DraftKings: Make My Eggs Odorizzi

August 9, 2014 | DraftKings | 10 Comments

How do you like your eggs? Scrambled? Hard-boiled? Sunny-side up? Fertilized (or Shawn Kemp style for you NBA fans)? Me, I like mine Odorizzi. What Egg puns using Jake Odorizzi‘s names are lame? Well soooooorry! You try and be super funny, relevant, and informative several times a week. This is hard work ladies and gents, and I’m in the trenches. What, I’m rambling? Sorry I’m coming off a three day coke binge and haven’t slept since Tuesday. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view drug abuse, that isn’t true. I just worked a ton of hours and have been spending my down time trying to digest baseball for these daily leagues and football for the fall. The work for a fantasy sports writer never ends. Or it never sleeps, or maybe that’s Wall Street, or money. Yeah I think it’s something with money. Either way my brain is now so filled with mundane factoids about baseball I yelled out wOBA while making love to my wife last night. And Yes, I have indeed taken up residence on the couch for the foreseeable future. Hey! I found a peanut M&M in between the cushions. Score! So what does all this have to do with Jake Odorizzi? Nothing! I told you I’m super tired and have the mental capacity of a jack rabbit on meth.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 20 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!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

#	MLB Starting Lineups For Fri 8/8
	ARI \| ATH \| ATL \| BAL \| BOS \| CHC \| CHW \| CIN \| CLE \| COL \| DET \| HOU \| KC \| LAA \| LAD \| MIA \| MIL \| MIN \| NYM \| NYY \| PHI \| PIT \| SD \| SEA \| SF \| STL \| TB \| TEX \| TOR \| WSH \| OAK

Wada You Want, Wada You Need

August 9, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 95 Comments

by: Dan Pants

Wada start! Wada player! Wada guy! Tsuyoshi Wada continued to pitch well last night, tossing six innings, allowing just four hits and one walk, while giving up two earned runs and striking out six. He didn’t get the win but Wada you gonna do? After dominating AAA earlier in the year (113.2 IP, 2.77 ERA, 120/28 K/BB ratio), he struggled a bit in his second big league outing versus San Diego (4.0 IP, 5 ER, 4 BB, 5 K), but T-Dubs has rebounded since then, letting up just 2 ER or less in his past three starts with a 2.41 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 18/4 K/BB ratio. Maybe you’re thinking, Wada crock! But the next level stats don’t suggest any regression is coming, although it is a small sample size. His 3.60 xFIP is great, as is his .292 BABIP and 7.7% HR/FB. In addition, his excellent 21.7 K% demonstrates he can be a plenty useful starter for your fantasy leagues. He gets the Brewers next week and I’d take a flier on Tsuyoshi Wada if you are in need of a starter. He’s available in over 90% of ESPN and Yahoo! leagues. So Wada you waiting for… pick him up!

Here’s what else happened in fantasy baseball Friday night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

OPS Leagues: 5×5 OPS Rankings

August 9, 2014 | OPS Leagues | 2 Comments

by: Dano

I don’t know about you, and let me preface this by saying most if not all of my league mates at least know I contribute fantasy baseball (OPS) content, but I keep getting the old “But, he’s a Catcher/Shortstop so he’s worth more” and from a position scarcity perspective, that’s obviously true. However, I am A) going for the win-now so all I want is to take the lead in certain (all) categories and B) position scarcity-schmarcity: give me the best available.

So it’s time for your 5×5 (HR,SB,R,RBI,OPS) rankings for both position scarcity and position schmarcity.

FYI, I use the FVAR (fantasy value above replacement) approach to fantasy valuation vs. SGP (standard gains points) approach since I don’t have all of your leagues’ current and historical information. Feel free to look this up or ask below.

For reference, here are the positional replacement 5×5 values and associated players (the 5 z-scores for each category are summed up; the sum is adjusted in each position by this positional replacement value i.e. each Catcher gets .73 added to their z-sum while each First Baseman only gets .01 added to their z-sum i.e. all catchers values are inflated more because of the lower replacement-value):

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I Like My Buy Chicken Extra Kris B

