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Zach

Author: Zach

"There is a lot a man can do with his time, and this is just better than those things." You can follow me on Twitter @zachrob2k

Read some of Zach's 11 posts

Zach

DraftKings: Picks for 07/16 While You Pick On Kuhl

July 17, 2016 | DraftKings |

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Sunday!

We have a very healthy 10-game main slate on our hands today, with four pitchers being priced above $10k, and those being Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Michael Fulmer, and Jon Gray, but for tournaments, I like none of them. You’ll have to keep reading!

Instead, I wanted to talk about the Washington Nationals bats today against the extreme gas can that is Chad Kuhl, who owns a 5.67 SIERA, a 12.9% K-rate, a 7.9% SwK-rate, and a 31% GB-rate. But usually, I dive a little deeper in my articles, and see who has the better matchups, lefties or righties, and how they do against RHP’s. But here’s the catch, everyone is in play, and by everyone, I mean, everyone. I can’t list out the entire Nationals starting lineup, but look at the lefty-righty splits Kuhl has-

vs. L vs. R
xFIP: 6.45 xFIP: 5.64
K%: 10.8% K%: 16.0%
BB%: 8.1% BB%: 8.0%
wOBA: .407 wOBA: .376
Hard%: 40.0% Hard%: 42.1%

Yes, it seems like lefties have the advantage, but if this pitcher was good against lefty bats, then we would be firing up the righties with confidence. So if there are any Nationals bats you would want to roster, you won’t hear me complaining.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday July 18th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

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Zach

DraftKings: The Return

July 10, 2016 | DraftKings | 2 Comments

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Hey everyone and welcome to Sunday!

Remember me? It’s Zach! Your good ol’… Zach. Anyways, I have been gone since the 20th, and I got back last Sunday, on a really awesome trip to Alaska. But alas(ka), I have not written in quite a while and it is good to be back! Huge, huge thanks to the main men Teddy Heater and Gern for not missing a beat and providing some great coverage of the Sunday’s that I missed. Tip of the cap to you fellas. So where are we for today?

We have 3 pitchers taking the mound for us today that are $10k+ on DraftKings: Carlos Carrasco, John Lackey, and David Price, with Carrasco being the most expensive at $11.6k. And he’s who we’ll start of this lovely Sunday with.

New to DraftKings? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday July 11th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! Wanna know what the best part is about signing up with us? The free subscription for the rest of the season to our DFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.

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Zach

DraftKings: HR/FB + Hard% = Dingers

June 19, 2016 | DraftKings |

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Hey everyone, welcome to Sunday, and happy Father’s Day!

We’ve got another great 11-game slate that features a ton of offense, with many pitchers to attack on the slate. One of the biggest reasons why there are plenty of offenses to chose from is because there are many examples of the opposing SP having a high HR/FB-rate, and a high Hard%. Both of these two stats can accurately predict if a pitcher will give up some home runs. HR/FB-rate is exactly what it sounds like, a HR to fly ball ratio, giving an accurate representation how how well a batter’s ability is to create fly balls, and in turn, convert those to dingers. If a SP has a high HR/FB-rate, they have some serious blowup potential, as most of their fly balls given up results in homers.

Same thing applies with a pitcher who has a high Hard%. This means that most of the balls put in play off of the pitcher are classified as being hit with a hard speed. In more simpler terms, you can’t have extra-base hits if you hit a soft lob into the outfield.

We have many different pitchers who have high HR/FB-rates and high Hard%’s, which increases their likelihood of giving up some runs, which we would all like to have.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday June 20th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

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Zach

DraftKings: Gas Cans Galore

June 12, 2016 | DraftKings | 2 Comments

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Sunday!

After a week off in which I studied game film of the 2003 Grey Cup QF’s (single greatest game in Canadian Football history), I am back and what a day to return to! There are many fantastic games on tap for today, and many high scoring ones at that as well, as we see some with very high O/U’s on the docket, with six games over 9 total runs scored. So why is this? Superb offenses? Maybe, but I have to say, I’m not excited about pitching options for the day, as there are many weak guys taking the mound today, and are likely to give up a whole bunch of runs. Gas cans.

There are plenty of opportunities to take advantage of. Kendall Graveman and John Lamb are two very mediocre pitchers facing off in what is shaping up to be a shootout. Adam Morgan is facing a Nats’ team that is primed to hang up a lot of runs. And for those of you playing the all-day slate, the Rockies-Padres games has a O/U at a whopping 12 total runs scored.

With many great offensive opportunities and gas cans to target, how do we attack pitching on a slate like this?

You’ll have to keep reading.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday June 13th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Zach

DraftKings: Charged with a Serious Offense

May 29, 2016 | DraftKings | 2 Comments

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Sunday!

