RCL Update: The Year That Was, 2018

Well, that’s a wrap everyone. Twenty-Six weeks down and now we have 26 more until the start of next year’s fantasy baseball season. It’s perfect symmetry, because fantasy baseball is the perfect fantasy sport. The Fighting Hams weren’t perfect, but they were good enough to squeak out an overall Razzball Commenter League Championship over 1-800-BETTSOFF. The Fighting Hams won by just 0.2 RCL points, the closest mark since 2014 when Colicky Fuddruckers won by just 0.05 RCL points. The Fighting Hams hung around the top 20 most of the season, entering the top 10 in week 14, but falling back out the following week. The Hams re-entered the top 10 in week 19 in 4th place overall and wouldn’t fall below 5th for the remainder of the season. In week 23 they took the overall lead and held it for the final 3 weeks to win the title. The Fighting Hams really rake it in, winning themselves a $250 Best Buy gift card! More importantly though, the Hams get a Razzball T-Shirt and RCL glory. Who can put a price on that? Oh, it’s $25, well then, moving on. I don’t believe The Fighting Hams have checked in via comments at all this year, but I could be wrong. Now would be a fine time to do so either way. It’s time to heap on the praise and accept your congratulations. The Hams fended off some very tough competitors this year to claim the RCL crown. I gave it a run, LauraHolt was pushing for a top spot for awhile there and Backdoor Cutters and STL Squat Cobblers are some of the best RCL players I’ve played with in my time. This is The Fighting Hams’ moment though, so hopefully they show up, take a bow and soak it up, they earned it.

Here’s what else what happened this year and this final week of the RCLs:

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Draft: The Lightning Struck Tower

September 30, 2018 | DFS, Draft | 2 Comments

by: Thomas Howland

For Harry Potter fans, the Lightning Struck Tower chapter is the end of an era. For us, it’s the final day of the 2018 Fantasy Baseball Season. A moment of silence for an incredible season of ups and downs, heroes and goats, legends in the making and fading into the distance….And let us now embark on our final day on the shoulders of the god of lightning himself: Noah Syndergaard. Thor is striking today against the lowly Miami Marlins, and thanks to his incredible teammate the deGrominator , the Norse Noah will be motivated to put his own indelible stamp on the MLB season. Not only do the Marlins hit him to a weak .686 OPS, but it’s a day game, and during the warm glow of daytime Syndergaard shines even brighter: 4-1 with a 2.61 ERA. Other big names are playing for teams that are locked into playoff position so will be on low pitch counts, like Charlie Morton and Carlos Carrasco, or rookies pushing themselves beyond what they’ve ever done, like Walker Buehler. It’s Noah Syndergaard with a lightening struck bullet as the number one pick today. Now let’s look at a few more early-, middle- and late-round picks for your Draft…drafts!

New to Draft? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care!

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FantasyDraft: Heading To Paxto(w)n Via Narrative City

September 29, 2018 | DFS, FantasyDraft |

by: MattTruss

Let’s be honest, the final week of the regular season can be a total crap shoot. This is the reason you don’t have H2H finals the final week of the year. Oh, you do? Well, you should give your commish a firm kick in the arse and tell them to get their head out of there ‘cuz that’s crummy with crackers. It’s for this same reason that cash games in DFS the final week of the season are a no-no. GPPs though, go for it. I’m basing my calls this week on pure narrative. The narrative for James Paxton ($19,600) is finishing the season on a high note and not finishing on the DL for once. The Rangers have been coasting the final month of the season, ranking 22nd in team OPS the final month. I’ve been picking on them plenty with pitchers of much less talent than Paxton. Paxton is my top choice over Kluber, who will likely only see a few innings and Nola, who is facing the Braves who still have something to play for. If you like a different narrative though, by all means, I’ll meet up with you in Narrative City.

New to FantasyDraft? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care!

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FanDuel: Glasnow Half Empty Or Half Full?

