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Did you know that Rockies starter Chad Bettis is the only major league player in history with the last name Bettis? That means he’s the best Bettis, but he’s also the worst. What a claim to fame. The most famous Bettis of all time is NFL Hall of Famer and former Pittsburgh Steelers beast, Jerome Bettis. Here is something you already know: Chad ain’t Jerome. Hell, Chad doesn’t even play football. Does Chad have a restaurant in the town where he made most of his money? I didn’t think so. Anyway, we are talking about baseball since, you know, this is only Day 3 of the 2016 season. I love early season exploitation and that’s really what this is all about. Chad Bettis is the Colorado Rockies’ number two starter. His career ERA is 5.22. Just ponder that for a couple of moments. Do you see dollar signs yet? This is my first article here at Razzball and I’m happy to be aboard. At the end of the day it’s all about the Benjamin’s, baby. So let’s dog pile on Chad Bettis and kick off the first Tuesday of the season by being ballers and shot-callers. We deserve it.

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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Today’s starting pitching options leaves a lot to be desired in your DraftKings entry knowing that you have to two starters. However, one of my favorite young pitchers is starting, Michael Wacha. The obvious choice for your first pitcher is Tyson Ross, as he is pitching at home in Petco Park. When it comes to my second pitcher, I see Wacha is 7-0 with a 1.87 ERA and 1.04 WHIP on the season. His overall numbers look great except for his K/9 rate. It is an unimpressive 5.46, and even makes me wince when I see pitchers like Shane Greene at 5.80. The Dodgers will be his best opponent today, so when considering one of my young favorites in DFS, I’ll need to dig a little deeper and look at the less obvious statistics. In his last two starts he’s faced the Royals and Mets, both on the road. The Royals are a good hitting team, and the Mets were a good hitting team that has cooled off a bit. In those two games, Wacha allowed 9 hits in 54 plate appearances. He only allowed 2 earned runs in 14 innings pitched, and batters hit .180 against him. Wacha had a meager 9 strikeouts and allowed 4 walks in that span. This is a small sample size of course, but I like to look how pitchers have recently done when facing an upcoming juggernaut. But the main reason I am sold on Wacha as a good choice on DraftKings today is his career home/away splits. He is considerably a better pitcher at home in St. Louis. In 22 games started, he is 9-1 with a 2.31 ERA, a 1.00 WHIP in 120 innings pitched. He has a 3.43 K/BB rate, and a 7.70 K/9 rate. I dug through a few more uncommon stats, and found that Wacha has never faced the Dodgers before. I gotta Wacha fine line at that point and rely on the above mentioned. So although there are starting pitchers that are priced similarly as Wacha, I’ll go with the guy who has only lost once in 22 career home starts, and is facing a team he’s never pitched against. Take a look at some of my other DraftKings’ picks today.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 25 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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How do I follow up my Cinco de Mayo intro this past week? There is no Doce de Mayo holiday, even though it has a catchy ring to it. So if I can’t play the Mexican card, then what am I to do? I know, I can talk about you… no-no-no, I already do that for most of this post. Too much you and not enough me makes Jack a dull boy. There is nothing worse than reading me wrestle my personalities in print, I mean, that’s what I have a therapist for. Blah, I’m stumped, the only thing I’ve had going on was watching Daredevil on Netflix. It was required, or at least I think it was, by our fantasy master lothario, and let me tell you, it’s friggin awesome. Dark and violent? Yes, thank you, and please give me some more. Seriously though, go watch it and then come back and let’s talk. Okay, enough of that rambling, let me get back to you guys… and girls. We having fun yet? The RCL’s are starting to hit their stride, and if you are failing, it might be time to cut bait on a few lost souls. You still have lots of time to make up ground, but if they are showing no signs of life or are easily replaceable then I would do it. Elvis Andrus comes to mind, he is more frustrating than dating a girl with a chastity belt. He might be super relevant later but every day that he takes you farther down is another day you could be batty calling his spot til something sticks. Before I move on I have one last thing. Have any of you ever taken a massive one day nose dive in the standings, like 8 points bad, that allows some a**hole below you to jump into first place? This can also apply to the RCL’s and the Master Standings too. Well that happened to a friend of mine and I guess this a**hole had to go and bring it up in front of everyone like the d**k he is. Wait, can I type d**k? Anythehoo, we should have a glossary term for when your team takes a massive one day fall in the standings. Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

