FanDuel FBBC Final Four Preview
FanDuel has brought the excitement of March Madness into August with the Fantasy Baseball Bracket Championship, which is a 64-man bracket of head-to-head contests to crown an eventual champion in Vegas with a $60,000 payday to the winner. Contestants could only earn one entry, and every matchup was head-to-head, providing the ultimate test of DFS ability over the course of multiple rounds of play.
The contest has been ongoing for about a week, and the field has been narrowed down to the final four. So let’s take a look at who has gotten this far, and what we can expect from Friday’s key matchups to determine who heads to Vegas for the live final on the 22nd of August.
The first semifinal matchup we’ll profile is between two heavy hitters with top-15 rankings in our Tournament Player of the Year standings. Scout326 and McJester will square off for a spot in the live final, so let’s take a look at how each competitor got to where they are now.
Scout326 (37th overall in RotoGrinders rankings, 8th TPOY, 15th MLB)
Scout326 was randomly assigned the seventh seed in a section of the bracket that featured big names such as naapstermaan, maxdalury, team FantasyAlarm, and ehafner, but he managed to advance through the group without facing three of those four big names. His first round contest against ektdar was an easy win, as was his second round matchup against panfish, which was done without any help from the pitcher position due to a weather-impacted game. He then took down donnybasbl in the third round to face off against team Alarm in the fourth round for a trip to the final four, and won by ten points thanks to Miguel Sano and Carlos Beltran.
mcjester (53th overall, 11th TPOY, 41st MLB, 2013 PFBC Champion, 2014 TPOY Champion)
McJester was randomly assigned the 29th position, putting him in a bracket with beepimajeep and cheeseisgood. However, McJester wouldn’t face either of those players on his path to the final four. The first matchup was a high-scoring affair with dallasdonn, and then kyz1fan fell in the second round (despite McJester picking up negative points at pitcher from Jesse Chavez). Mikebaldwin450 fell in the third round, and in the fourth round, for the right to move onto the final four, it was poppaspicks who would go down, as McJester saved some cash at pitcher by going with Brett Anderson instead of Matt Harvey, and that allowed him to pay up for Jose Bautista, Andrew McCutchen and Carlos Correa to bolster his bats and win fairly easily.
The other semifinal matchup pits bcalicore against cashupcash for a trip to Vegas and a shot at $60,000. Let’s take a look at how they got to the final four.
bcalicore (Over 60,000 FD wins, with more than half coming in MLB)
Bcalicore was handed the 35th seed, and placed in a division with names such as TommyG1979, theclone, and lovesbases. A first round win over longbottoms and a second round victory over jaredlittle25 led to a trip to the third around against randyoliver799, which resulted in another win. The fourth round saw bcalicore face off against bglife, and bcalicore’s decision to roster Yasiel Puig instead of Carlos Beltran proved to be a deciding factor in an incredibly close matchup.a couple of other small differences.
cashupcash (102nd TPOY, 270th MLB)
Cashupcash, who currently sits just outside of the top 100 in our Tournament Player of the Year rankings, drew the 49th position on the board, putting him in a bracket with our own Cal Spears, ganondorf and tinderella. And after a first round win over glaze, it would be braskey (RG founder Cal Spears) who would fall to cashupcash despite cash getting a 0 from his pitcher. Wernerbrandon was defeated in the third round, and a fourth-round win over 10lauderdale was earned thanks to nice scores from Paul Goldschmidt and Matt Duffy.
And finally, here is a look at each section of the bracket, to see how things got to where they are now.
The final four will go head-to-head on Friday night for a trip to the final in Vegas, and both matchups look to be close and competitive on paper. Best of luck to all four competitors, and better luck next time to everyone who got knocked out. Hopefully this is the first of many unique events like this that help foster some good, competitive matchups in daily fantasy sports.