FanDuel: Speeding Through the Season

August 19, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

Welcome back to another edition of DFS advice with Butters. This sprint of a season is in full swing and feels like it will be over all too soon, just as we’re getting a feel for things. So strap in and enjoy the ride.

Shortstop is pretty top heavy today and thins out quickly after that. That leads us to Jonathan Villar (SS: $2,700) if you want to save some cash. Aside from average he’s been posting solid numbers and at this price that’s more than enough. Despite playing what feels like half as many games as the rest of the league he’s flashed his speed from atop the order, he’s tied for the league lead. Even with an ace on the mound, he can still come through for you.

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See all of today’s starting lineups

#	MLB Starting Lineups For Tue 8/5
	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

Using Fly Ball Exit Velocity

August 19, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 12 Comments

by: Dan Richards

Barrel rate is an excellent tool for evaluating the true power-hitting ability of a slugger. But barrel rate does take about 50 batted balls to stabilize and most hitters do not yet have 50 batted ball events.

Even after a hitter’s barrel rate has likely stabilized, however, there are signs that it could improve or decline. One such sign that I use, particularly in the early going, is fly ball exit velocity. If a hitter has a lot of home runs supported by a great barrel rate, but he also exhibits poor fly ball exit velocity, there might be imminent regression to both his barrel and home run rates. Conversely, if a hitter isn’t hitting many home runs and has a poor barrel rate, but he hits his fly balls really hard, he might be getting unlucky.

To provide some context to early-season barrel rates, I’ve identified a few examples of both types of guys.

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Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Jayce Tingler Sounds Like A Sex Toy

August 19, 2020 | All Podcasts | 1 Comment

by: Geoff

In the aftermath of 3-0-gate, Grey and yours truly jump into the fray, and give our on the whole silly Tatis granny. As if you needed another opinion on this. Don’t you worry we quickly get it out of our systems and move onto the good stuff. No, not the 30 year old scotch in your desk drawer, we’re talking oodles of fantasy baseball jewels for your noodles. We talk Reds postponement, Oscar Mercado’s demotion, Mookie’s continued success in Hollywood, and Grey finally admits Corey Seager is good at hitting baseballs. It was like group therapy with less trust falls! After we run through all that we jump into the trio of Tigers promotions before rounding it out with injuries and hot schmotato talk. It’s another week of the Razzball podcast but with 20% less fat!

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U Kenta Touch This

August 19, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 296 Comments

by: Grey

My, my, my my hitters can’t hit so hard! Makes me say, “Oh my Lord!” Thank you for blessing me, but please! I didn’t sneeze! Okay, okay, OKAY! Let’s bask like a Spanish omelette (that might be Basque) in Kenta Maeda. Yesterday, was nearly the best start of the year until Taylor Rogers did the doo-doo after being told “don’t do doo-doo.” Maeda went 8 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners, 12 Ks, ERA at 2.27. By the by, you can see all the top 100 starts of the year under that linkiemajiggies. (I say ‘nearly’ because that page updates after the start, and Rogers blew his win.) I called Maeda a sleeper for a good four months this preseason. Here’s a brief snippet of me back in February, “Traded to the Twins, because all, and I mean, all things I touch turn to gold. *touches lamé jumper* I’m Beyonce, snitches! This can’t be bad for Maeda. If you want, like, actually facts, fine. Maeda’s about to be a top 20 starter.” Then I went on for about 1500 words across five different starter sleeper posts about Maeda’s swinging strike rate and how much I loved Maeda. If you didn’t draft him, that is really more on you. You could’ve touched him, now you Kenta’d. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Bear or Bull: A Time to Kill Grisham?

August 18, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Bear or Bull | 27 Comments

by: Son

Never judge a book by its cover. An age old mantra yet one that is often dismissed. There’s a reason the advertising industry is a billion dollar one, and that Karen in marketing is cashing fat checks. We judge from the cover in all facets of life. Because of that, we make irrational decisions at times. No different in fantasy baseball. We get swayed by the batting average plastered on the MY TEAM page or the constant zeroes from what you thought was your fantasy hero. Sometimes digging deeper can shed some light upon the situation. Trent Grisham of the San Diego Padres has been dropped in 13.7% of ESPN leagues over the past week. Why? Is it a time to kill Grisham or keep reading?

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Heads Up! H2H Categories Week 5 – Attack of the Bullpen

August 18, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Head-to-Head Leagues | 1 Comment

by: Richardo

We’re about a third of the way through the season and time is just flying! So, I guess I’m having fun. This week, we’ll take an alternate look at finding low owned hitters that could help lead your team to victory. Being a Phillies fan, I realized just how many hits/runs/fantasy stats the bullpen was allowing since the arms were pitching like hot garbage. So I started working my way backward in finding hitters to stream by finding bullpens to attack. I don’t want to stream hitters against the Brewers or Dodgers because once the starters are out, my bats are going up against sub-2.50 ERA arms. So let’s take a look at some teams to stream hitters from this week.