August 8, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 616 Comments

by: Grey

This is not to be confused with Krispie Young. I’m squarely in on a Buy for Kris Bryant. I need a Bryant! Great, now I’ve alluded to Anita Bryant and Buys in two sentences and I will be flagged by the Association of the Free and Unified Commitment Keepers. Though it would be fun to get a strongly-worded letter from them on their letterhead. Bigots can be unintentionally funny, but only if they were THAT funny. “Hello, this is Anita Bryant from the Ass. F.U.C– Hey, Paul, are we sure we want to go with the acronym here?” Kris Bryant has torn the roof off minor league pitching, then built a roof ten feet above that first roof, tore that 2nd roof off too, and then jumped in a hot air balloon, soared up 3,000 feet and built another roof. Between Double and Triple-A, he has 36 homers, 15 steals and is hitting .341. Seriously. He’d be a prospect to keep an eye on if he were a third baseman playing behind Josh Donaldson. In other words, if he had to surpass a great 3rd baseman for playing time, he’d still be someone to watch. Right now, he’s behind Luis Malbuena. *extended burp* The Cubs have already brought up Arismendy and Baez. They are not sitting on prospects anymore and the next one to get the call is Bryant. He could be a top 50 player for all of fantasy as early as next year, but for now he’s a flyer in redraft leagues that I’d absolutely take right now. Grab him, he could be up within two weeks and carry your teams in the final six weeks. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

PSYCHE! Before we get into the Buy/Sell, I just wanted to remind people to go join a Razzball fantasy football league. As if pride wasn’t enough reason, you can win a custom bobblehead! You know you always wanted a little bobbly bust of yourself. Anyway II, here’s the BUY/SELL:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

DraftKings – Finally, it’s Opening Day!

August 8, 2014 | DraftKings | 5 Comments

by: BTXJ

Wait, what, it’s f’n August already? I had no idea, because every day is Opening Day in the world of DFS. Sure, it can be a Baby Bitch, but I always come back for more; even if last night’s roster sported a LD% of 42.6 with a .189 BABIP (ouch). Nerd alert! I made those numbers up, but you know what I mean. Speaking of numbers, check out the Stream-o-Nator, Hitter-Tron, DFSBot, and of course, the Ombatsman. Rudy created them to help you win DraftKings contests like the Razzball 20-Teamer brought to you on the reg by THE Ralph Lifshitz. Dude is the host with the most. Today is the dawn of a brand new season, so bring it!

P.S. Always fade Stephen Strasburg on the road. Always.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Wong Song

August 8, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 292 Comments

by: Sky

As I discussed recently with a good friend, I just missed my musical times growing up. I started getting into the rock of the early 90’s. Y’all can call it grunge, I’m cool with that. Don’t really care what you want to label it as but I enjoyed my Alice ‘n’ Chains and Soundgarden in my Middle School years. And just as high school began, the good music started to die. I got stuck with the fallout of all the Mouseketeers becoming music stars and invading my audio living space. Gone was ‘Burden In My Hand’ and in was ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’. It was a jolt, to say the least. I finished out my High School years going backwards musically, exploring all the bands that influenced the bands I loved growing up so I could avoid the complete and under dreck that was on the radio every day. Of course, that does not make one immune to it. Hell, even people who admit to hating Journey can probably sing a few bars. When Thong Song hit my ears, I thought it was a joke. I mean, it quotes Ricky Martin’s ‘La Vida Loca’. Who does that if they’re trying to be taken seriously? Sisqo I guess. And no, Sisqo, I won’t look up how to make the weird mark above the ‘o’. You’re just not worth it. But more to the point, ‘If Loving Kolten Is Wong, I Don’t Wanna Be Right’ has been used so I decided to bring upon you the pain of my late teen years to make a title. Sorry about that (ok not really), but I thought you’d like the song (ok, not really again). Of course, I bring to you this conversation about Kolten Wong because he hit 2 homers Thursday night to go along with a steal and now has 9 HRs and 17 steals on the year over 251 AB. Stretch that out to 500 AB and you have an 18 HR, 34 steal season at 2B. To put that in perspective, Daniel Murphy is on pace for 13 HRs and 17 steals in 656 at bats this year and is the 7th best 2B on the year, according to Yahoo. Like I told Nick on the podcast over the All-Star Break, I think Wong turns some teams around down the stretch run. Given that it’s his rookie year, I’m willing to look past the up and down that his been this year with Kolten and realize his .247 average is masking something that could be great in 2015 and beyond. That Wong, wa-Wong, Wong, Wong! In other news for 2014 Fantasy Baseball…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Closer Report, Week 19

August 7, 2014 | Closers, Middle Relievers | 30 Comments

by: Smokey

It’s way too quiet in here… I need a sniper to take out a closer or something. Maybe a team of trained Labrador assassins [Jay’s Note: Everyone knows that Labradoodle assassins are better.], no one would expect that. The “Seeing Eyes of Terror” would be their name. Speaking of which, I want to concentrate this week on the under-ratedness of Huston Street. The trade that helps him, the new ballpark that allows his team to actually score runs, and the ability to be that close to Mike Trout. So we are going to venture back through time and space, steal some plutonium from some Libyans, and go back to stats for 2012 to the present day. Confused? Good, me too. So, since 2012, Huston St. is top-10 in saves (86), tops in save % with only 4 BS in 3 years, at a 95.3% clip. And he also has had a resurgence in K Rate to push it over 9 K/9, but for a better perspective, he K’s batters at a 26.5% rate. Hold on, I’m not done yet. He is also one of only four RP with a K rate of over 9 and a walk rate under 2.1. Add all that up, and I love Street for this year, and next year well he will probably be over-drafted based on this post alone. Catch you all on the flip-flip, meaning comments.

