With the All-Star break now a distant memory… which I guess doesn’t make much sense, seeing as how it just happened roughly a week ago. Well, it could make a lot of sense if I have a terrible memory, which certainly could be the case. Because alcohol. The lesson here? Idiom’s are just as dangerous as alcohol consumption. And also having terrible recall. What were we talking about again? Regardless, we have now entered into full trade season pandemonium, PANDEMONIUM I TELL YA! Conor Gillaspie never saw it coming folks. Never. Saw. It. Coming. Scott Kazmir might have though, but I can’t confirm this. I also can confirm that if you are lagging in the standings, there is still some time left to inject something into your roster. I’d prefer it not be illegal substances, but rather try brainstorming some crazy trade ideas and go for it. In all redraft leagues, you should be going all in right now, and hey, if those wild roster changes don’t work, at least you gave it your best effort and didn’t go out quietly. And then you can do those illegal substances. And then play some fantasy football! Wait, what were we talking about again?
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What do numbers call their father? Data. Thank you, Highlights. You taught me so much with the juxtaposition of Goofus and Gallant, and you’ve entertained me for thirty years. One copy, that is well worn, sits on the back of my toilet as my salvation, especially when Cougs forgets to restock the toilet paper. Why am I thinking about data right now? Because I just spent two hours (more like ten minutes) looking for something. I was trying to find what a hitter does after hitting the longest home run of their career, then sorting by guys that do it before their 24th birthday. Alas, I couldn’t find anything. Elias Sports Bureau probably knows but they’re a bunch of baseball nerds. We’re fantasy nerds. Huge difference, we have imaginary friends cooler than their real friends! My hypothesis I was aiming for is if a guy, who was once a well-regarded prospect is called up at a very young age, it might take a bit of time for them to acclimate themselves. Then, once they were comfortable, they’d show power, hit the longest home run of their career and take off from there. At this point, it’s just conjecture, but it makes reasonable sense in a case study of one. So, who was this well-regarded prospect that just hit the longest home run of his career this week? Nick Castellanos. My Spidey sense says Castellanos might finally be breaking out. Breaking out from what, you’re likely thinking. Well, not from chocolate. From being a schmohawk. Plus, my Spidey sense is strong since this is on the web. Like Castellanos’s relatives throw glasses into the fireplace, he was thrown into the fire at an insanely young age, and is only 23 years old now. It’s a little early for 2016 sleepers, but Castellanos was a guy that was pegged as someone that could hit for a solid average with some power. I’m intrigued, y’all! In keepers, I could see going after him now for next year, and just grabbing him in redraft mixed leagues. Castellanos you later! Thanks again, Highlights! Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Since returning from the All-Star break, no hitter has scored more points than Joey Votto. Votto-D2 (for you Star Wars geeks) has 10 hits, 2 home runs, 3 RBIs, 8 walks and a stolen base to give him 39 points over 7 games. On the season he now has 265 points which puts him in the top ten first basemen, where he has quite the company. He’s currently on pace for 30 ding dongs, 10 stolen bases and a .300 batting average. But what I really hope is that he has a son name Otto.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
DraftKings: Funny, Most Brewers Like Things Corbin-ated
July 24, 2015 | DraftKings | 11 Commentsby: Sky
Since I opened with an odd title, I figure I might as well open with an awkward fun fact! Carbonation in your beer comes from yeast digesting sugar. Think about that for a minute…or better yet, think about what happens after you consume a bean burrito and go swimming. Do you get the general gist, colonel confused? Yeah, I’m just gonna leave that dangling out there. Ponder on ponderers whilst I move on to talking some Patrick Corbin. This will be Corbin’s 4th start of the year as he’s coming back from Tommy John surgery and so far it’s been ‘baseball’ successful, ‘fantasy baseball’ so-so and ‘daily fantasy’ blech. I know, I totally just sold you on him. But the key to this suggestion really comes back to Brewers and their bats and how they seem to have holes in them when facing a left-handed pitcher. For the year, the Brewers have an 81 wRC+ and a healthy 20% K rate on the year against southpaws. Given his surgery, I’m not going to push him for cash but for your tourney lineups, he makes a lot of sense. There’s potential for 6 innings and perhaps 5 or 6 Ks to go along with minimal damage on the basepaths and the scoreboard. Given its a Coors night, that along with his pricetag of just $5,900 could go a long way in helping your LUs. So crack a cold one and put Corbin in your lineups tonight. Just remember that beer carbonation is actually just yeast farts. Sorry, it had to be said but you know beer is tasty and you DGAF. So enjoy those ‘bubbles’ and I’ll carry on with my steaming hot takes for this Friday DK slate…