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RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 3, 2020

August 18, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Our Leagues, Razzball Commenter Leagues | 5 Comments

by: MattTruss

Welcome to week three of the Razzball Commenter Leagues! We are now one third of the way through our season. That’s just wild and I have the feeling there isn’t enough time to correct the ERA hole some of my teams have dug. Yikes. A huge thank you goes out this week to Rudy and his FanTrax data-mining robots who were able to snag all our RCL data. That means, we have real, live standings. Week one and two I simply had to take whichever teams had the most roto points, but this week to get to factor in League Competitive Index or LCI. This system rewards players who are in harder leagues for eeking out those extra points. We also get to factor in the Master Points. Master Points are basically like you’re playing in a 924 team roto league. If you have the most HRs in the RCL-universe, you get 924 points, if you have the fewest, you get 1 point. Pretty cool, huh? For more info, you can scroll to the bottom of the MASTER STANDINGS page and read all about the secret sauce that is the Master Standings. This also means, we’ll have weekly leaders starting next week. Of course, there will only be five weeks worth of weekly data, but hey, it’s better than nothing. Hmm, that sounds like it has potential to be the new MLB slogan!

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FanDuel: Happy Birthday to Yu

August 18, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

by: NichFields

Though his birthday was on Saturday, let’s all wish him a great year ahead. And many more on Channel 4. The now 34 year old Yu Darvish, $9,900 today on FanDuel, is having an incredible start to the season. Including the last half of 2019, this stretch is arguably the most dominant of his career. It’s fun to see. But we don’t let fun get in the way of winning; we need value. Well, wouldn’t Yu have it. Even as the most expensive pitcher on the slate, it’s tough to ignore Darvish as also being the best value. He has kept his high strikeout rate while halving his walk rate this season, and faces a Cardinals lineup near the bottom of the league in most every offensive category. Thus, we recommend whirling Darvish into your lineups. Yu lineups will look great. As long as you don’t mess up the rest of it. So let’s not mess up the rest of it. Read on to secure additional picks.

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Tigers At Least Trying As Far As I Can Sir Mize

August 18, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 333 Comments

by: Grey

Are the Tigers king of summer streaming offerings? Are the Tigers eating their young or are they eating whatever is thrown in the dumpster behind the Costco? Should fantasy baseballers be singing Here Kitty Kitty to young Tigers or is Carole Baskin robbing us of our Baseball Nut? Is an actual ice cream flavor at Baskin-Robbins called Baseball Nut and does it have chestnut cream? All of these questions are going through my mind on this lovely mid-August day as the Tigers promote Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize. Every MLB team should look at how the Tigers deal with prospects and emulate. The Tigers throw them to the fire and it’s grrrrrrrrr…hey, this is fun after 13 years of Spanish couldn’t teach me how to roll my R’s….rrrrreat! On Prospect Itch’s Tigers fantasy prospects, he has Mize 1st and Skubal 3rd, but that’s from January, which is like another year ago. I wrote a Casey Mize fantasy, which is from another year ago. Both of these guys could be aces, and worth picking up, but neither may go very deep into games this year. So, in redraft? Prolly look at streaming Mize and Skubal, in that order, due to how long either can go in games. In dynasty leagues, Skubal is flat-out sexy, but in a Glasnow-type way. Could he go 4 IP, 3 ER and 10 Ks? Yes. Will he go 6 IP, 2 ER, 4 Ks and get you a bunch of Quality Starts? I don’t know about that yet on Skubal, but that might be Mize. So, I think Mize over Skubal for this year? Yes, I welcome your Sir Mize. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Top 100 Starting Pitchers: Week 4

August 17, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Top 100 Starting Pitchers | 31 Comments

by: everywhereblair

[Chapter 1 of my upcoming novel, FML Grey]

Grey Albright, Fantasy Master Lothario, wakes in a haze. Last night was hard, but not in the way Cougs would have preferred it. After watching Chris Paddack get shelled by the Dodgers, Grey collapsed on the couch, crumpled boba containers at his feet. “Draft pitchers late,” he muttered, falling into a fitful sleep with images of Stephen Strasburg and Justin Verlander haunting him.

Now awake, Grey runs to the bathroom and grabs the Barbasol. “5.54 FIP!” he spits into the sink. “Paddack has a negative value fastball!” Grey lathers his lip sweater, and grabs his razor. The man in the mirror is manic. “You’re no lothario!” Grey shouts at himself, his Schick stick in hand. “You don’t deserve this anymore!” With short, rapid strokes, Grey shaves off his mustache. The commotion wakes Cougs, who enters the bathroom. Grey looks up, wiping his now-naked philtrum, “Dylan Bundy’s the top pitcher on the player rater,” he says. “I need a boba.”

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Rolling In The Deep: Week 5 AL Reinforcements

August 17, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Rolling In The Deep | 2 Comments

by: Laura Holt

Just as we expected, the 2020 baseball season has seen its share of highs and lows. On the deep-league fantasy front, let’s hope your season has seen more highs (if you’re reading this, Anthony Sandander, Teoscar Hernandez, or Brandon Lowe, thank you for everything so far, and please keep it up!), than lows (sorry, Oscar Mercado, but I’m looking at you). If you’re in the fantasy baseball thick of things but need some reinforcements, let’s take our weekly look — AL version — at some guys who may be of interest to those of us in deeper leagues (we’ll use a 20% or less owned in CBS leagues threshold this week).

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Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Week 3 Top 10 Performers

August 17, 2020 | All Podcasts |

by: Brent

Zach (@Braffz) and Jordan (@ExitVelo_JR) go over the Top 10 performers of week 3. They give you some options deep in the FA pool to grab before it’s too late. They have a Juan Soto vs. Ronald Acuna debate on who is the better fantasy option for 2021. Is Juan Soto a Top 5 pick for 2021? Is Aaron Nola back to his 2018 form? Bryce Harper and Shane Bieber have been having a great 2020 so far and hope to continue to shine! And yes Jordan still has Bieber Fever.

Please, blog, may I have some more?