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How do you like your eggs? Scrambled? Hard-boiled? Sunny-side up? Fertilized (or Shawn Kemp style for you NBA fans)? Me, I like mine Odorizzi. What Egg puns using Jake Odorizzi‘s names are lame? Well soooooorry! You try and be super funny, relevant, and informative several times a week. This is hard work ladies and gents, and I’m in the trenches. What, I’m rambling? Sorry I’m coming off a three day coke binge and haven’t slept since Tuesday. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view drug abuse, that isn’t true. I just worked a ton of hours and have been spending my down time trying to digest baseball for these daily leagues and football for the fall. The work for a fantasy sports writer never ends. Or it never sleeps, or maybe that’s Wall Street, or money. Yeah I think it’s something with money. Either way my brain is now so filled with mundane factoids about baseball I yelled out wOBA while making love to my wife last night. And Yes, I have indeed taken up residence on the couch for the foreseeable future. Hey! I found a peanut M&M in between the cushions. Score! So what does all this have to do with Jake Odorizzi? Nothing! I told you I’m super tired and have the mental capacity of a jack rabbit on meth.

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!

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It’s nice to have a breather now and then. To kick back and relax, enjoy some time with your family and re-energize for the final home stretch of the baseball season. Of course, I’m talking about myself seeing as the All-Star break just happened and I didn’t write a post last week to do DraftKings coverage. What, you thought I was doing a send up to the actual ball players? Psssh, they’re finally tuned athletes, they don’t need no stinkin’ rest. Plug them into the wall, let’um recharge overnight and send them back out there, damned prima donnas. But as mentioned, it was nice to get a reprieve from the DK roll that we’ve been rolling on. It reminded me that life is short and that I should do something different than DK baseball. Yeah, something important. SOMETHING THAT COULD CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY. So I wrote about my team for the Scott Fish Bowl over on Razzball Football, of course. Yeah, that’s live right now if you wanna talk to me there while I’m also over here. Bi-posting, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. But for those of you who don’t give a rip about Fantasy Football, let’s get down to brass tacks. Your favorite niece may look pretty in a polka dot dress but my favorite, Jonathon Niese, probably wouldn’t look good in an armani suit. That nose, bro…but of course, what has looked good is starting a left-handed pitcher against the Mariners so far this year. To date, the Mariners have the second lowest team wOBA and wRC+ (.286 and 80, respectively) against southpaws. Not to mention the worst ISO against them on the year at .102. They always say it’s tough to start a pitcher coming back from a DL stint which is true but I think the matchup will hold precedence and Niese will keep the M’s at bay for the day, making him a solid shot as your SP1 despite only being priced out at $7,200. But enough family talk, let’s move on. Here are some other picks and observances for July 21st contests on DraftKings for 2014 Fantasy Baseball…

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Ugh! Not another silly Grateful Dead reference and about their one commercial hit from 1987 at that. Seriously that song is the least Dead song in the history of Dead songs. It’s not my fault that Sonny Gray’s last name is Gray and not Sonny Darkstar or Sonny “Sugar” Magnolia. I wasn’t in charge of giving out sir names whenever that happened, so give me a break. Anythewho back to baseball! Today I get to advocate you drafting one of my favorite young arms in the game in Sonny Gray ($8,400). It’s crazy to think the 2011 first rounder hasn’t yet had a full season of major league ball. Since being called up to the bigs last July, Gray has gone 12-6 with ERA/FIP/xFIP of 2.82/3.03/3.22 with K/9 and BB/9’s of 8.45 and 2.98. 25 starts into his young career and Gray looks like an ace, or at least the best pitching arm produced by the A’s since the days of Barry Zito and Tim Hudson.

