Podcast: “I Should Be Worried If You Ever Meet My Cougar”

April 6, 2015 | All Podcasts | 43 Comments

The season is here baby, wooooo! Let’s get this noise goin’! On today’s podcast, Grey and JB recap the final pieces of news before the season hits, but recorded before the Braves sold everything that wasn’t nailed down! Speaking of nailing, we then recap our RCL Perts league draft where Grey nailed all his picks and JB didn’t get any action (story of my life in high school), picking last. Nice guys finish last! At least, that’s what I imagine the draft automator thinking when pulling that ish. Then we go through The Official 2015 Razzball Picks with our seasonal calls, wrapping up with our World Series picks. Sky, before you listen, know that I love you… Here’s the opening day edition of the Razzball Baseball Podcast:

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See all of today’s starting lineups

#	MLB Starting Lineups For Sun 8/3
	ARI \| ATH \| BAL \| BOS \| CHC \| CHW \| CLE \| COL \| DET \| HOU \| KC \| LAA \| LAD \| MIA \| MIL \| MIN \| NYM \| NYY \| PHI \| PIT \| SD \| SEA \| SF \| STL \| TB \| TEX \| TOR \| WSH \| ATL \| CIN \| OAK

DraftKings: Opening Dei Ex Machina

April 6, 2015 | DraftKings | 19 Comments

by: Sky

Greetings y’all, it is finally here! You use Greek in the title and then go hillbilly in the lead paragraph? Look, my ghost writers are very diverse in their backgrounds, m’kay? Gotta let them wax poetic as they want to. Or wax period, honestly. Could use some help with my eyebrows right now if we’re being honest. It’s the one thing me and The Brow have in common. Oh no, a basketball joke on a baseball blog; worlds are colliding! Anyways, opening day is here and that’s both a blessing and a curse in the world of DraftKings. You see, on the one hand, the season is starting and we’re excited. On the other hand, all that data mining you did last year to aid your own ascent up your tourney rankings? Might as well grab the paint thinner and start the Mona Lisa over because plenty of things don’t matter any more. We now have to aggregate some data from over the years and weigh some things out, carry the two, multiply by the square root of an isosceles triangle…OR you can get your subscription to the DFSBot started today and take a look at some of the data I’ll be looking at for today’s slate. How’s that for a god from the machine? But more to the point, it’s opening day and time for some fun. There’s the $100K Moonshot Tourney out there as well as a free $15K Tourney if you’re new to DK and sign up through us. But how do I do such a thing, you ask? Click on the underlined ‘DraftKings’ in this opening paragraph. No, I won’t tell you where it is. Treat it like this is a game of ‘Where’s Waldo’. PS, I referenced a child’s game because this search shouldn’t take that long…I’m still waiting…alright, just gonna have to leave you laggards behind because we have to get this show on the road. Here’s my red hot takes for the Opening Day 2015 Fantasy Baseball 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.

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Let’s (Pretend To Own People Who) Play Ball!

April 6, 2015 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 743 Comments

by: Grey

Ma nishtana, how is tonight different than every other night? Because there’s some G-D regular season baseball! Ah fanabla! The Padres aren’t wasting any time with bird sex or Joaquin Benoit either as they traded for Craig Kimbrel. Why do I get the sense that the Padres played 2,500 games of Strat-o-Matic this offseason and on Saturday it was 1249 to 1249 and they were like, “Nuh-uh, we didn’t pay $750 million in free agents to tie the World Series. We need to get to that twelve hundred and fifty-first win!” Then the Padres’ management patted themselves on the back saying they were Strat-o-Maticians like that wily Epstein guy. Then another Padre official even said he thought that guy’s name was Wily Epstein. So, Benoit now has the value of a film degree in Hollywood. “Well, we were gonna let Spielberg direct this film, but this guy over here has a Master’s degree!” In Atlanta, Jim Johnson or Jason Grilli could close games. A Braves official said Juan Jaime could even close games. I’m pretty sure he made up the name Juan Jaime. Grilli seems the most likely candidate, and this has all the makings of a situation where you’re so pumped to be the first one to the waiver wire to grab him until Grilli is actually closing games and giving up three runs in the one lead the Braves have every two weeks. Let’s get out of the lede to talk about the rest of the trade and actual baseball that was played last night! Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend for fantasy baseball:

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Creeper of the Week: Mounting Everth, and the Top 100 Hitters, Week 1

