The Baseball Diaries: Thursday, June 25th
Welcome to the Baseball Diaries. This is a morning after review of my main team(s) on a designated site. I’ll go over the process that went into selecting the players, good or bad, in hopes you will find something in here that ultimately helps your team selection.
If you’re not trying to learn, then just kick back and read for the revelry. Sometimes the tilt is real…and highly entertaining for the observer. Below you’ll find one of my main DraftKings teams for Wednesday night.
Player Analysis
Cole was easily the ace of the night. This is a pick that you cannot judge based on the results. I struggled to identify a #2 pitcher on DraftKings, which made the Cole pick even easier. The matchup was fair and he was the only guy throwing on this slate that had ace qualities attached to his stats.
I’ve said it multiple times: when Stanton faces off with a left-hander that is not elite, I will find a way to roster him. His numbers against lefties are off the charts.
In this situation I was looking for a punt at catcher. It’s a strategy I often employ when I need to save money for pitching. I combed through the numbers and noticed this guy had some really nice stats working in his favor against lefties. Then I saw the batting order released and he was higher up in the order than normal. That made him an insta-play for me on all sites.
I felt like I needed that Rockies exposure because of this matchup. For a game at Coors Field, Tulo was very fairly priced on DraftKings. I was able to squeeze three Rockies in my lineup and felt good about it because I thought they were the odds-on favorites to score the most runs last night.
Heyward was picked based on how good he has been playing so far this month, as well as because of that improved spot in the batting order over what it was a few weeks ago. Also, it helped my confidence in him when I saw he had some previous success against Mat Latos. BvP doesn’t always work, and the detractors will tell you about it, but I’ve got some news for you: neither does wOBA or ISO or any single advanced stat out there. Nothing works by itself in this sport. You need to take all the information in and make the best decision possible. I do not see a reason why BvP wouldn’t be included in that process. Do we look at Jake Smolinski and assume he is a must-play against lefties based on his great wOBA? Nope. People use their better judgement to see through those stats and realize his numbers are misleading. Apply the same judgement to other stats like BvP and it can be used in a positive way.
Another piece of my Rockies trio was Ben Paulsen. I loved the matchup, the numbers and his spot in the batting order last night. Although this set of players in Coors didn’t explode, they did gather some points for me and pushed me to cash in most of these contests.