x NIBB) + (0.75 x HBP) + (0.90 x 1B) + (0.92 x RBOE) + (1.24 x 2B) + (1.56 x 3B) + (1.95 x HR) / PA. Math is fun! Thanks, handy abacus. If you’re curious to learn more check out The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball by Tom Tango and some other aliens that have a love for baseball stats and anal probing.

We have 12 games on the night slate with a couple aces on the mound in Clayton Kershaw and Felix Hernandez along with some pricey big bats that’ll make putting together a solid team a challenge. Fortunately, we have the Hitter-Tron, the Stream-o-Nator and the DFSbot to help us out. Is that cheating? Hell, no! We’re Razzaholics. Let’s get to it, here’s your dirty turbaned Guru’s all-wOBA team for Wednesday 5/28. Of course all these players won’t fit on one team, but there’s a good chance you can get more than a few of them in tonight.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Guru

Jam It or Cram It: Memorial Day CookOUCH in the Razzball Lounge

May 25, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 119 Comments

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It’s that time of year again when your humble-but-nonetheless-handsome Guru digs out his star-spangled turban, the seersucker suit, and attempts to pull the ol’ “hotdog” trick on the unsuspecting ladies at the annual Razzball cookout. Johnny Manziel’s got nothin’ on me! Welcome once again to the Razzball Lounge where your favorite fake baseball scribes gather to crunch the numbers, drink the grog, and avoid the Tehol – hey, the kid gets all handsy after a few! We raise our glasses this Memorial Day weekend to all those that served and we pour out a little to all those boys of summer that never made it home. Let’s lower the Razzball flag to half-mast in horror honor of the latest fantasy casualties: Prince Fielder broke his cervix (who knew?), Ryan Braun strained his oblique (‘roids help with healin’, cust kayin’), Nolan Arenado broke a finger sliding (here’s a finger for you Nolan) and Mike Moustakas burned the roof of his mouth on the Hot Pocket Mama Mous made for him. Fielder looks done for the year, Braun was done the minute his medicine cabinet contained nothing but baby aspirin and Ben-Gay, Arenado is down a digit and good ol’ Moosetacos will be spending the summer in Omaha – oh, no, he just fell into the thresher. RIP Moosetacos. Yes, we’re grieving our fake baseball teams in the lounge this long weekend. At the bar we find Sky crying in his Islay, “I’m an organ donor and Arenado can have one of my fingers.”  Sky, NO!!!! *raises machete, cuts off pinky* Over at the jukebox is our resident jukebox hero Jay(Wrong) playing “Candle in the Wind” for the 23rd time.  “This one’s for you my sweet Prince.”  *bottle smashes above head* Sauntering out of the ladies room, zipping up his fly, arm around his latest conquest, is international man of mystery Tehol Beddict, “Why the long faces, gang? I’ve been in last place since April.”  *gets punched in the face by J-Foh, breaks nose* Here at the pool table is your humble-but-nonetheless-dejected Guru. *closes eye, takes aim, fires cue ball through window*  “All is lost, I’m going to start playing fantasy cricket.”  And, with the Razzball crew at an all-time low, who should suddenly grace us all with his presence? The one and only Grey Albright, looking all Gatsby as he exits his convertible amidst a plume of sweet smelling vapor, a coug on each arm, mustache glistening in the summer sun. “Gentleman, don’t lose faith, it’s a long season, and even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we win! Even if we play so far above our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in Heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn’t matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Yahoo because they’ve got all the money! It just doesn’t matter if we win or we lose. IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER! Now, Guru, fire up your jammer crammer machine and someone get me a goddamn umbrella drink!”

Please, blog, may I have some more?