I’ll be honest, picking a creeper early in the year is not an easy task. We have small sample sizes to work with, players under performing and pitchers very hard to predict. I ask myself every week as I prepare these: what angle can I find to make a call? What is a constant that doesn’t change? Where are my pants? Well, the third question is nearly impossible to answer because it’s like trying to figure out where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. The other two are things we always look for, regardless of what point of the season we are at, are park factors, lefty/righty match-ups, Schmotatoness, and batter vs. pitcher history. For example, this week, Brad Miller plays six games and for five of them, he faces right-handers. On the year, he bats .348 against RHP (good thing), but among the five he faces this week, he bats .191 against (not so good), and Hitter-Tron (-$2.5) says he won’t be any good. I’ll pass too. That’s a little snapshot into my process. This week, I’m going for Schomtatoness and park factors to make my call. Would you like to hear more? Oh c’mon, I’ll give you some Arby’s coupons? Dairy Queen? Fine, then skip to the top 100 and we can fight about that in the comments instead.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Learn more about our 2025 Fantasy Baseball Subscriptions!
The best daily/weekly player rankings/projections (hitters, starters, and relievers) for each of the next 7-10 days + next calendar week starting Friday. Kick-ass DFS lineup optimizer and projections for DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo!.
I don’t have enough spam, give me the Razzball email newsletter!
Weekly Razzball news delivered straight to your inbox.
Ladies and gents, boys and girls, gasses and minerals, can we be serious for a moment? I have something that’s touched us all in one way or another to discuss; the cold streak. Yes they happen to DFS gods such as myself too. Hard to believe I know, but it’s true. Since last Sunday’s post my wins have been few and far between. The worst part about all this is I’m not getting blown away by the field. I’m consistently finishing just outside the money. East Coast players (where’s my furs and gators?) like myself will be all too familiar with the old going to bed a winner and waking up a loser act. Your girlfriend told me you wake up a loser a lot, so you get it. But that’s besides the point, and they make pills for that “issue”. Just blame it on the alcohol. Either way today is a new day, just as it is everyday on DraftKings and with it comes new opportunity.
After studying todays pitching roster there’s a lot of arms with good matchups, at value prices. My favorite arm of the day, and one that will be in all of my lineups (GPP’s included) is Jason Hammel. The Cubs starter has been a good under the radar play thus far this season striking out 23 batters and only walking 1 in 25 1/3 innings. That’s some old school Cliff Lee shizz. Last time out, Hammel went 8 against the Pirates, not allowing a run and striking out 7. Today he squares off against the Brewers and all American boy Jimmy Nelson. The Brew crew has not been very formidable in 2015, ranking 29th in team wOBA, while striking out at the third highest rate (23.4%) in the league. Full disclosure time, Milwaukee has played most of their games sans their best hitter Carlos Gomez, who returned to the lineup yesterday, but the numbers tell me they need a lot more than Gomez. Fuller disclosure, Vegas hates my idea because the winds be a-blowin out hard to left but at a price of $7,400 you’ll have plenty of other dollars to spend elsewhere.
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?
Minor Accomplishments: The Sweet Snell of Success
May 3, 2015 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 65 Commentsby: Mike
There’s admittedly a special place in my heart for left-handed pitchers already, but I’m falling hard for Blake Snell. The 22-year-old southpaw ranked 9th in my Rays Top 10 prospects this offseason. Here’s what I said there: “His arsenal features a low-to-mid-90s fastball, plus slider, and plus changeup. His ceiling is more of a mid-rotation starter, but in deep leagues he’s a prospect worth checking in on just in case he figures out his control and takes another step forward. He will face a bigger challenge in 2015 when he gets his feet wet in Double-A.” His feet are officially wet. After just four games in High-A, Snell was promoted to Double-A Montgomery and made his first start Friday night. He responded with six scoreless innings, striking out eight while allowing just one hit and one walk. On the season, Snell has now pitched 27 innings and has yet to allow a run. He has struck out 35 batters and opponents are hitting just .124 off him. If you’re in a deeper dynasty format with some minor league slots to fill, I’d be getting on the Snell train. Here’s what else is happening around the minor leagues…
