You’ve got to be schlitting me, right? There’s actually a pitcher with the last name Schlitter. I was watching a Cubs spring training game last week and this guy was on the mound. It was literally a mound of schlit. I wonder… when he has an awful outing and someone asks him how he pitched, does he say “schlitty”? Another pitcher with an interesting last name is Jeff Manship. Manship! Sounds like the Carnival Cruise line that doesn’t allow any females. Or perhaps it’s the mode of transportation that Sean Doolittle will be offering to the dudes he bought tickets for to fill the seats in Oakland on LGBT Pride Night. And what about Josh Outman of the Atlanta Braves. Is he the guy that told everyone who secretly bought a ticket for the man ship? Any chance Josh Phegley is on that list? Wow, that really got outta hand fast. Did anyone throw a trident?
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I recently went on a cruise. Now if you have ever been on one, you know there are way too many things to do, way too much to eat, and way too little space in your room. If you have not been, here is how a typical day goes. You wake up and bump into the wall getting out of bed. Next, look at the schedule written in probably 2 point font because they put 8 million bits of information on it. You’ll probably be hungry by now, no matter what time of day it is, so you decide to go to the buffet. Now on this buffet is anything you could ever imagine… well if you can imagine every TV dinner at Wal-Mart already cooked for you. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good things to eat on this buffet, it’s just hard to tell what they are because it’s just not appealing to the eye. Today’s pitching slate is one gigantic cruise buffet. There are so many unappealing options, but there has to be something good buried beneath the mess. Let’s take a look:
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?163 pitches, 16 Ks, 7 BBs, 1 H. That’s what Nolan Ryan used to do before going to chop some wood and bulldog some steer. The only pen Ryan ever needed was to house his horses. Yesterday, that was, how do I say this, an interesting start by Trevor Bauer. He went 6 IP, 0 ER with 11 strikeouts. He didn’t allow any hits, but he gave up five walks in 111 pitches. I feel like I should get half-credit for Bauer’s start on teams where I drafted Danny Salazar. Can I call him Tranny Bauerzar or will that upset my LGBT readers? My new favorite spring training stat that means nothing: Bauer’s 26 to 1 K to BB ratio. Bauer looked unhittable for the whole game. Depending on whether or not the Astros hitters decided to swing, it resulted in a strikeout or walk. It was like Randy Johnson in his early years when if hitters swung, they’d strikeout. If they sat there, they’d walk. The “Do You Feel Lucky…Plunk” approach to pitching. I’ll demonstrate as a hitter’s inner monologue, “I’m feeling lucky…Gonna step into this one and drive it… Jesus…That almost plunked me, I’m gonna swing wildly and get back to the dugout.” This approach can also be found in most Little League games. If Bauer’s unowned in your league, I wish I were in your league! Grab him! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?If you take a look at the overall landscape of major league baseball, several things are likely to become apparent fairly quickly. The Padres are pulling out all of the stops in the hopes of contending this year. The Braves are not. Mike Trout is an elite professional baseball player. Skip Schumaker is not. The Cubs are a team that’s on the rise. Veteran offseason additions (Lester, Fowler), a new big ticket manager, and an impressive collection of young organizational talent (Rizzo, Bryant, Soler, Russell) has fans dreaming of finally breaking the longest championship drought in professional sports. Amidst all of the hoopla, Starlin Castro seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle somehow. Or has he?
Please, blog, may I have some more?Really closers…really? It took all of two whole days for the save-nami to wash away all people’s hope and dreams. Maybe this is the end of days, you know the one where Arnold starts crying? Yet he didn’t cry in Commando, and they kidnapped his daughter who happens to be a fantasy fave in Alyssa Milano. Strange, uncontrollable apocalyptic things… tears, only daughter kidnapped… killing people. Well, since every team basically has three games under their belts, is it too early to start analyzing the bullpen situations to date? It kinda is, the patterns aren’t there for me to read, as usage is the first indicator for anything. Second is chafing. So instead of looking at the Holds situations this week (which I will come back to next week, I promise), we will take a look at the situations that are boggling our minds and flooding our rosters with handcuffs and middle relief hopefuls. It’s not an ideal situation for fantasy rosterbating, because it locks up so many bench spots if you are in the ever evolving chase for savedom. So enjoy the snippets, with some of general perspective on the relief corps. And for giggles I have updated the closer ranks to reflect all the trades, injuries and demotions.
In case you’re sick of baseball already, come on over and join me for some Fantasy Premier league action, it so easy all you have to do is click a tab located at the top that says Soccer. Read and enjoy. It’s like a good book that you play with your feet.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Being a consumer of Razzball for years, I’m sure many of you already participate in or know OBP or On-Base Percentage league(s). The metric has eased into MLB broadcasts (along with OPS) as an advanced way of measuring player value and performance. During the course of the season we will look at OBP, OPS, WQS, OPS, RC27 and assorted other measurements to put a lens on how these scoring leagues may differ from standard leagues. This is not a commentary on what type of leagues you should play in, I enjoy playing in all kinds of baseball leagues, Head to Head, Rotisserie, etc… The idea is to provide you some insight, which I hope is helpful regardless of your favorite format.