April 5, 2015 | Creeper of the Week, Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 233 Comments

by: J-FOH

It’s really hard to pick a Creeper for Week 1. I asked myself, do you suggest a player the Razz army all drafted but is undervalued everywhere else? Is telling them to drop a player they drafted for my one week call a good idea? Why does Sky wear running shorts in the shower? How do I know what he wears in the shower? The latter is because I shared a hotel with him during Spring Training (insert winking emoji) and the former is why we are here. Welcome back to Sundays everyone, no not you troll…okay, you can come on over and troll. I don’t mind. Everth Cabrera is a recipient of opportunity this week and like we say around here SAGNOF! Why not start now? Unlike a diet in January this is a regiment that needs to be stuck to for the next six months. Yes we play for six months here. I don’t want any of that, I’m out of it in June B.S. from any of you. You might be surprised what can happen if you stick it out. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

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Deep Impact: Rock the Vogt

April 5, 2015 | Deep Leagues | 14 Comments

by: SethDaSportsMan

By now, most of you have drafted your fantasy baseball teams, and while there may be a few stragglers, the majority of you will be turning to Razzball for in-season info, not draft info. You can no longer wait till the wee rounds of your home league to grab that super sleeper you have been pining for since the Winter Meetings. Adding clutch players will either have to be done via trade or the waiver wire. In my weekly “Deep Impact” series, I’ll be focusing on the players that you can acquire from the latter from of those transactional options — the waiver wire pick up.

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2015 RazzNasty Dynasty Draft

April 5, 2015 | Our Leagues | 117 Comments

by: Mike

J-FOH is a man of many talents, one of which is brainstorming good ideas. Well, not all of them are good. But when the hateful one approached me with the idea for a new in-house dynasty league here at Razzball I was pumped. It’s a 16-team league that consists of Razzball writers and frequent commenters. This was the inaugural 40-round snake draft and included both MLB players and prospects. I’ll be the league’s commish. All that means is that I put on my Burger King crown to send the league emails. The draft took place in late February – spanning 10 days, two continents, and featuring ONE OF THE MOST EPIC DRAFT ROOM CHATS OF ALL TIME.

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Two-Start Pitchers, Week One: 1’s and 2’s for ALL!

April 4, 2015 | Two Start Fantasy Starters | 79 Comments

by: Geoff

Can you smell that? Can you? It’s the smell of a brand spanking new baseball season about to begin and with it, the smell of popcorn, fully chewed Redman, hot dog-flavored water, and gun powder. Why gun powder? MURICA! That’s why! What are you a bunch of red commies that hate freedom? No?!?! Good! Now that we’ve established your patriotism, let’s move on to our first two-start pitcher post of the young season. As I did at the end of 2014, when I took over this ship, I’ll break down all of the starters into a few tiers based on quality of the pitcher and then of course their matchups. To back up just why I’m placing each pitcher into a particular tier, I’ll provide stats on the pitcher and the lineups they’re facing. Considering the only data I have at this point in the season to go on will be last year’s numbers…and what good are those? I’m going to skip this step and just do my rankings and usual blurbs per tier. After all, it is Week 1, and much like a toilet in a unisex bathroom, we’re dealing with everyone’s 1’s and 2’s. Plus, we have plenty of tools to help you figure this stuff out… So sit back, relax, catch ya contact, sip ya cog-ni-ac, and feel free to share your perspective in the comments. I didn’t think the last part about laundering money applied.

Shameless Plug Alert!!!! When you’re done here, head on over to Razzball Soccer and catch all the goodies that Smokey and I are providing for Fantasy Premier League!! Do it!

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RCL Update: A Peek at RCL Greatness

April 4, 2015 | Our Leagues | 48 Comments

by: VinWins

Welcome to the 2015 edition of the RCL Razzball Champion’s League. No matter how the season plays out and what the stats say, I will be claiming this is the best and toughest RCL. The 12 owners had 8 of the top-20 teams in 2014, and 17 of the top-50. The draft (April 1) was interesting as only 55 SPs were selected, compared to the RCL average of 81.6. 68 RPs were grabbed as well.

Here is the Team-By-Team breakdown, including the Vegas odds on winning the Champion’s League title…

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This Week In Razz… Opening Day is Here!

April 4, 2015 | Daily Notes | 116 Comments

by: Jay

Welcome to the first official “This Week In Razz”, because we all know how good it is to be in Razz. Technically, last week was the first official post of this series, but that was more of a “welcome to the site, here’s what you can expect” type of thing. So I guess we had two beginnings, which means twice the fanfare, twice the laughter, and twice the, uh, yeah, I ran out of stuff that we got double of. Whiplash may work here. Regardless, I’m here to go over the week that was, in case you missed anything here on Razzball, and to go over what to expect next week…and what a special week it’ll be. Baseball finally starts, with Sunday being sorta-kinda-you-just-get-one-game Opening Day, and then Monday brings baseball to 100% operating levels. Unless you’re a fan of the Phillies. Then you’re really just working with 18 or so percent. But that’s okay! You have Philly Cheesesteaks, Chip Kelly innovating, I don’t know, stuff I guess, and yeah. Batteries to throw at people I guess? It could be worse! I mean, you could be living in Cleveland! (I’m kidding. Maybe.) So follow me after the jump to take a look back AND a look forward on all things Razzball. (Including helpful tips using Razzball’s Streamonator, Hitter-Tron, and DFSBot!)

