Whats happenin’ all. I’m back again after a call to the pen. I’m steppin’ in, as I hold the pen. Lets go, lets get it. Lets begin… Friday was quite the night in honor of Jackie Robinson. There was so much I could have led off with here, Mets walking off to sweep Yankees, Slam Diego unloading on the Rockies, Gyorko store restocked, my bae Zac Gallen set a record (we’ll get to that), and Franmil ate a lot of BBQ. I love baseball. Like I said, a lot of great things to talk about but a certain rookie pitcher gave me the feels tonight in all the right ways…
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Derek Dietrich
Please see our player page for Derek Dietrich to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.
For next year’s All-Star Game: The best of the AL and NL will face off against just ex-Mets players. Maybe they can get Steven Matz (4 1/3 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 8.20) to pitch the Home Run Derby too. He’s useless otherwise. Oh, don’t worry, Matz is a great 2nd half pitcher, so wait until you see him around September 1st. Wrong city transpo line and total mixed metaphor, but the Nats T’d off on Matz like they were his daddy and Asdrubal Cabrera (4-for-4, 3 runs, 5 RBIs and his 2nd and 3rd homer) was in charge of doling out the punishment. Then Juan Soto (3-for-4, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer) was the uncle who came in to tell Asdrubal that the Mets had enough, only to wait until no one was looking and lay a noogie on them himself. Then, as Sexy Dr. Pepper left the room, he tagged in Treat Urner (3-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer) who laid all 155 pounds of himself into them. If the Mets ever let Pete Alonso go, he might be the first to hit five homers in a game. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Corbin Burnes So Hot He Gave Brett Anderson A Blister
July 21, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 208 Commentsby: Grey
Brett Anderson hit the IL with a blister on his finger. Shame really. Super, super sad news. *watches two-hour VHS titled, “Fist Pump Like Tiger Woods,” ejects the tape, stands up awkwardly, raises hand and FIST PUMPS* I’m doing it! I’m fist pumping! So, little ol’ Anderson was willing to play through it but the coaches were worried the compromised grip would affect him. Little ol’ Anderson said, “Gonna have to leave it to the other four horsemen.” Corbin Burnes wasn’t in my rankings, but if I were adding people, I would add him. (At this point, I’m only removing opt outs and seriously injured players, because it’s too late in game to be adding guys for drafts. If you’re following along, you know which guys I like more now.) So, Burnes works off three-point-seventy-five pitches. Not quite four, and operates in the fast lane with a 95+ MPH fastball, and a babymaking slider that produced a 52.1% strikeout rate and .188 BAA. The Milwaukee Burnes’ers’ Burnes had a 12.9 K/9 last year and has great command, though he didn’t show it. Looking for a breakout that is likely available in most shallower leagues? Burnes said, “Say goodnight, Bretty,” and you say hello to Corbin. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more? KC Orders A Royale With Franchy’s
July 17, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 116 Commentsby: Grey
The Padres traded Franchy Cordero to the Royals. Vincent Vega, “Franchy calls them the Royales with cheese.” If Padres keep trading away fun ballplayers, then Fernando Tatis Jr. better watch himself aka FTJ aka Fun The Jewels. First, the easy side of this trade. With Franchy packing up his red, white and blue flag (no stars), the Padres have an opening for Edward Olivares. They wouldn’t dare, would they? If they dared, then I might be interested. In Double-A last year, he went 18/35/.283, but he was a tad old at that level. Still those numbers are eye-poppers. His overall value until then was of a 4th outfielder (IRL, not IFL). Our Prospectonator (it projects every single rookie) has him down for 14/22/.244 over 162-game season. That’s honestly not bad. I don’t know if Olivares sees any actual playing time, or enough to make him worthwhile. I have added him to today’s Buy column that will be up in a few hours. Yes, that’s right! There’s a Buy this afternoon! Exclamation! (It was released yesterday to our Patreons.) My guess is Wil Myers, Tommy Pham and Trent Grisham are the outfield; Josh Naylor is the DH with, I guess, Ty France, and Edward Olivares is the 4th outfielder. With Franchy headed from the ocean to a-near-a-riverderci, he goes to an equally terrible hitters’ park, and likely still in a platoon. Only now his platoon is less about outfielders needing looks. Against righties, Maikel Franco possibly moves to the bench, and Hunter Dozier takes over third. But vs. lefties, Maikel gets in at third, Dozier moves to the outfield and Franchy is out of the lineup again. It’s pretty flat on fantasy value movement. But, as Franchy was told by Ty France, “If we are going to get men to wear berets, we’re gonna have to spread out.” Anyway, here’s what else I saw for fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more? Fantasy Baseball Strategy For A 60-Game Season: Home Runs
