When it comes to DFS play nothing can kick you off your throne quicker than a cold streak. And I hit one last week. Playing daily fantasy sports can be a fun, lucrative and an absolutely maddening endeavor. No other sport has as much variance on a nightly basis. I often wonder why I put myself through this athletic sadism. Ok, I know why. I like pain the competition, I like the cash and I love baseball. Over the past week, your humble-but-nonetheless-royal Guru has had plenty of competition, not so much cash and nowhere near the love I deserve as I went just 23 for 40. I may be no draft king, but the bankroll increased a bit and I’m inching closer to a winter of fun in the sun. The problem is I may have to pass on Cancun and head to Coney Island. Hopefully, I have a little left over for the bail bondsman. If you want to join me poolside just hit the DraftKings link and you’ll get a free ticket for a contest with your first-time deposit. The winner of that contest gets entry into our $500k Showcase with a $100k top prize – that’s a lot of banana daiquiris. Also, if you haven’t fired up the DFSBot yet, check it out. It’s a great tool for your bag of tricks that’ll give you an advantage over the competition. I used it Monday for some Tim Lincecum love that banked big for me. Believe me, I needed it.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve shared some of my strategies when playing DFS baseball. If you missed them you can give a look here, here, and here. This week, let’s talk a bit about managing the budget. On DraftKings you get 50K to spend on two pitchers and eight positions. I usually spend 18- 22K of that on pitching which doesn’t leave a lot of room for mistakes with hitters. One of the questions I get asked a lot is if it’s okay to leave money on the table when constructing a team. I say, unless you’re a seasoned DFS shark, it’s best to spend to the cap or real close to it. I never leave more than $500 on the board and there are three reasons for that: 1) No projections are 100% accurate. Sorry, DFSBot, you’re good but no one’s that good. 2) More often than not your “optimal lineup” will be wrong. Ha! I know this sounds negative, but play DFS awhile and you’ll realize that not spending that leftover $800 will hurt. I found this out on Monday when I didn’t spend up for pitching and went with Tyler Lyons – he gave me -11 points. Yes, negative 11! 3) Finding cheap players that produce is necessary to win, but players are in the bargain bin for reason. If you see a player that usually has a high price tag is suddenly cheap there’s probably a reason for it – he has a bad matchup, he’s unlikely to play or he’s hurt. I saw a lot of people grab Mark Teixeira on Monday because the price was right in a great matchup. Unfortunately, he ended up not playing which left some people with a big fat zero.

With all that said, we have just eight games on the evening slate, a number of aces on the mound and some weather to pay attention to in St. Louis and Cincinnati. Here’s your dirty turbaned Guru’s lineup for Wednesday’s 5/14 contests on DraftKings for 2014 Fantasy Baseball. Good luck, cheers.