Gray is a nice mix of a groundball pitcher that also has the ability to punch guys out. This combination allows him to get deep into games while also being a model of consistency. He’s been so consistent that he’s only given up more than 3 runs in a start 4 times in his 25 turns. His ability to give our fake team’s quality innings with little worry of a meltdown is invaluable in all formats. I fully expect another high ceiling/ high floor start from Sonny today against the Marlins in Miami. Though the Marlins have certainly been far better than expected thus far in 2014, they aren’t without their flaws. For example, the fish have the second highest K% of any team in baseball with a 23.2%. This should setup nicely for Gray to put up 7 IP and 7-8 K’s. When looking at pitching in DraftKings format, my focus tends to be K’s and IP because that’s where your big points come from. The price on Gray is very nice today as well only costing a measly $8,400 compared to a half dozen other options in the 5 figure range. The Stream-o-Nator doesn’t love the start, but doesn’t hate it either, ranking Gray at 9 overall today and 5th best of the afternoon slate. The streamer is slightly coo-coo ranking Matt Cain and Gerrit Cole in the two spots ahead of Gray. I wouldn’t advocate you drafting either of those options today.

Over the last two weeks I’ve been organizing daily Razzball leagues on DraftKings and they’ve been a blast. We went from having trouble filling 10 teamers two weeks ago to consistently filling 20 team leagues every day for the last week. This is thanks in large part to Razzball’s great community of readers and writers. I’m making another jump today and organizing two 20 teamers, one for the early set that will kick off at 1:05 pm (EST) and another that will cover the night games kicking off at 7:05. The early league is $1 buy in with the top 3 taking home prizes and the late set is a $2 buy in with the top 3 once again taking home the cash. If you haven’t yet signed up for DraftKings you can do so here by clicking this link. The best part about signing up with us today is that DraftKings will give you a ticket for a free game just for joining. It’s a total win-win. If you’re interested in getting on the invite list for our Daily Leagues simply leave your DK username in the comments and I’ll add you to my ever growing friends list. Ohhh internet friendship!

BTW if you think I’m a dope of the highest caliber, you can always make your own informed decisions by consulting with our suite of tools here on Razzball. Check the Stream-o-Nator, DFSBot, and Hitter-Tron for all the info you need to make that money!

Without further ado, Razzball’s DraftKings picks for June 28th

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Whenever I hear the classic Donovan tune, Atlantis, I’m taken back to that magical moment in Goodfellas when Tommy and Jimmy return to the bar to ice Billy Batts for his snide shine box remark. Well, that used to be the case; that is until DraftKings announced their Fantasy Baseball Championship in the Bahamas with a million bucks going to the winner! Hail, Atlantis indeed (the resort, get it?). Beach body (or lack thereof) be damned – I want in. I really shouldn’t encourage the competition, but you too can win your way to wonderland for as little as $2. So, get cracking and start stacking, because time’s a wasting and those qualifiers fill faster and faster every day. So let’s get on with the pickins…right after I point you back to the brand spanking new Razzball Tool. Four ladies and gentlemen (and I use that term loosely), I bring you the DFSbot care of our resident Miles Bennett Dyson, Rudy Gamble. Wanna know if a guy is cheap or expensive for the day on the good ‘ole DK? Well take a gander. Go on, I’ll still be here and so will the picks…ok, maybe you’ve gandered long enough, let’s get on with our day here.

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We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2014 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2014 Mets Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Eno Sarris from FanGraphs.

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For those of us who prefer our fantasy baseball leagues to mirror our fantasy football leagues, there are weekly H2H formats. Sure, H2H is a poorer measure of fantasy skill than rotisserie — weekly snapshots of baseball statistics are hardly indicative of a team’s overall value. But the one-on-one element of H2H provides owners with weekly closure, and adds quite a bit to the competitive nature of the fantasy game. Simply put, H2H is fun. One way to stay ahead in these weekly formats is to maintain a flexible roster and stream two-start pitchers. So every Saturday in-season, we’ll be providing a glimpse at the upcoming week’s two-start landscape.

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We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2013 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2013 Mets Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Eno Sarris from Amazin Avenue.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Fugs (Epic Beardmen Division) regained top spot in the Master standings, moving up 5 positions with help from a pitching staff that recorded a 1.70 ERA and 0.91 WHIP. Yovani Gallardo and Madison Bumgarner paced The Fugs, while Gio Gonzalez added 2 wins despite throwing only 11 innings and giving up 8 runs. captainpyper […]

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