September 28, 2018 | DFS, Fanduel |

by: Richardo

Well, here we are. The last weekend of the regular season, which means withdrawal kicks in approximately 5 days from now. <flash to me curled up in a ball rocking back and forth muttering things like wOBA and reverse splits> I want to thank everyone who took the time to read my work. This is actually my first foray into writing and it’s been a blast! FanDuel has us set up for a 13 game slate, and by now, you’ve heard it 600 times; play guys who still have a reason to play. For me, that encompasses 2 categories; playoff teams fighting and youngsters playing their hearts out, trying to make an impression for next year. Tyler Glasnow ($6,900) checks the latter box for me. Glasnow was a top prospect in the Pirates farm system, but always seemed to struggle with his control. In 56 IP with the Pirates this year, Glasnow sported a 14.0% BB% (league average is around 8%); however, since his trade to the Rays, he’s lowered that to 8.0% over 50 IP, all while keeping his K% at a healthy 27.5%. Let’s explore the rest of this slate and see if we can discover some more value.

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

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FanDuel: Another Year Done the Full Go Round

September 27, 2018 | DFS, Fanduel |

by: cinthree

This is it! The last baseball article (for me) of the year, which means the end of the baseball regular season is near. I want to thank you, loyal readers for taking time out of your day to read this article every week and hopefully helping you win some contests. There are going to be a lot of players who wind up sitting and there’s going to be a lot of value opening up throughout the day so you must pay attention to all the released lineups. Additionally, many teams, both those with nothing to play for, and those who playoff-bound but are entirely set in terms of playoff positioning, will look to pull their players (both pitchers and position players) at the earliest opportunity. In short, there will be a lot of randomness and it won’t be easy to predict. To be quite honest, you shouldn’t be playing cash games on this slate with all the randomness. But, as I’ve stressed throughout the year, I’m a professional at cash game picks columns. If some of those ridiculous three or four game slates earlier in the year on Thursdays didn’t stop me, then the randomness of one of the final days of the season can’t stop me either. One general piece of advice I can give is to focus on the teams that still have something to play for – and while there are still a bunch of teams that have something to play for, most of them are either not playing today or playing in the early slate. There is exactly one team on the main slate that has something to play for – the Chicago Cubs. And while Trevor Williams is not the juiciest of matchups, the fact that the Cubs have something to play and no other team has anything to play for means I would target them first and foremost in cash games. Period. Then fill out with the values that will open up because teams are playing some of their rookies and call-ups at this point. Or just don’t play cash. On to the picks…

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

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Draft: Sippin’ Heaney

September 26, 2018 | DFS, Draft |

by: TroyKlauder

As Action Bronson once said, I’ll be “drinking Heaney like I’m Kenny Lofton” tonight on Draft. Andrew Heaney got rocked in his last time out, but it was against a tough lineup in the Astros. His task will be much easier against the Rangers, who have an awful .293 wOBA away from their hitter-friendly park at home. Heaney’s 3.79 SIERA and 3.66 Deserved Run Average suggest that he’s been better than his ERA. Draft him with confidence.

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RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 25

September 25, 2018 | Our Leagues, Razzball Commenters League | 9 Comments

by: MattTruss

It’s hard to believe there’s only one week to go in the Razzball Commenter Leagues. This marathon of a season has seen us torture ourselves for 25 long weeks, agonizing over batty calls, dipping into the streamers with mixed results, cursing players and praising others. We’ve ignored our families, our jobs and our personal hygiene and now it all comes down to the final week. You may smell like stale Funyuns, but dagummit, that virtual fantasy trophy is all yours! Speaking of trophies, The Fighting Hams are looking to lock down their overall RCL Championship trophy. The Hams have spent three weeks in the number one spot and with one week to go they added 2.5 points to their league total, bringing them to 113 points. Those 113 points along with the 103 League Competitive Index has them 2.9 RCL Points ahead of the competition. The Hams are getting hot at just the right time and we’ll see if they can hold on. More on the Hams and the rest of the week that was, week 25 below:

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Draft: Walker, L.A. Dodger

September 25, 2018 | DFS, Draft |

by: Roto-Wan

It has been my great pleasure bringing you plays on Draft.com this season. I hope it was a profitable one for you all. If it wasn’t, don’t let the lessons learned be easily forgotten. One of the biggest lessons for me every season is that you must continually reexamine your stance on players, especially young ones. Walker Buehler is an excellent example. He had a fine season. Suddenly he’s dominating. It’s very possible he’s taken the step to ace in waiting. Treat him as such. Good luck in your final week of MLB.

