Happy Friday everyone! We have a 14-game slate on FanDuel to start the weekend. During draft season of 2018, I had a pitching starved dynasty team where I made Dinelson Lamet ($8,200) one of my first round pick. Four days later, I lost Lamet to TJS. This year an owner who’s clearly smarter than me took a shot on Lamet in the 20th round, as the 541st player rostered. That minimal risk is now paying dividends as Lamet has returned to his pre-TJS self, with some slight improvements. Lamet has bumped up his swinging strike rate and strikeout rate, while lowering his walk rate and home run rate. Today, Dinelson Lamet gets his cushiest matchup since his return in Oracle Park against the Giants. For the season, the Giants have put up a 86 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers, however, that number drops to 68 when you factor in only games they’ve played at home. Let’s take a look at the rest of today’s slate.

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Fri 8/15
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | LAD | OAK

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Hello, Newman! Newman goes into Colorado and gets tangled up with Kramer as he tries to sell his newest invention:  Oregano that smells like weed. It’s called Mario Bluntali. Or is it weed that smells like oregano? Or did he already say that? Newman and Kramer have forgotten. Yesterday, Kevin Newman went 4-for-4, 4 RBIs with his 8th and 9th homer. Sure, it was in Coors, but it’s time we start considering Newman as more of a one-trick pony that annoys Jerry, and flush out his character. He had 28 steals last year in Triple-A, and 13 this year in just under 400 ABs. His lack of Ks are also interesting. He has a top ten strikeout rate (11.6%), so his BABIP is high (.334), but his .302 average might be close to repeatable in 2020. Say 12/25/.290 for what will almost be a bargain price in 2020? Is that far off from what you were hoping from Lorenzo Cain? I wrote Kevin Newman in this afternoon’s Buy column, then deleted him because he has to be owned in a majority of leagues by now, but if he’s out there, absolutely grab him, like Newman would help Kramer grab some Kenny Rogers Roasters. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Back on July 25th, I wrote Enter Santander, in which I endorsed Anthony Santander of the Baltimore Orioles. I didn’t think much about that piece until a commenter responded in a subsequent Will Smith piece, “please do not curse him as you did with Santander. Hit under .100 since your endorsement.” I wish I had that power. Anyways, then I saw that he was dropped in 5.1% of ESPN leagues over the past week. I own him in one league and he’s had some slumps. It’s baseball, but he hasn’t been killing my team. Then, I went back to the game logs and looked, and squinted, then looked again, and squinted again. I’m Asian, so maybe saying squinted is redundant but it happened. Anyways, here’s what I found.

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Yours truly caved in and purchased a minivan last week with the arrival of child number two. If you decline to take any further of my baseball advice I will understand. Let me tell you something, though. I love it. It’s roomy. There’s a TV in it. The sound of rain on the giant flat roof is hypnotically melodic. Just like a fantasy season, life goes in stages. Don’t get stuck holding on to something from yesterday that will ruin your tomorrow. You could end up like Matt Foley, thrice divorced, eating a steady diet of government cheese, and living in a van, down by the river. Tiers are of course van themed.

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Will we get a pair of 30/30 seasons this year? Ronald Acuna is already there and could legitimately push for 40/40.  This is Starling Marte’s, (OF: $4,200) age 30 season so it seems fitting that he should join the club. If he wants to complete his quest, he sits at 23/24, he better put in some work today. That should be all the motivation he needs to help out your team. He’s coming on strong and Coors is just the place to keep it going.

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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Yesterday, Anthony DeSclafani went 7 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.05. This start was against the Marlins, so, thankfully, Anthony DeeScalated the hard-charging school of fish. “Lobsters don’t have sex, they butter each up and green stuff forms in their middle belly.” That’s a substitute teacher at fish school half-assing it. So, DeSclafani bought a pet goldfish and named it Flushy, but he’s better than some random game against the Fish. The Fish haven’t been good since Hootie said, “I’ve had enough of all of you.” DeSclafani, on the other hand, has been good in the not-too-distant past and is better this year — his peripherals:  9.2 K/9 (best of his career), 2.8 BB/9 and velocity up to 94.6 MPH from 93.6. His gamely homer allowance (GamHomAll) needs to be curbed for real success, but I can see why the Streamonator likes his next start. He’s underrated, unlike the Marlins, who are underwater. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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The minor league season is winding down and September calls are less than a week away, so it’s time for us to put a bow on the 2019 minor league season and my second stint here at Razzball. Big thanks to Grey and the team for all of the opportunities they’ve given me over the years. Writing about fake baseball on the internet is a great escape from real life. Too bad my real life is getting crazy enough that I won’t be able to do this again next year. You’ll be in great hands with Itch, and you won’t have to wait long for your prospect news. My guess is that the 2020 previews will be right around the corner! Good luck to all of you in your fantasy leagues and thanks for your support and comments.