Well, for the first time this year that I’ve covered Sundays, today we have a (somewhat) small 9-game Main Slate on our hands, but with the lack on 12+ games comes with so many options to select and draft our teams from. Maybe even too much offense today. There are so many bad pitchers, and so many great plays, it really sucked that I had to choose which made the cut into this article, especially because there are multiple good plays, yet they’re at similar price points, so I had to choose the better play, unless there was a difference in format to play them, like a distinct GPP play to a distinct cash-game play. Specifically, I found a lot of great offense from the Red Sox, Orioles, Yankees, and Brewers, all who are in circumstances where Vegas has them in great high-scoring games, most notably coming from the Orioles-Indians game, where Vegas has them currently sitting at a 9 O/U. I’m excited to get into it today, and with some great offense coming all throughout yesterday, let’s see if he can get some of that success today. Let’s go!

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday May 30th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Zach

DraftKings: Picks for 5/22

May 22, 2016 | DraftKings | 3 Comments

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Sunday!

Just like always, we’ve got a very hearty 11-game slate on our hands today, with a number of stud SP’s set to take the mound, 5 of which are priced above $10k, which begs the question of which high-priced stud we want.

There’s a couple of issues that I have with each “ace” that we have on our hands today with the exception being Noah Syndergaard.

Max Scherzer: We’ve seen the 20-strikeout performance, and we know the upside that he brings to the table with his high K%, but he brings serious blowout potential with his 21.30% HR/FB rate, his low GB-rate, and the fact that he doesn’t do well against lefties is cause for concern.

Jordan Zimmermann: His 2.45 ERA makes it seem that he is playing at a good level, but that is not true. He lacks the ability to strike guys out with his stuff, with a 16.40 K% and a 7.40 SwK%, and I prefer the likes of Danny Salazar for less.

Cole Hamels: Yes, Houston strikes out a bunch, causing for opposing pitchers to get a price bumb, yet I don’t think anyone should pay up for Hamels when you can get other, better pitchers for less. Hamels has serious blowup potential with a daunting 25.0% HR/FB rate, and while he has been solid this year, he isn’t doing that well for me to want to use him, yet we can’t really pick on him that much with our bats.

With that being said, I don’t think there are any cheap/value options on the slate that we should use, as most of the lower-priced guys are the ones we want to pick on. Especially Alfredo Simon and Phil Hughes.

You ready? Let’s break it down.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday May 23rd to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

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Zach

DraftKings: Daily Picks for 5/15

May 15, 2016 | DraftKings | 4 Comments

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Hello everyone and welcome to Sunday!

I’ll be frank with you guys, this slate does not instill confidence in me. There are some very good options on offense, but not too many like I have seen in the past and at the same time, there aren’t many good pitching options at all, so much so that spending up for two SP’s seems like a must on this 11-game main slate of games.

There’s not many value options here, as the only one I could even remotely endorse is Cesar Ramos at $4,600 against Toronto, however he’s facing Toronto, so that probably isn’t a very good idea.

But, as I listen to “Regulate” off of Warren G’s 1994 “Warren G Regulate…G Funk Era” album, I am very determined and confident that I can help you guys find some good pitchers, good pitchers to pick on, and some great bats. You ready?

Let’s get to it.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday May 16th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Zach

DraftKings: Sample Sizing

May 8, 2016 | DraftKings | 5 Comments

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Sunday!

Like always, we have a great slew of games on our hands to discuss today, as there are 11 games on the main slate today, and if you want to sweat it out the entire day, there is also a set of 15 games in the all-day slate. These games we see today aren’t ace-filled like the previous ones have been, yet we are coming up on a new challenge to face this Sunday. The sample size.

Baseball is very stats-driven, but they biggest key of effectively using these stats is to interpret them: Which ones are noise, which ones are the most beneficial to us, and when to start looking at these beneficial statistics.

At this point in the season, for Starting Pitchers, most of our options have pitched through 5-6 starts, except for those who have been hurt, promoted from AA/AAA ball, etc. I personally believe that 5-6 starts is enough to see how these SP’s have been doing against a whole bunch of teams, and how they look in 2016. Yes, we haven’t seen double-digit starts yet, but we can get an idea of how they’ll continue to do throughout the season. But what about our bats? This is tricky.

For the studs who have played every on most days, we are looking at anywhere between 100-125 total plate appearances. For the normal guys, we have seen anywhere between 80-100 appearances, and for the low-tiered guys, we have seen mostly between 50-80 appearances. Is this enough? Sometimes, as we can start to get an idea about how these certain players will do, however we have to keep in mind of how baseball is such a high-variance sport, and 100 plate appearances may not do it enough.

For me especially, I will make sure that if the appearances are solid (because one guy could have a 30 K% in 2016, but only have 10 PA’s) and consistent, and continuing my theme of breaking down the pitchers we want to use, who we want to attack against, and the bats to do so.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 10 teamer of Razzball writers and friends to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Zach

DraftKings: Which Ace Do You Want?