For the opening week of 2015, I hope you’ve avoided a closer surprise (injury or trade for instance), a starter clutching his arm, or an ex-MVP suddenly hurting his ribs. If you have avoided this, your lineup can benefit with a speculative stash, so stay right here. Most fantasy leagues allow 2 DL spots, look around your league, someone is using them to stash value right now. I didn’t remember to look at this until after I saw Matt Weiters come up in a league with his elbow being on the mend. For longtime RCL leaguers, apologies for “DL 101,” but if you’re new like me, take a look at your wire:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Happy Matt Harvey Day, everyone! Too bad the scheduling gods didn’t put it at night so we could have some serious DFS fun. Anywho, welcome. I could go on and on about what I do, and how I’ll be here each Thursday for your DraftKings advice, but we’ve been there and done that.
Let’s make you some cash.
Thursday is a weird day, and my spidey-senses tell me it’s going to be this way quite a few times this year. As a go-home day and an off-day, Thursday won’t be like your typical day for baseball. Today, we have games spread throughout the day, with only three night games.
Not cool.
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?If you had 75 hours into the season for when Joakim Soria would become the closer in Detroit, you win a brand new car*! *Prizes not included (there’s no car; stop being greedy, you instead get words pieced together by the Fantasy Master Lothario). The Tigers’ pen is more of a pencil and a dull one at that. Where for art thou, Willie Hernandez? My kingdom for Todd Jones! Poopie Grande by any other name is still Poopie Grande. That was Shakespeare, you ignant boo-boo! The Tigers did get better yesterday with Joe Nathan, hitting the DL with a flexor strain in his elbow. Like when you remove that hair from your lip mole, it’s addition by subtraction. For those of you that drafted Soria, well done. Hopefully, he keeps the job all year. If Barry Manilow can find love, anything’s possible. By the by, all this time I thought he put the emphasis on Dee in Mandy. Guess I was wrong. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?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.
In my previous ‘hot hitter’ post, I found that a hitter’s recent performance (measured as last 3 games and last 5 games) had no value in projecting next game performance once you account for the player’s known skill (as measured by Steamer Rest of Season projections) and the relevant gameday matchup info incorporated into our Hittertron/DFSBot (e.g., quality of opposing pitcher, handedness of opposing pitcher, park factors).
This post will cover whether recent performance by a starting pitcher helps improve the next start projections in our Streamonator and the pitching component of DFSBot.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Note: We’ve got real baseball games being played and I’m stuck in this theoretical auction world. If you’re not prepared to dive into coding and stat minutiae, maybe save your energies for my article next week. Fair warning…
If you were with us last time, I introduced a program that simulated an auction given a list of the participants, a list of the players to be bid on, and lists of how much each owner valued each player. The reason I built this program was to learn more about auction strategy. The issue with my program was, even though it simulated auctions well enough, it was hard to glean any meaningful information from the results.
Please, blog, may I have some more?The 2015 fantasy baseball season is underway, and with it begins another year of prospect coverage here at Razzball. As always, I’ll be spinning everything from a fantasy perspective since that’s what we’re here for. During the offseason, I ranked my Top 50 Fantasy Prospects and covered each team’s Top 10 fantasy prospects in both the American League and National League. Whether you’re in a deep dynasty/keeper league looking to stock your farm or in a redraft league/RCL just looking for the next call-up to jump on, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a look at what’s on tap for this season’s prospect coverage here at Razzball…
Please, blog, may I have some more?One of the easiest things to do in DFS is to abandon ship. On Twitter, you can find all the folks you follow in total shambles over the results of the evening’s gameplan. So as you prepare for the next day, it would be real easy to see a good play but pass on it because you feel the burn of the previous evening’s results.
Rather than bailing on the play, there is no better time to double-down on that play, because there are going to be plenty of people who will not get on the boat again, leaving you to be the one to cash in on what you knew was a good play.
You have to have a cornerback’s mentality to have fun at DFS, otherwise you’ll find yourself with a Do-Not-Roster list longer than the player’s eligible. Do your research and trust your process. What you can’t trust is your own recency bias.
With that said, it takes a real thick-skinned player to go back to the well a third time when the other two times haven’t worked out. Yet, that’s exactly what I’m doing tomorrow when I have at least one lineup with a Milwaukee Brewer stack in it for tournament play.
The Brewers have scored a whopping two runs in their first two games, at home, against the not-so-intimidating Colorado Rockies staff. Wednesday they face Eddie Butler, a hard-throwing but otherwise hittable arm that occupies the three slot in the Rockies rotation. So, Adam Lind, Jonathan Lucroy, you’re not leaving my lineups just yet.
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?