June 25, 2020 | fantasy baseball strategy | 72 Commentsby: Grey
Welcome back to another post that you never thought you’d read from a guy who never thought he’d write it! We’re sailing into uncharted territory, worried we could die from some unknown disease, while maybe carrying the unknown plague ourselves that will kill everyone else. “Argh! Name that team in Cleveland the Indians and lets get these 60 games going!” Guys and five female readers, if someone beats the 73 homer record in only 60 games, they have to count it even if the person is shooting up while in the on-deck circle, right? As Long John Silver once said, don’t want to go out on a limb, but c’mon. In a shortened season of 60 games, it will be imperative that you go after categories vs. players. Sure, use the fantasy baseball trade analyzer. (I clickbaited you and you didn’t even see it coming!) Roast your leaguemates with them quick-to-the-point-to-the-point-no-faking fake baseball trades, but you need categories and stats over player names. Who can get you home runs and how fast can they do it? How do we even figure that out? Luckily, this is a rhetorical question to tell you I have you covered like a blanket infected with lice. So, with a 60-game season, what is a fantasy baseball strategy for home runs?
Please, blog, may I have some more? Dodgers Wanted Mookie No Matter The Price
February 14, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 271 Commentsby: Grey
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Los Angeles is such an eco-friendly city that when a recent EPA report cited jet fuel as accounting for 17% of air pollution, the Dodgers went out and traded for Mookie Betts. See, this year’s All-Star Game is in Dodger Stadium, and now eleven of their players don’t have to fly anywhere for the All-Star Game festivities. Always giving, my great City of Angels, that’s not actually the city of the Angels, that’s Anaheim, but they call themselves Los Angeles and it’s nowhere near Los Angeles. Not confusing at all! Let’s just drool for a second at the Dodgers’ lineup: Betts, Muncy, Turner, Bellinger, Pederson/Pollock, Seager, Will Smith and Gavin Lux. If they trade Austin Barnes to the Astros for a trash can, then their 2020 title hopes will be sealed! Before you laugh, the Astros could use a catcher. So, Betts’s best will be in the starry skies of Los Angeles, and Rihanna might just start liking baseball again. “You’re cute with that silliness.” “Nah, seriously, I want to go bowling.” That’s Mookie and Rihanna on their first date. Betts is in the prime of his career, and I can’t see any chance a move to Los Angeles slows him down, however–Don’t do it, Grey! Don’t be negative here! Well, Fenway to Dodger Stadium isn’t the best move. Some of those doubles off the wall might go for deep outs to the left fielder. The Dodgers didn’t steal a lot in 2019 either, but that could be from a lack of threats. Justin Turner is running? Muncy? Bellinger did run, because he can. Betts should still be a lock for 15-20 steals, but I’m knocking his power down a tad with the park change. While his projections will change a bit, his ranking is staying the same in my top 10 for 2020 fantasy baseball. For what it’s Werth, Rudy’s auction rankings changed dramatically for Betts, knocking him way down, but Betts’s projections are even better than mine, as seen at the hitter projections. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this offseason for 2020 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more? Position Eligibility for 2020 Fantasy Baseball
December 24, 2019 | Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy, Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 78 Commentsby: Grey
