Hey deep leaguers! Last week I went through why Odubel Hererra ain’t worth your time. In the comments, people asked for me to take a look at Wilmer Flores, which as a Mets fan, I consider a tasty treat of an assignment. I feel like I ought to have some sort of a disclaimer, like stock analysts that hold the stock their writing about; I own Flores in a couple of leagues, and as a Mets fan, I can’t help but hope he does well, so just in case you think I’m a biased SOB, you’re probably right! Then again, I don’t know Wilmer personally, so there is no reason to root for him versus any other Mets player. And if I thought he sucked, I’d be clamoring harder than anyone for the Mets to trade him while they can. Then again, you’re reading Razzball on a Friday afternoon, so I figure a contributor’s potential bias might not be high on your list of worries. Aaaah, I should really stop writing about bias and get on with the analysis already…
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What’s that rule again? “I” before “E”, except after “C”? Or when sounded as “A”. As in “neighbor” and “weigh”. Or when followed by “X” or when preceded by “X” as in “Teixeira” and “Teixeira”. What in the world is with that spelling? It’s awful and is begging to be misspelled. While he’s only sporting a .245 batting average, that means very little in the land of points leagues. With 17 home runs, 45 RBIs and a stolen base, Mark Teixeira has 198 points, putting him at number 5 among all hitters. His 0.88 points per plate appearance (PPPA) puts him behind only Paul Goldschmidt (0.97), Bryce Harper (0.97) and Anthony Rizzo (0.92). For those of you avid Scrabble players interested in other words that contain “eix”, here are a few you can try out: deixis, peixere and gorceixite.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Don’t go jump out the window in DFS hysteria. I am just filling in for the day because Sky reached out and touched me, I mean he got in touch with me. Some of you may remember that I wrote DFS last year and some of you may not even remember yesterday. I’m looking at you hungover Andrew Miller owners. Today we have what feels like opening day with all the hot starters on the bill. Kersh, Bum, Price, Felix are all high priced aces and would be easy calls but it doesn’t leave you any money for offense. You might be able to find some good cheap offensive calls but I like to spread my dollars around as much as I can and not depend on hitting on a bunch of bargain buys. We must have balance. Today Danny Salazar is going for $9,400 and I like him to be up there with the big dogs. On the year, he has the highest K/9 among qualified pitchers and has the 7th best swinging strike percentage. When he’s on he’s un-hittable, but he has been dinged up a few times this year. The HR/FB leaves a lot to be desired (17.6%) and did have a three game stretch where the walks killed him. That got corrected in his last turn when he went 7 innings and K’d 10 while only walking one against Baltimore. He gets the Tigers today who were really scary to start the year but have been atrocious offensively since V-Mart went down. Which is funny because V-Mart did nothing when he was there. He must be their spiritual leader or something like that. K’zar has faced them once this year and went seven innings with eleven K’s and only giving up one run. I like him and you should too if you don’t want to over spend.
New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 25 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, Chi Chi Gonzalez went 7 IP, 1 ER, 11 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 0.42. Hey, Major League Baseball retired that number! If this pitching thing ever stops working out for Gonzalez, he can go into Eastern medicine, and open a clinic called Chi Chi’s. Or a tea shop called Chai Chi. Or a tea shop where all the workers are dressed in karate apparel called Chai Tai Chi. Or how about a karate, Eastern medicine clinic that serves tea called Chai Tai Chi Chi’s? Or how about a Mexican restaurant called Chi-Chi’s? Or how about a karate, Eastern medicine clinic that serves tea and Mexican food called Chai Tai Chi Chi Chi-Chi’s? I can keep going. So what’s the deal deal with Chi Chi? He had a 5.4 K/9 in Triple-A with a 4 BB/9. I don’t even know why he was called up let alone has done so well. Sure, he gets ground balls, but how big is Elvis Andrus’s mitt? Seventeen feet wide and twenty feet long? I mean, this is ridiculous. Through three games started in the majors, he has a 3.3 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9. Hahahahaha…Breathe, Grey, breathe! I almost lost it there. Wow, is that silly. So, Chi Chi has been cha-ching, but if I owned him, I’d cash out my Chi Chi chips. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Greetings! What a day. What a muph*ckin day! LeBron James has officially ascended into Godhood as we are witnessing a beast of the likes I haven’t seen since Rocky Balboa got absolutely shredded and destroyed by the supposedly indestructible Ivan Drago. I’ve been on my knees more often than an alter boy as of late, giving all that I have to the city of Cleveland, giving all that I possess in rooting on The King, Machine Gun Delly, and the rest of these scrubs. IF they pull this off, it is without question, the largest finals upset in NBA history. Well, at least since I was birthed by the Queen of the Elder Gods on the rim of Mt. Vesuvius… Oh… this is a baseball post… My apologies, as I know most of you could care less about the NBA finals, but seriously this is incredible television and I hope you get involved. Let’s talk a little baseball though, shall we, my goodmen (and women)?
I am Tehol Beddict, and this is, Disgrace/Delight! Take heed!