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?A NASA engineer who plays fantasy, “Houston, we’ve Scott a pitcher!” Then he tries to high-five another NASA engineer, but their 180 IQs can’t figure out a hand slap. A gay man in the Bay Area who plays fantasy, “I see a run on Minute Maid mimosas thanks to the Kaztro!” Then he tries to high-five his friend and it becomes patty cake. A Real Housewife of Houston sees that Scott Kazmir was traded to the Astros and gets on the phone with her husband, “You want me to hide our oil futures in which bank account again?” Okay, that had nothing to do with Kazmir. For the past three months, I’ve been saying to trade Kazmir in July and guess who reads Razzball. Yo, Beane, I’m on a treadmill as I write this — simpatico, my brother! Crap, I just hit ‘Begin Workout.’ How do I shut this off? I just wanted to stand on the treadmill! So, Kazmir takes his 2.38 ERA to Houston and I can kinda understand it from the Astros’ perspective. If they get ten starts from him instead of Feldman, then it’s a score since they traded low-level prospects. Kazmir is from Houston so he’ll be able to play in front of family and friends, which is great if this were Little League and needed a ride home. He has only 15 1/3 IP in The Juice Box, so his numbers there are irrelevant. O.co is a -co park like Petco or Metco and stands for Overstock(ed on foul territory), but Minute Maid isn’t exactly Coors. Keuchel, McHugh, McCullers and Velasquez have done fine there, and I think this is a fairly lateral move out of the wishbone offense. What?! Grey must be reading JayWrong’s fantasy football rankings. The only thing that really stops Kazmir from performing is his health, which is almost definitely going to fail him. Damn, I should’ve been a doctor. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Bear or Bull: Is Matt Kemp Finished?
July 23, 2015 | 2023 Fantasy Baseball | 63 Commentsby: Big Magoo
Professionally speaking, 2015 has not been a good year for Matt Kemp. Actually, Kemp’s woes might have started last December when his former team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, agreed to trade him to division rival and current team, the San Diego Padres. Is there a bigger slap in the face in professional sports than when a team decides to move a player within it’s own division? The Dodgers even kicked in $32 million in cash in order to complete the transaction. Not only did the Dodgers seem unconcerned about having to face Kemp on a regular basis in the near future, but they paid down a significant portion of his salary to make it happen. It’s like breaking up with a long-time girlfriend while treating her like a one night stand. “Yeah, I have this thing to do right now, so I’ll have to ask you to leave. Here’s some cab fare for you on the way out. Have a nice life.” That’s just cold!
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Bullpen Report, Week 16: Something’s Brewin’ for Holds
July 23, 2015 | Middle Relievers | 30 Commentsby: Smokey
Here I thought the Brew Crew were a dying entity this year with all this talk of punting and trading all their mid-level talent. For soothe, they have had an impressive last 30 days in the Holds department. It isn’t just one guy garnering them either… It is a multi-syllabic hold dragon with three heads. Each head is completely different and has a really cool story. The first is the Fresh Prince of Holds, Will Smith. He has basically been what we all thought Jonathan Broxton would be this year, but probably with more success. Over the last 30 days he has 5 holds, 2 Wins, and a K/9 rate over pushing 14. That is sassy with a Jor and extra emphasis on the dache. The next is Michael Blazek, who in some weird way is basically Jeremy Jeffress‘s boy by name only. I will call them Smoke, and yes please. Common sense is there for anyone who knows dudes history. He is my honorary hero and on the Smokey hall of fame wall with Lincecum, Chris Perez, and Dock Ellis. So to their stats before I teeter out from pure excitement… Blazek and Jeremy have both garnered 4 holds over the last 30 and form a power/finesse RH combo in front or beside Smith, and in front of K-Rod. With all the trade talk surrounding basically everyone in baseball, it seems if K-Rod gets bounced out I have them Smith and Jeffress in a tie, then Blazek for saves, with Broxton on ready for that veteran preference. So let’s see what other bags of factoidal goodness I can come up with and of course the Holds chart for some good toilet reading…
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Happy first Thursday after the All-Star break. I won’t lie, I missed sitting down with a glass of Pinot Noir to write my weekly advice piece last Wednesday.