On Dancer! On Prancer! On–Oh, I didn’t hear you come in. Welcome, reader! Grab some egg nog and brandy it up to the fire. You look festive. I love that Rudolph tongue ring. That’s the great thing about Christmas, no matter what your interpretation is, it’s all about commercialism. That’s unless you light the Munenori Kawasaki. The 2020 fantasy baseball rankings are not far away. Right now, January Grey is throwing darts at a board to figure out where to rank Shohei Ohtani, the hitter vs. Shohei Ohtani, the pitcher. Maybe I should use two dart boards. Hmm…In the meantime, let’s look at the players who have multiple position eligibility for this upcoming 2020 fantasy baseball season. I did this list of multi-position eligible players because I figured it would help for your 2020 fantasy baseball drafts. I’m a giver, snitches! Happy Holidays! I only listed players that have multiple position eligibility of five games or more started outside of their primary position. Not four games at a position, not three, definitely not two. Five games started. If they played eight games somewhere but only started one, they are not listed. 5, the Road Runner of numbers. So this should cover Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, et al (not the Israeli airline). Players with multiple position eligibility are listed once alphabetically under their primary position. Games played are in parenthesis. One big take away is Jonathan Villar started in, like, 200 games. That can’t be right. Oh, I know, they’re listed if they had 5 or more games started, but I noted games played in parenthesis, so Villar must’ve switched positions three times per game or played two positions at once because the Orioles only had seven fielders plus a pitcher. Don’t know, don’t care. Players are listed by Games Started, and Games Played are noted. It’s not confusing at all! This is the only time a year I do anything alphabetically, so I might’ve confused some letters. Is G or H first? Who knows, and, better yet, who cares! Wow, someone’s got the Grinchies, must be the spiked egg nog talking. Anyway, here’s all the players with multiple position eligibility for the 2020 fantasy baseball season and the positions they are eligible at:
Please, blog, may I have some more? Castillo Strikes Out Ten And a Trio
August 6, 2019 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 304 Commentsby: Grey
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It’s never too early to turn the page towards 2020. Which is what Hugh Downs used to say while wearing a smoking jacket and flipping through a script. By the way, Hugh Downs missed his porn actor calling. “Oh my God, that’s an Orca in your pants!” “Well, I ain’t Churchill Downs.” Fun Fact! Hugh Downs only wore slippers. Okay, okay, OKAY, enough about freakin’ Hugh Downs. This is like when Seinfeld was telling Bania to ease up on the Ovaltine jokes. Grey, you’ve got fifteen minutes of Hugh Downs! Let him go! I’d love to but he goes Downs so easy! So, Luis Castillo pitched another gem in a season of them (7 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 13 Ks, ERA at 2.63). His peripherals are equally gorge like Barbara Walters fluffing Hugh–I’ll stop! Castillo’s has a 10.8 K/9, 3.9 BB/9, 3.71 FIP and his fastball velocity is up and he’s throwing his change a lot more (26% to 32%). He kinda reminds me of another Reds pitcher, Trevor Bauer. Castillo’s ERA could easily be near-4 vs. near 2.50. Still like him, not saying make a chump dump like when Hugh Downs used to spend 30 minutes in the bathroom and blame Mike Wallace, but Castillo looks a lot better than Bauer in ERA, but for 2020 I don’t see a ton of difference. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
This is a Coors Field slate and the weather is going to be hot, so you’re going to want to jam Coors Field plays into your FanDuel lineups. The biggest issue in your quest for 4 Astros is that they are a right handed hitting lineup and Peter Lambert, while terrible, is actually pretty decent at keeping the ball on the ground vs righties (52.9% and 30.6% vs lefties), so you’re going to want to target him with fly ball righties and anyone who swings a bat from the left side. Alex Bregman (36.2%), Robinson Chirinos (33.3%) and Tyler White (39.4%) are the righties who keep the ball off the ground (Michael Brantley and Josh Reddick are the lefties who project to start and are good plays). But, Lambert isn’t someone who you avoid playing ground ball righties at Coors because he can’t get them to swing and miss at all (11.5%) so George Springer and Jose Altuve are fine plays due to the fact that you’re in Coors and those 2 are capable of making contact and they do have some raw power. On the other side, Miley is like Lambert in his ground balls, except he is fairly neutral in his splits. But he throws with his left hand and the 2 best plays on the Rockies when they face a guy who throws baseballs with his left hand just happen to be guys who hit the ball in the air with some frequency. Trevor Story (31.1%) and Nolan Arenado (36.5%) are the top plays, but this game environment is going to be so good, playing any 4 Rockies is acceptable as well.