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Does A Hitter’s Last 3-5 Games Matter For Projecting Their Next Game’s Stats?

April 3, 2015 | 2023 Fantasy Baseball | 77 Comments

by: Rudy Gamble

Razzball’s daily fantasy baseball tools – Streamonator, Hittertron, and DFSBot – are available by subscription in 2015. If you play in roto leagues with daily roster changes or Daily Fantasy Sports like DraftKings, these tools will rock your world. Please see our Subscriptions page for details – including how to get a free subscription by opening up a new Daily Fantasy Sports account.

Fantasy baseballers are becoming increasingly analytical. Estimating a player’s future batting average now reflexively leads to checking their BABIP, their batted ball profile (GB/LD/FB) and a hitter’s K%. Any discussion of a pitcher’s ERA will likely reference their FIP/xFIP/SIERA/etc. Aside from the whole bastardization of baseball outcomes for the illusion of empowerment and erosion of professional productivity, the average fantasy baseballer is much closer in perspective to a sabermetrician than the average fan watching from his/her couch (or the remaining indoctrinated baseball journalists that still roam the land).

One area where I admit I have a tough time reconciling my analytic side with my fantasy baseball instincts is the value of a hitter’s recent performance.*

* I know many fantasy baseball players look at hitter/pitcher matchup data. I think the chapter on this in The Book clearly drives home the point that these results are not predictive because of small sample sizes. I always ignore matchup data and think it is a total waste of time…well, except for Goldschmidt vs Lincecum

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Points Leagues: Bryant Park Closed For The Spring

April 3, 2015 | Points Leagues | 112 Comments

by: malamoney

Those of you that live in the New York City area or have visited the world’s greatest metropolis have likely walked past Bryant Park. Perhaps you even stopped to take a leak or even sat down on a nice sunny day to do some fantasy baseball research and adjust your lineup. Located between between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan, Bryant Park is actually built on top of an underground building containing the archives for the New York Public Library. I know… who gives a shift. Besides, I’m more of a Washington Square Park kinda guy anyway.

For those of you that thought Bryant Park was the name of the Chicago Cubs spring training stadium, guess again. That would be Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona, which happens to be the largest spring training stadium (by capacity) with room for 15,000 people. [Jay’s Note: Had amazing sight lines, rugged, yet modern feel. 8/10, would go again.] I think that translates into 25,000 little people, but my math could be wrong. Despite his herculean efforts this spring, not only did they not rename the stadium after him, but Kris Bryant was denied the opportunity of being on the Opening Day roster. Instead, Theo Epstein gave us all some bullshart excuse that he needs more time in the minors. Listen Theo, say what you want, but there isn’t a baseball fan north of the border that doesn’t believe this isn’t a service time maneuver. I’m not a Boras fan, but I love how he called him out on this. Even Cubs manager Joe Maddon has said that he’d love to have him in the lineup. I guess I’ll see you in a few weeks Kris.

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RCL Update: Passing the Judgement Hat Around

April 3, 2015 | Our Leagues | 86 Comments

by: J-FOH

Jay has set the table or whatever he was talking about last week with spoons, knives and whatnot. I think he needs to eat before he writes these. Well if I’m reading him right, that is my queue to grab the tablecloth and pull it out while leaving all the table settings perfectly in place. *Grabs cloth, pulls hard* CRASH! No, not Davis…well, the place setting is ruined, literally broke everything with one fell swoop. Okay, I actually jacked all the silverware and pawned it to pay for my anti-depressants. This is a sign my friends and detractors that opening day is almost here. Draft time is cute like a puppy where we are full of hope and optimism, unless you drafted Stroman, Salazar, Wheeler, and Darvish. Now the season begins and it turns into a dog that pisses on your pillow, craps in your shoes, and turns your socks into swiss cheese. Why all the cynicism J-FOH? It’s who I am, and the chances of you having a perfect draft is as likely as Grey getting that restraining order Giancarlo slapped on him lifted. Give it up Grey, it’s not happening. Seriously, it’s time for reality to start as we see how our educated guesses/luck/gut instincts/stat crunching/strategies start to pan out. Here is to not having an unlucky year *toasts 40ozer to computer*.

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