The first thing I noticed when I opened up my DraftKings app was how damn expensive Clayton Kershaw is. I mean, he’s still the best pitcher in baseball despite his numbers not reflecting it this year, but is he worth spending $14,500 on? Well, he’s facing the Mets, so yeah. In face, my last article was title “Dream of Californication” due to the amount of Dodgers and Angels in my lineup. That title could apply here, too.
Let’s get straight to the cash, homie.
New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 15 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?Yesterday, Michael Brantley went 4-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs with his 7th homer. One big day for a 2nd rounder is more than Ian Desmond owners can say. Yes, everything’s better when compared to Ian Desmond. “Maw, this spinach is still half-frozen and spinach juice is dripping into my Salisbury steak.” “In some countries, all children have is a 2nd round draft pick of Ian Desmond.” “You’re right, maw, you’re right. I’m an ingrate!” That’s a 34-year-old you after coming up from your mom’s basement for dinner. One of my biggest regrets of this season was not labeling Brantley a Noid and telling you to avoid. I didn’t rank him in the preseason crazy high so you would draft him, but I didn’t outright say, “Look elsewhere, prematurely balding man.” Meh, I guess my regrets could be worse. I mean, look at Lindsay Lohan’s last ten years. If you own Brantley, I think at this point you have to hold tight and either go down with the ship or hope some of his cream rises — mixed metaphor points! If you don’t own Brantley like me, well, whew. I’m empathetic though. Kinda. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Here’s a prospect post that even a redraft leaguer can love. At Razzball there are a lot of great tools, but the one I use the most when looking at potential trades or player acquisitions is the player rater. It’s basically a way to evaluate players based on Steamer’s projections for the rest of the year. What makes it particularly useful is the fact that it’s also updated daily by Rudy to account for playing time changes, lineup changes, injuries, etc. I thought it would be fun to look at how our rookies are faring in the machine. I found 54 players in the rater who were under the 130 AB/50 IP cutoff to start the year. Then I sorted into three subcategories for the hell of it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a couple of names (hopefully no big ones) and there’s probably nothing incredibly enlightening to glean from this (Correa is good at baseball and projects to be good at baseball in the second half…thanks Mike!). But…there were some surprises for me when I gathered it together. At any rate, hopefully it spurs some discussion and provides a snapshot for the massive wave of quality prospects we’re seeing reach the majors in 2015.
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Who was actually good…
Last time, I used ADP data and player values to determine Kyle Lohse was the most under-drafted player of the last five years. Turns out, there are some assumptions in the calculation that could be tweaked, and the result could be a totally different most under-drafted player. Go figure! The methodology was to take the difference between a player’s preseason ADP and his end-of-season rank to determine “undervalued-ness”. This time we’re still going to take the difference, but it’ll be between the square root of his ADP and the square root of his EOS rank.
Why the square rooting? The reason is to give more weight to better players, which square rooting accomplishes.
For reference, here’s the list from last time (that won one lucky man a Razzball T-Shirt):
Please, blog, may I have some more?
I get them all the time. The DFS man-crush. The players in the game that I latch onto and can’t stop rostering them, through the good times and bad. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, when you know a guy is in a good spot, it’s important that you not bail like a newb at the first 0-4. Park is good, he’s making hard contact, the handedness is in his favor again, then don’t worry, just go with it. In fact, it may make sense to commit to a player for a whole week if he’s locked in and hitting with authority.
Right now my DFS crush has been J.D. Martinez and has been for almost two months. I’ve had exposure into J.D. almost every game for between 30-45 games and the results have been fantastic. He’s been the top hard contact/expected power player over the last 30 days and has launched 13 home runs over that period of time. There have been clunkers, too, but knowing he was going good and having the prices way below his production, those days were mere speed bumps on the way to the cash freeway.
Some crushes last shorter than others. The 2014 summer of Scooter Gennett was fun. Johnny Paredes had his week or two this season and Gerardo Parra has been on man crush status for some guys as long as I’ve been on Martinez. Parra is still inexpensive, too. The newest sensation is Kyle Schwarber in Chicago. The catcher eligible slugger popped two home runs and scored 40 points Tuesday night, which may have just made many a DFS player swoon right into crushdom.
They wear off eventually – everything has to come to an end, but it’s a fun ride.
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! 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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