New to Draft.com? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

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Draft: Ace Day

September 24, 2018 | DFS, Draft |

by: Butters

Welcome into a sad day here at Razzball does Draft, the final Monday of the regular season. At least we get to go out with Ace Day as Corey Kluber, Luis Severino, Stephen Strasburg, and Clayton Kershaw are all scheduled to take the mound. You don’t need me to tell you that all 4 are great plays. In light of that, let’s go deep and look past the obvious pitchers. You should also keep in mind that things may change with the playoff races and I will take no responsibility… for anything. Anyways, thanks for being here and best of luck today.

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Top 100 Starting Pitchers, Week 26: The Green Miley

September 23, 2018 | Top 100 Starting Pitchers | 17 Comments

by: Dokken

Cheers to you all out there in Razzland as we dive headfirst into the final week of the regular season! It’s been a mega weird year for pitching. Between the whole Opener/Primary Pitcher thing catching fire and fewer starters pitching deep into games, starting pitching is turning into a relatively fluid position. Looking towards 2019, it will be very interesting to see not only where the Primary Pitchers are drafted, but where the other uber-relievers are taken. Josh Hader is the most prominent name of the bunch, but there are plenty of other useful long relievers like Chad Green, Jeremy Jeffress, and Collin McHugh that are terrific for cheap K’s and ratio stabilization in deeper leagues. Heck, even in 10-12 team leagues with no move limits they make great fill-in options between streamers.

Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ve got one week left in front of us, and if you’re reading this you are probably still in the fight. There’s less movement than last week since I weighted our SP’s by skill and opponent last week and now basically there’s just 1-2 fewer starts left on the table. I’ll roll through some of the more notable options for the final week of the season. I also wanted to thank all of you for reading this year. I was truly impressed by the great commenters. Even if you disagreed pretty hard with something I wrote, you presented your case respectfully rather than getting all Twitter angry. I hope I’ve been able to help your season in some way with my analysis. Good luck in your final week, and I’ll catch you next year!

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Draft: My My My My I’m so Happ(y)

September 23, 2018 | DFS, Draft |

by: Thomas Howland

When the leaves hint at turning and school has begun, and the penultimate Sunday of the fantasy season is at hand, Led Zeppelin always feels right. One pitcher channeling Celebration Day is the Yankees’ J.A. Happ. This guy is 6-0 with his new team and facing the moribund Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium. The Birds can only flail at Happ’s offerings: they hit .229 with a .683 against him lifetime. He’s #1 on the Streamonator for the excellent reasons stated above and a worthy first round pick. Now let’s look at a few more early-, middle- and late-round picks for your Draft…drafts!

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Two Startapalooza, Week 26: The Surfer Pirate Said Yarbrough

September 22, 2018 | Two Start Fantasy Starters | 2 Comments

by: Dokken

Welcome folks, to the final 2018 version of Two Startapalooza! Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the format, and with any luck I’ve been able to help you out in some way with these posts. The best of times are probably in the past, sadly, because if you need two start pitcher help here in the final week of the season, you’re in tough shape. Not only are a solid chunk of these guys probably going to get shuffled out of their second start, most of the pitchers that are widely available with two starts this week are…not good. Tiers 1 and 2 are where the action is at, but those guys are already owned, so just smoke ’em if you got ’em. Tier 3 does have some names that could be lower owned, like Cole Hamels, Kevin Gausman, or Derek Holland. Tier 4 is about as bad as it’s been all season, and at this point I don’t have to describe Tier 5 other than just to say: mucky muck. As with last week, keep a keen eye on the rotations up until the final minute, because they are apt to change quite a bit. Good luck this week!!

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