RotoTalk: Everyone's an Expert

by Kevin Dahle (rotokevin) Last Updated 2012-06-19 18:20:37

Players on hot streaks get expensive in a hurry and cold players rapidly descend toward the league minimum. It makes each day a new puzzle to solve with considerable value to be found. Some days there are enough slumping stars in favorable situations that it can be a struggle to fill the full $1M salary cap. In those situations, your opponents are likely in a similar situation and the game tends to lose a bit of the skill factor as everyone’s lineup will be loaded. Rather than roll the dice that my lineup of sluggers and an ace can beat a similar roster, I prefer to take a vacation in the land of “expert” cap games. You’ll notice these lower cap games on various sites across the industry, and they make for a nice change of pace to your standard lineup while also presenting a good opportunity to get an edge on your opponents.

An Expert Rant

Generally, I abhor the term “expert,” especially when used in the context of fantasy sports. There are no experts in this game because it is impossible to know anything, let alone everything. We look for clues, identify patterns and trends and make educated guesses, but there are no experts.

Expert Cap Games

Here’s the gist of the expert cap – it’s lower. Instead of having the full $1M of cash to play with, you and your opponent(s) willingly handicap yourselves to a 900k cap (on Daily Joust). What’s the difference? Well, today 100k will take you from Lance Lynn to Brandon McCarthy. So yeah, it has an impact. It forces you to make more decisions.

Where Do You Cut?

My favorite aspect about playing daily fantasy baseball on Daily Joust is their unique pricing engine. It makes for tougher days when building a $1M cap team is easy, and begs the key question: “where do you cut?” The obvious choice is to target the biggest dollar amount – the starting pitcher, but on a site like Joust where you only get one pitcher, you can’t afford to misfire at that position very often.

Basically, expert cap games force you into one of two approaches – go with the ace or play for the 3-run homer. That is, you can either have a “safe” pitcher and plumb the depths of the hitter pool or find a sleeper pitcher and load up on bats. As an illustration, here are 3 lineups for today – one using the full cap and one of each strategy at the expert level.

So yeah, that’s what happens when you go with a short cap. In the default game, I have a pretty solid list of names, most with favorable matchups. I think David Price is a complete free square today against an ice cold Washington team. I can’t think of a pitcher I’d rather have today. The bats on that team are mostly mid-priced guys in good situations.

When sticking with Price as my horse, I’ve had to take several significant downgrades, pretty much across the board. Those downgrades tend to come in one of two forms: increased downside or reduced upside. Pena, Weeks and Hardy have generally the same upside as the trio they replace, but the risk of negative scores from strikeouts is much higher. At the bottom, Josh Thole has nowhere near the ceiling of Carlos Santana.

The 3rd lineup has most of the same bats, but the downgrade at pitcher comes in the form of Wandy Rodriguez. That doesn’t feel terrible given that Kansas City couldn’t solve JA Happ last night, but I’d still much rather have Price, for obvious reasons.

And now, a lineup…

Today is a special 3-lineup bonus edition of RotoTalk. We’ll return with our regular lineup programming next week.

I’d encourage you to give the expert cap games a look today. In fact, look for the “RotoTalk 50/50 Expert Cap” game in the lobby at Daily Joust. Click any of the Joust links to join!. There’s also a 40% Deposit Bonus on your first deposit.

Like RotoTalk? Have an idea for a future edition? Leave a comment below or shoot me a private message through RotoGrinders.