May 1, 2016 | DraftKings | 3 Comments

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Hello everyone, Happy May and welcome to Sunday! We have another large slate, with 15 games on the All-Day docket, and 10 games on the Main Slate.

We have a interesting case on our hands today, as there are many games Vegas lists at 6.5 O/U. Why is this? Well, that’s because we have a slate full of many high-priced aces, as Madison Bumgarner, Noah Syndergaard, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, Danny Salazar, Clayton Kershaw, and David Price, all above the $10,000 salary range, are all scheduled to start today, which begs the question, which Ace do you want? I don’t need to get into a ton of statistics and heavy in-depth research, because arguments can be made to start each guy on any specific night, and you already know why these guys are so dominant. However, we can still get to some digging and eliminate pitchers that we don’t want, digging some more, eliminating more guys, so on, and so forth.

First up, what about the higher-priced guys? Yes, all are expensive, yet are you comfortable with selecting Clayton Kershaw (#1 cash option without thinking), at a crisp $12,300? If the answer is yes, you should also be fairly confident that he should pick up the win against the San Diego Padres, not to mention his elite strikeout upside and low walk rate, but you already knew that. What about Madison Bumgarner? Well, his biggest strength is his low-walk rate (4.5% in 2015) and his 3.00 SIERA in 2015 as well, but he is facing the Mets, which is not only tough, but he has to manage a win behind an offense facing Noah Syndergaard, and the same thing for him, as Thor has to muster a win against Mad-Bum. No thanks. I feel it is much more efficient to find cheaper options to solidify those stud bats we can roster, instead of having to pay for these top studs who are very likely to record multi-strikeout performances, yet equally have the potential to not collect the win, and to record a poor outing.

So who’s up next? There’Let’s get to it.

New to DraftKings? Just remember to sign up through us and hop on in! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Zach

DraftKings: Picks For April 24th, 2016

April 24, 2016 | Uncategorized | 8 Comments

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Sunday! I am happy to be back after a weekend off, and for this week and next, I will be writing on Sunday, instead of the usual Saturday slot, until the week after next, when everything will be back to normal. Hopefully you guys had a great two weeks, as we saw some great pitching from Jake Arrieta, Vincent Velasquez, and Tanner Roark on Saturday.

I don’t have that much of a funky intro for today (my apologies, but the rest of my family are good people!), but I’m still keeping the same theme from “last” week, which was to scout and analyze all Starting Pitchers, finding the ones we like, and the one’s we like to pick on, or target batters against.

Some of these plays will be no-brainers, such as this week, when a lot of the field was on Jake Arrieta, and for good reason, as he pitched a No-Hitter. However, as we saw on Saturday, not much of the field was on Tanner Roark, and he managed to have 10 K’s through 4 innings against the weak Minnesota Twins.

Again, the hindsight is 20/20, however through enough research on my part, I can try to find the diamond in the rough for you Razzball readers.

Let’s get to Sunday!

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 10 teamer of Razzball writers and friends to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Zach

DraftKings: Weather?!?! I Hardly Know Her!!!

April 9, 2016 | DraftKings | 21 Comments

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Hello everyone, and welcome to the weekend! You made it! After a week of working where it seemed as if the clock was moving in hours instead of minutes, sit back, relax, and let’s enjoy America’s Pastime.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am Razzball’s Daily Fantasy Football guy along with Matt Hayes, where I usually break down the entire slate of games from Weeks 1-16. I had lots of fun this season, and much to my delight, some success as well. I write articles that are mostly stats-driven, and while they can be long, I want to not only give you the plays of the day, but “argue” with you, and prove why these guys should find your lineups in Tournaments, H2H’s, 50/50s, or Double-Ups.

Over the course of the past few months or so I have learned a lot about Daily Fantasy Baseball, as I don’t come from a Season-Long Fantasy Baseball background. I listened, I read, and I read some more. Throughout this process, there is one crucial element of Daily Fantasy Baseball that I have learned.

In order to be successful you have to understand which Pitchers to attack for the day, and use Game Theory. What do I mean? A great example came from this past Monday, April 4th, where most of the players out there had one mindset: “Attack Wily Peralta, attack Wily Peralta!” Sure, and it did work out fine, as most of the field was correct with a lot of the Giants batters highly owned on the night. However, what about the sneaky options, the Pitchers who are just as bad, and yet go under the radar? Well what about the Cubbies bats? What about the Dodgers bats? Each team completely destroyed the opposing pitcher, yet you heard nothing about these certain pitchers, it was all Wily Peralta, Wily Peralta, Wily Peralta. Game theory could indicate that the better option was to select the Dodgers, batting behind Clayton Kershaw on the mound (gave up 1 hit).

Sometimes, looking can make the biggest difference.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 10 teamer of Razzball writers and friends to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
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