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!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Sometimes a FanDuel slate is straightforward. There’s a Dodger pitcher, pitching at home, with a 1.26 ERA this year? Sign me up! Hyun-Jin Ryu ($10,600) is the man this year. He’s 9-1 with a 1.26 ERA and .82 WHIP this year. If the season ended today he would be the NL Cy Young award winner. He has a 0.45 ERA in June and a 0.87 ERA at home. He very well might throw a complete game shutout today. Now on the rest of 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!
Please, blog, may I have some more?[brid autoplay=”true” video=”425798″ player=”10951″ title=”Fantasy Baseball 2019 Mailbag Week 13″]
Jordan Yamamoto (7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 0.00) is the 1st pitcher to begin a career with back-to-back outings of 7+ scoreless while allowing three or fewer hits in the modern era. The modern era meaning from 1908, not from 2017 until now when baseballs were filled with helium, which caused Party City stores to close nationwide. This is exactly what everyone expected when the Marlins called up an 89-MPH fastball that was flame-retardant. “How fast does he throw?” A scout recently said to another scout who was holding a speed gun. “I’ll tell you when the ball passes the plate.” The scout sticks chew in his mouth, scratches his sweaty armpit, then, finally, “89-ish? Maybe. I might’ve just been taking a reading of that bird that flew overhead.” This goes back to my recently prophesied conspiracy theory that I introduced the other day regarding Zack Greinke. When everyone is throwing fast, it actually keeps hitters off-balance to throw slow. The Slow Pitch Theorized Conspiracy for Hardball (SPITCH) is fully realized now that it has an acronym. If you’re willing to gamble a bit, I could see grabbing Yamamoto in any league to see if he can keep it going. This could also hurt Zac Gallen’s chances of a promotion, and I don’t know who gets bumped for Caleb Smith. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
FanDuel: Put Some More Cole(s) On The Fire
June 14, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |by: Richardo
Welcome to the weekend fellow DFSers! We have a full 15-game slate on FanDuel for our Friday and I’m paying up for my pitcher tonight, so later in this article we’ll focus on finding some value bats. For now, let me introduce you to my main man, Gerrit Cole ($12,000). I know, I know, I’m sitting here telling you to play the most expensive pitcher on the slate. I originally started this write-up with a different title and planning a different intro, but once I dove in some more, I realized by recommending Max Scherzer, I was hyping the second best pitcher, both in terms of skills and matchup. For the season, Gerrit Cole outpaces Scherzer in both strikeout rate (38.6% to 33.3%) and SIERA (2.58 to 2.95). Both of those numbers for Cole leads all qualified starters. Today, Cole faces the Blue Jays and Scherzer gets the Diamondbacks. Toronto sits next to last in wRC+ against right-handed pitching and has the fifth highest strikeout rate. The Diamondbacks on the other hand have the 20th best wRC+ against righties and are middle of the pack in strikeout rate. Now that you know who the top pitcher on the FanDuel slate is, lets take a look at some other options, before getting to some value bats.
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!
Please, blog, may I have some more?A little birdie told me our 2024 Fantasy Baseball subscriptions are live. The little birdie also said it includes our Draft War Room. You really wanna lose in a fantasy baseball league to a little birdie? Would be kinda embarrassing, tbhhttps://t.co/1ag7IFSYS0
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