Psyche! Before you go further, you should take me on in our Fantasy Football RCL’s for chances at some really neato prizes! (Or commish one for a chance at a Best Buy gift card!)

Please, blog, may I have some more?

DraftKings – The Curious Case of Adam Wainwright

August 7, 2014 | DraftKings | 2 Comments

by: Geoff

Sorry my Razzball peeps but everybody’s favorite bearded genius J-FOH is hanging with Mickey Mouse today. So while J-FOH does his initiation with these guys, I’m stepping in to pinch hit. Think of me as a super sexy Matt Stairs, only instead of late innings hits I’m dropping Daily Baseball science on y’all! Speaking of daily fantasy science, check out Rudy’s Franken-tool the DFSBot. Why do I call it a Franken-tool? Because it’s a monster!

So now that introductions are out of the way, I have a question. Have you guys seen Adam Wainwright‘s price today on DraftKings? He costs a measly $9,500! For a pitcher of Wainwright’s caliber that’s downright stealing. Which leads me to my next question. What does DraftKings know that I don’t?

On face value I think 1. He faces the Red Sox in St. Louis which means they will be sans a DH. When the Red Sox are DH-less either Mike Napoli or David Ortiz are on the bench. That takes a lot of pop out of an already punch-less lineup. 2. The Red Sox offense stinks to begin with. Take a look at the numbers the last two weeks. They have the second lowest run total, the third highest K%, and the lowest wOBA. So they’re a bad lineup WITH Napoli and Ortiz. What’s worse than bad? Ice Cold! Thanks Andre 3000! Sure they upgraded their offense at the deadline, but Allen Craig just hit the DL and Yoenis Cespedes is 0/4 vs Wainwright lifetime with 3 K’s. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Wainwright is in line for a dominant performance tonight. Expect a minimum of 7 innings of one run ball, with 8 K’s.

To play devil’s advocate, the Wainwright problem on DraftKings lately is his steadily evaporating strikeouts. The K/9 this year of 7.37 is down a full whiff from his norm the last 4 years of 8.25. Even worse, his K/9 was a pedestrian 6.91 for the month of June and a disturbing 4.59 for the month of July. So a question for another time and perhaps another article all together is, where have they gone and will they come back? Well I can tell you tonight’s matchup sets up nicely for Wainwright to return to DraftKing‘s points glory. BOLD PREDICTION – 9K’s, 8IP, 0 runs, 4 hits, 1 BB, AND THE WIN. 37 DraftKings points.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Hutch Is On

August 7, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 556 Comments

by: Grey

When I was growing up, we had a hutch. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what piece of furniture it was that my grandparents used to call a hutch. So, like a child of the naughts, I Googled it. On Wikipedia, it says a hutch is where one prepares an evening tipple. Let me just say, I don’t remember anyone in Jersey ever preparing an evening tipple. An evening Sloppy Joe? Sure. An evening ‘bang on the side of the TV so the picture would come in?’ Yup. An evening ‘curse at the neighbors?’ Definitely! An evening tipple? Not in my Jersey. But, for the sake of argument, let’s all pour ourselves an evening tipple for Drew Hutchison. Last night, he went 8 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 1 Hit, 1 Walk and 8 Ks. See, nothing to it. The only mistake yesterday was a long ball surrendered to Chris Davis (now has back-to-back games with ding-shots). As I said when Hutchison was called up, he could be as great as any pitcher to come up this year. Sadly, it may not be this year that he is great. It’s the pickle that is young pitchers. I would own him, shoot, I’d even have a tipple with him, but I wouldn’t fully trust him until he has a longer track record. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Minor Accomplishments: Midweek Edition, Week 18

August 6, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 39 Comments

by: Chris

Happy Hump Day (cue the Geico camel) fellow prospect hounds! Another week of minor league action is in the books as the top prospects continue jockeying for spots on various “up and coming” lists, and try to better position themselves for promotions closer to their ultimate goal — a call to “The Show”. Time for our weekly look at some of the prospects that have made some noise recently in the hope of climbing a little closer to the big leagues, whether that step ultimately comes this season or a little further down the road. Refill your coffee cup, get comfortable, and let us guide your continuing research as we try to help you scoop your fellow fantasy competitors with our Wednesday Twelve-Pack.