Please, blog, may I have some more?One of the rarest commodities in fantasy baseball is the five category player. Someone who can hit for average and power, steal bases, and provide meaningful contributions in the runs scored and runs batted in categories. Even more specifically, a player who possesses an elite combination of power and speed since counting stats can be somewhat dependent on lineup positioning, and batting average can fluctuate for a player from year to year due to luck factors that are completely out of his control. Starling Marte is one of these players. Since his rookie season in 2012, Marte is 13th in the major leagues with 93 stolen bases, and is one of only three players (Mike Trout and Carlos Gomez are the others) to steal that many bases and hit 40+ homers to go along with it. The scariest thing for opposing pitchers is that the 26-year-old Marte appears to just now be hitting his power peak.
Please, blog, may I have some more?I hate it when the vagueness of an arm injury slams your roster and places the top closer on the DL. Andrew Miller hit it yesterday with a forearm strain. How could it be strained if there are fore of them? I mean aren’t the other three there, to be like, back-up dancers? The only good thing for you and the Yankees is that there is another top-5 relief pitcher in the mix. Dellin Betances will take over as the lead sled dog in the saves in the Bronx. After that, on the off chance you need a third option, there is Adam Warren, which is a deep shot in the dark. Crazy as that sounds, and I dig that he is still starting, but if this drags out for Miller, he could return to what was excellent form from out of the pen last year. If by all intents and purposes you are reaching this far down for saves or speculating that the Yankees are in trouble… then stick around for some extra tidbits, there are a quite few this week. Cheers!
Please, blog, may I have some more?When life gives you lemons, you don’t make lemonade. Instead, you throw those fothermuckers back at life, because lemons by themselves suck.
That’s kind of how the DraftKings slate has been on Thursdays so far this season. The last two weeks aside, there weren’t many lineups that I made on a Thursday where I was actually happy with it. That trend continues today, as it’s not a who’s who of pitchers, but more like a who… the hell am I going to play today?
Let’s get straight to the (hopeful) cash, homie.
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?Member how I was saying yesterday that I owned Zack Cozart in multiple leagues, and he was a top five shortstop this year on our Player Rater, but I didn’t really appreciate him? Do I even need to tell you what happened next? Can you guess? If you hold your ear to the computer, does it help you guess? Cozart lunged for the 1st base bag as he was going down the line, hyperextended his knee and is headed to the DL. Einstein was right, “Absence does make the heart grow fonder.” Or maybe that was Peabo Bryson. I always confuse those two on attributing quotes. It’s usually one or the other. Was it Peabo Bryson who did the theory of relativity? Why can’t I spell genius without spellchecker? Questions for another day. One potential fill-in is Ivan De Jesus (1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer). De Jesus now has homers in two of three games, that’s twice as many homers as his dad had in his final 600 plate appearances. With Cozart out for who knows how long, De Jesus Jr., or as Christians and Nike marketers like to call him Lil’ Jesus, could be the shortstop, but so could Kris Negron (1-for-4). Negron, please! If it’s Lil’ Jesus, well, it’s worse than Negron, please! Lil’ Jesus doesn’t have much power or speed, while Negron, please, at least swiped 30+ bags one year in the minors. Neither are advisable outside of NL-Only leagues. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Yesterday, I shared the latest confidence-affirming test on the Razzball daily MLB projections. Today, I have some great news on how you will be able to make the most out of our projections.
We have partnered with Lineup Lab to create a fantastic lineup optimizer. It is FREE for all DFS Premium subscribers for at least the month of June. For the low price of $9.99/month (or FREE if you open up a new DFS account), you will get our projections and this lineup optimizer for this month).
The optimizers can be accessed via the below links or via the Tools Menu.
https://razzball.com/dfsbot-draftkings-optimizer
https://razzball.com/dfsbot-fanduel-optimizer
Like some of you, I have been using an Excel-based ‘Solver’ to optimize our DFS projections. After doing side-by-side comparisons, I can say with certainty that the Lineup Lab optimizer is superior. Here are some of the examples…
Please, blog, may I have some more?What if I told you that with just the click of a button you could have your fantasy lineup set for you. Would you find this idea interesting? If you are 1) sometimes lazy in setting your lineup or 2) interested in the what the logic behind choosing the optimal lineup should be, then hopefully you answered yes to this question. In typical Greysian fashion there is no 3), but I imagine there are people that would fall into a third category as well.
If you find yourself curious about the technical details of how this is done, scroll down because I’m going to save that for the end of the article. What I’d like to jump right into instead, is the algorithm that will determine what the optimal lineup is for a fantasy team, because I think that’s the most interesting and nuanced part of this whole process.
Please, blog, may I have some more?We’re entering the safe zone for the Super-Two cutoff, and with that comes the promotion of many top prospects. The Astros made a big splash on Monday when they called up Carlos Correa, but later tonight another solid prospect from the Houston farm will make his big league debut. Right-hander Vincent Velasquez ranked 5th on my Astros Top 10 entering the season, although I honestly didn’t expect him to make an impact until 2016. He’s forced his way into the bigs with his performance, however, and he’ll join fellow 2015 call-up Lance McCullers in the Houston rotation. Like McCullers, Velasquez will make the jump straight from Double-A to the majors. That might cause some fantasy owners to be shy about grabbing him, but as Grey mentioned yesterday in his Velasquez fantasy, the 23-year-old is worth a flyer in pretty much all leagues thanks to his nasty stuff. McCullers is already close to cracking JB’s Top 50 starters, and Velasquez was a higher-ranked prospect entering the season. Can Velasquez pull off a McCullers or even surpass him for the rest of 2015? Let’s take a closer look in this week’s profile…
Please, blog, may I have some more?