Please, blog, may I have some more?To many, 1993 is considered the watershed moment in Hip-hop’s golden era. Classic album after classic album was released over that year. It’s the only year I can think of that’s in the title of an all-time hip hop classic. Some might even argue a top 10 song of all time within the genre. I’m of course talking about the Souls of Mischief classic and title of this post. If you don’t know by now I like to ramble about something that has nothing to do with baseball in my intro. This is to set the stage for the theme of the week’s two start pitching tiers. This week we delve into the greatest years in hip hop. Why? because if there’s one thing I know better than baseball it’s soccer… oops, I mean hip-hop. Then again soccer is pretty awesome….did you know we have a site here on Razzball where we talk about it exclusively? My plugs are shameless like William H. Mace, better have legs like B-Ham if you wants to keep pace, lace the track, dutchies dipped in honey, two start pitchers ain’t nothing move but the streamonator $. Okay now back to the lecture at hand, perfection is perfected…. What’s perfection? Why the greatest years of hip-hop of course. So I’ll discuss this week’s two start pitchers in relation to each great year in hip-hop and share some science on the top jewels to drop in the tier’s title year. If I missed any years or albums let me know. Hell drop some of your favorite jams/albums/miscellaneous stories about your mom’s slutty college experiences in the comments. I like to talk about all those things…
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Call the Sons of Sam Horn! Get Matt Damon on the line! Someone tweet @RemDawg! Unfreeze Ted the Head! Avengers Assemble! The Red Sox are set to promote their next top super-prospect, Blake Swihart, today to serve as the primary catcher while Ryan Hanigan is on the shelf. If the legends spoke of in ancient Fenway lore are true, he could be the one who will bring balance back to a Red Sox pitching staff that has looked somewhat questionable in the early going. A late first round pick in 2011, Swihart gathered a lot of buzz in spring training this year after slashing .333/.375/.533 with a HR and 8 RBI. In 18 games with AAA Pawtucket this year he’s hit .338/.392/.382 with 3 doubles and 11 RBI. With just 22 home runs in five minor league seasons I wouldn’t expect much power from Swihart, but as a spray hitter the bat certainly seems to be major league ready. Initially, Boston felt Swihart’s defense needed a bit more seasoning in the minors, but there is unquestionably some offensive upside, especially in Boston’s heavy hitting, run scoring line up. Here’s what Razzball’s prospector Mike said last week about Swihart, who was ranked #11 in his Prospect Power Rankings, “With the injuries and such at the catching position right now, folks will be chomping at the bit to add Swihart to their teams when he arrives.” He’s so right, you guyz, if your fantasy catcher situation is anything like mine, you’re cycling out a cast of characters the likes of Nick Hundley, Tucker Barnhart, Crash Davis and Caleb Joseph, some of whom do more harm than good. I’d take a chance on Blake Swihart if you need a catcher, he’s owned in less than 5% of ESPN leagues but as soon as Brandi-Lynn from Southie finds out everyone will know so act quickly. There is potential runs and average here, and like every Sawx prospect, there is all that sweet, sweet upside, so here’s hoping Blake can rake.
Here’s what else happened in fantasy baseball Friday night:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
I’m going to have to wait until at least 9pm PST to see if I am going to win anything in a big ‘Guaranteed’ entry. Particularly because I am going to start a lot of players in the late games. The pacific time zone graces DFS nearly every night, making you east-coasters fall asleep before the end result. Today will especially be a patient DFS day as the last two games of the day are between the Rockies/Padres and the Diamondbacks/Dodgers, and I love the hitter match-ups in both games. However, I am mostly targeting Padres’ hitters. The Rockies are starting Jorge De La Rosa. In 2 starts this season he has pitched 7 innings, allowing 9 earned runs, and 13 hits. It is still too early in the season to focus on such a small sample, but the career BvP some of the key Padres’ hitters have had against De La Rosa makes for great late night plays. Matt Kemp’s career BvP against De La Rosa is 17-41 with 3 home runs, 15 RBI’s, and a 1.237 OPS. So no matter what, make sure Kemp is in your lineup. Justin Upton is 8-21 with 5 walks, Jedd Gyorko is 11-16 with 5 walks, Alexi Amarista is 3-9, Yonder Alonso is 2-9, Derek Norris is 2-2, Yangervis Solarte is 2-6, and even Wil Myers has 2 at-bats against him, one of them being a base hit. Regardless of how many career at-bats, I’ll be trying to squeeze in as many Padres’ hitters in my lineup as possible. You’ll also be happy to know that De La Rosa has a career 4.70 ERA on the road, and if there is a way for you to get even more excited, he has a career 4.81 ERA in 798 innings with a worse than 2:1 K/BB ratio in night games. So before you fall asleep and wake-up to an accidental butt text, get on your smart phone at 8pm EST and plug in those Padres!
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?