We’ll start by mentioning the obvious, Cubs fans that follow me on Twitter got the news Monday afternoon that Javier Baez was on his way to join the big club in Denver for last night’s game. Batting second and playing 2B (where he likely winds up for the long haul at this point), he struck out against Brett Anderson in the 1st, grounded out to Nolan Arrenado in the 3rd, struck out against Franklin Morales in the 4th and 6th, and lined out to Brandon Barnes in RF with the bases loaded in the 7th against Matt Belisle after the Rockies pen imploded and walked half the guys on the Cubs’ 40-Man Roster. (EDIT: Baez did deliver his first big league hit, a solo shot off of Boone Logan in the top of the 12th, and was 1-6 with 3 Ks at publishing deadline.) Don’t fret Chicago hopeful, Kris Bryant isn’t far behind.

A couple of the guys we’ll take a look at this week had help clearing their way when the smoke cleared on one of the wackier non-waiver trade deadline days in memory as players on their organizations’ big-club rosters were moved. The deals won’t necessarily create immediate openings for them at the MLB-level, but they’ll help move timetables and ETAs along. Here’s who I’m watching closer going into week 19…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

DraftKings – Sala-Czar

August 6, 2014 | DraftKings | 23 Comments

by: Sky

I have returned, my good Razzballians, from an excursion I can only describe with great glee. Seriously, school girl level teeheehees were shared as I got our good man Nick Capozzi to pick me up as he started his #32in32in32 tour kicked off in Seattle at the World Sports Grille. Not only did I get to stand next to those awesome vocal cords, but also got to check Tehol Beddict‘s pad – he’s as swag as advertised, bros – and also started a bit of a fling with The Guru as we bunked for a few nights in the same bed. Don’t worry, we had a pillow barricade. At least I thought it was one until ‘Da Gu’ shouted THOSE AREN’T PILLOWS! We live and we learn, right? Just because it’s soft and supple, does not appropriate head-rest material make. In either case, my short sojourn across this little part of the bigger trek Nick is doing across the USA went splendtastically. What? I can make up words as I go. You can’t hold me back, spell check! Sorry, I’ll just wrap up this cross-promo saying there are still some tickets left in cities near you so make sure to check it out. Heck, there’ll be one in Cincinnati where – and here’s your awkward segue – our pal Danny Salazar gets to take the mound. Now if you know anything about Sky (psst, that’s me BTW), you’ll know that he loves looking back over the last 7 or 14 days to see how a hitting team is doing. Granted, this isn’t the end all, be all of the research involved but let’s take for a moment a look at the last seven games for the Reds. Their wOBA? Third worst in the league. Check. Their ISO? First worst in the league. Discount Double check. Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips still on the DL? Triple lutz with a salchow-ending flourish check. Given that Salazar has returned and performed quite well since his stint down on the farm, posting an average of 21.4 DraftKings points over three starts, I’m willing to roll him out there at his reasonably low price of $7,100, which will hopefully save me some cash for another, bigger arm or better yet, bigger, better bats. For me, I plan to release the Czar of the under-priced pitcher on most of my Wednesday lineups. But with that, here are some other picks for August 6th contests…

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 20 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!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Texas Chisox Massacre

August 6, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 655 Comments

by: Grey

You know when Shin-Soo Choo (2-for-4, 2 runs and his 10th homer) is hitting homers there’s a Dong Party going on. Dong Party is also my lead single off my album, “Who Let In All These Guys?” The CD cover had me dressed like a sailor, begrudgingly hoisting a man for a keg stand. None of this is ringing a bell? That’s weird, but it did perform better in Asia than here. Choo hadn’t homered since July 4th and only has 4 homers since May 22nd and is hitting .238. Can we say bust? If you can’t, you might want to see a speech therapist. Also joining the Dong Party was J.P. Arencibia (3-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 7th homer). That Arencibia is one spicy meatball! You know what one meatball said to another meatball? What’s up, metaball? What? No good? Okay, I won’t submit it to Highlights. Arencibia has 4 homers in the last eleven games, and has been known to go on a dong run. For those of you who just found us today Googling “dong run.” We won’t judge you here. Next up, for the Dong Party was Robinson Crusoe. He’s got a novel idea. It’s about a shipwrecking. Quite the yarn! Chirinos (3-for-5, 3 runs and two homers) has 11 homers on the year, and I’ve enjoyed owning him in a few two-catcher leagues, but he’s hitting .237 and I wouldn’t get too excited, especially not while you’re at a Dong Party. Finally, arriving at the Dong Party with a homer in the first inning was Adrian Beltre (1-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer). Getting a bangfizzle at a Dong Party is such a bummer. By the by, Such A Bummer was my follow-up single. Tell me if you want the Sound Cloud link. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?