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Today’s slate features a team that, as of the writing of this introduction, has a 7.8 implied Vegas total. How rare is that? Before 2019, pretty rare – from 2014 to 2019, it happened twice – on July 10th, 2016 (The Rockies had an implied total of 7.8 against the Phillies) and on August 28th, 2017 (The Rockies had an implied total of 7.9 against the Tigers). This year it’s already happened five times, including twice outside of Coors! The five games were the Yankees hosting the Blue Jays on June 25th (7.8 implied total), the Astros on the road in Coors against the Rockies on July 3rd (7.8), the Rockies hosting the Giants on July 17th (with the record high implied total of 8.2), the Rockies hosting the Marlins on August 17th (with an 8 implied total), and finally the Red Sox hosting the Orioles on August 18th (7.8 implied total). If you expect me to try to do a statistical analysis on these games to see any pattern, well that’d be remarkably silly, as the sample size of 7 games would limit any study to be statistically meaningless. If you open the range of implied total up to say, 7.5 or above you may get a sample size of note, but there are people way smarter than me who have already done such analysis. It shouldn’t take advanced analysis to know you want to play the bats on a team with a 7.8 implied total. Especially when they aren’t priced that high, which is the case today. But I’ll get to that in the picks. But before I do, let me say that by the time I went back to proof-read this introduction, the implied total had risen to 8.1 (which means there’s only two other instances since 2014).

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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Before Charlie Morton (4 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.11) threw one pitch yesterday, the Astros greeted him with a highlight reel of some of Morton’s greatest Astros moments. Like the clip of him burning his Pirates jersey. And the clip of him pitching relatively solid for about 150 IP, then hitting a wall and never getting through a whole season. There wasn’t a dry eye in the stadium, especially on the Rays’ bench. I told you to sell Morton last month because he can’t ever complete a season. Any hoo! Morton seems headed for a 3-minute bread beep as he becomes toast, but this is about how the Astros hit multiple balls into orbit, which is also the name of their mascot’s scooch hole. Yordan Alvarez (3-for-5, 3 runs, 4 RBIs, hitting .329) hit his 20th and 21st homer in *hand-clapping emoji* 60 *hand-clapping emoji* games. Actually, stop and hand-clap emoji for a few minutes he’s such a thing of beauty. In total sincerity, if you haven’t seen him hit, go watch a clip. I see him hit homers and I’m puzzled, asking myself, “How does he not hit more homers?” And he hits a lot of homers!  That’s how gorgeous his swing and ease-to-pop appears. For 2020, I’m going to fight with myself to not put him in the top 20, and I might lose. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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President Trump recently asked if we could nuke hurricanes. That question is normally reserved for: Sharknado 10 script meetings or when one is high as a kite watching the Weather Channel. But did you know that the idea was first mentioned back in 1959 at the Second Plowshare Symposium? By actual, well-respected scientists? Hey, I’m not a Trump guy, but I respect the out-of-the-box thinking, and I kind of get it. I mental masturbate about what I’d do if I won the lottery. Thank goodness, though, that we live in an anayltical world, in which scenarios can be debunked with numbers. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration states that the energy needed to modify a hurricane “doesn’t seem promising.” “A fully developed hurrican releases the equivalent of a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.” For perspective, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was over 600 times smaller, so around 2,000 of those would need to be dropped every hour. As Science Alert stated, “we would need to add more than half a billion tons of air….A nuke couldn’t do that.” Which brings me to Brock Burke of the Texas Rangers. Burke has been a hurricane since being called up on August 20th, annihilating both the Angels and White Sox. As a result, he’s been the most added player in ESPN leagues over the past week (30.2% – increase of 29.9%). Since we know that nukes cannot stop a hurricane, let’s see if the numbers illuminate anything.

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As the air starts to turn a bit cooler, the calendar flips to September and a large group of fantasy baseballers turn their attention to fantasy football.  There are only five weeks left in the fantasy baseball season but what an important five weeks they are. As the rest of your league checks out to go play the fantasy sport that requires only one day per week of roster setting (or as I like to refer to it, chess vs. checkers) the true competitors remain to grind it out for Razzball Commenter League glory.  Right now only 1 RCL Point separates the top teams in the Master Standings, so we should be in for a heck of a finish. This week, we’ll take a look at the year long RCL records and what teams have a shot at setting new ones. Does your team have a shot at the RCL record books? Find out this and more in the week that was, week 21:

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Phillies slugger Rhys Hoskins ($3,900) has been phenomenal against left-handed pitching this year, as he’s posted a 158 wRC+ and a walk rate (25.0%) significantly higher than his strikeout rate (18.4%). Hoskins gets another chance to feast on a southpaw tonight against Steven Brault, who has outperformed his 4.23 FIP and 5.03 SIERA. The majority of Hoskins’ homers have come at home in a hitter’s park in Philadelphia, so this is an ideal opportunity for him to break out of his recent cold streak. His new spot batting leadoff is certainly unconventional, but it’s awesome for daily contests, as an extra plate appearance can make a big difference. And if the Phillies lineup has a big performance, he’s a virtual lock for production atop the order. With so much going for him, Hoskins can easily finish as tonight’s top first basemen, if not one of the top scoring hitters overall.

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?