As has been the theme since day one of this series, I’ve been stressing the fact that you shouldn’t panic. The fantasy season is still very young, (very fragile, like your mom, sure), but anything can happen in any amount of short time anywhere. SO META. For example, does anyone think they’d notice Evan Gattis going 12-for-73 in the month of June? Probably not, as the first month of the season shines an unfair spotlight on a player’s production (or lack thereof). Also, Evan Gattis isn’t really that good, which probably would have an affect on someone not noticing as well. While the majority of players (that aren’t suffering from an obvious injury or velocity loss specifically with pitchers) it’s been fairly easy for me to say, “It’s April”… well, that actually doesn’t ring true any more. Nope. Instead, I’ll just simply say “It’s May.” Now, if there are some players in a few more weeks that are wildly off their career norms, then we can talk. But until then, have patience, but here something you can do… and that’s start assessing your needs, wants, dreams and start gauging the market for those things you seek out. Excuse me while I go search the free agent wire for a date… Anyhow, follow me after the jump to take a look back at what was week four AND a look forward on all things Razzball, including some player suggestions for next week, straight from Razzball’s Streamonator, Hitter-Tron, and DFSBot!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
True story: in a 15-team league last year, I toyed with dropping Corey Kluber in April. He was being dropped in multiple leagues, most shallower than mine. If you think I’m crazy as a loon wearing a “I’m crazier than a loon” t-shirt, you have selective memory about him from last year. I decided to stick it out with Kluber and he ended up winning the Cy Young last year. This true story, of course, makes me sound even more moronic than usual. It also highlights a point, Kluber likes the cold weather about as much as a chapped nipple. Or maybe he just takes some time to get going. Either way, his Aprils have been forgettable for the last two years. This year, his April is actually better than last year’s by any measure that means anything. His K-rate is up, ground balls are up (not literally), fly balls are down (literally), xFIP is way down, walks are down and his K/BB is up. You have to do some serious digging to find something that is negative for him this past month other than his ERA. His velocity is down a hair (0.5 MPH on his fastball) and his line drive rate is up (people are making better contact). Everything else is nails, and not as in Lenny “Nails” Dykstra just invested me in this mutual fund and I lost my retirement savings. There’s some worry to some that Kluber threw too many innings last year. That’s not a worry. He’s 29 years old; a jump in IP from one year to the next is for pitchers 25 years and younger. Also, plenty of great analysis here and elsewhere has shown that jump in innings isn’t the end all/be all, even if it applied, which it does not. As the weather warms up, his sensitive nips will be less dry and he’ll likely have months of a sub-2 ERA. If you can buy him now, do it. Quickly! Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Week 5 of the fantasy baseball season will be underway on Monday and now is the time to start preparing. Adding quality players off the waiver wire isn’t the easiest thing to do in deep leagues, and that’s why we’re here to help.
In this week’s edition of “Deep Impact”, I’ll be discussing a few players who can give you an edge in the stolen bases category – one SAGNOF and two who can provide more than just speed. As per usual, ownership percentages are taken from ESPN.com, but since every league has different settings, I can’t guarantee every player I suggest will be available in each of your individual leagues. Let’s not waste any more time ¡Ándale!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Perhaps the title to this week’s post was influenced by the fact that I just watched Miguel Cabrera smack a 432-foot home run for his second of the day, bringing his season total to 5 home runs and 83 fantasy points. Don’t look now, but Miggy is batting .370 and is quietly climbing his way to the top. Or perhaps today’s title has been influenced by the fact that, as I write this, I am also in the process of packing my bags to get ready to take my family to Disney World. Actually, I am certain it’s a combination of both.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
You do it every day in your regular fantasy leagues when you stream hitters or pitchers and yet something holds you back at times in the DFS world. You see a matchup that is exploitable for fantasy goodness and you use it if you’re in your roto league. Then you go about setting your lineups over on DraftKings, pay for Matt Harvey and Max Scherzer and move on. Where’s your sense of daring there? Of all places to get a little bolder, it should be in your DFS world. Ya only got one day to be Wright or Wong and as Jigsaw would say, ‘make your choice’. So with that in mind and with the obvious names already named so I don’t have to talk about them later, let’s move on to a good GPP play for today in Roenis Elias. First off, for those who aren’t plugged in to the MLB world, this isn’t a random call up for the Mariners. Roenis pitched 163 innings for the Mariners last year, finishing the year with a 3.85 ERA and a 7.86 K/9. All this to say, we’re not dealing with a random spot call up. The kid has major league ability and against an Astros team that Ks 24.2% of the time against LHP, you could have a cheap 7 to 8 Ks today. Wanna spend up for the big two instead? Be my guest but on a slate featuring 28 pitchers, I’m looking for the arms that’ll give me room to get bats that’ll put me over the top. And with a lede out of the way, lets turn to other hot takes for the May 1st DK slate…
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?Imagine Gangsta Gangsta’s Ice Cube singing, “With a right left, right left you toothless, and then you say goddamn they ruthless,” but not coming out of Ice Cube’s mouth, but out of Glass Joe’s mouth from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. Imagine Mola Ram reaching into a chest and ripping out a heart. Only instead of Mola Ram, it’s Arvid from Head of the Class. Imagine the head Neo-Nazi from Oz, walking into your shower, only instead of him it’s the guy from the Farmers Insurance commercials…Oh, wait, that’s the same guy. Those were the sort of visions Chris Sale must’ve been having when he looked at the Twins. We see nerds, he sees Ice Mola Cube Ram Nazis. The Twins scored eight runs on him in three innings and, without looking at a box score, you can’t even imagine who did that damage. Brian Dozier? Yeah, he went 2-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Joe Mauer? Yup, he went 3-for-5, 1 run, 2 RBIs. Eduardo Escobar? Okay, now you’re cheating. You would’ve never guessed Eduardo Escobar. Up until two seconds ago, you thought Eduardo Escobar was Pablo’s peacenik brother. Sale’s ERA is up to 5.32, but that’s almost entirely due to last night. If his owner is panicked, I’d look for a little sale on, um, well, you know. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Razzball.com and the Razzball logo units are copyright Razzball LLC.