The Baseball Diaries: Thursday, May 14th
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.
Player Analysis
Matt Harvey – Harvey was the clear #1 option for me yesterday. I know lots of folks had Liriano up there, but Harvey is clearly just a safer pick. I also had some shares of Iglesias as the cheapest FanDuel pitcher you will ever see. However, with baseball being the type of sport it is, the team with Harvey outscored the team with Iglesias by 12 points, despite the two pitchers being equal and the Iglesias team having around $7K more to spend on batters. Even more frustrating is when a 51.5 hardly cashes because of poor game selection. Insert picture of a tilt-a-whirl, because I am steaming this morning.
Buster Posey – Posey was the chalky, no-brainer pick at catcher. The only variation I did was one team with Wilin Rosario. Anytime you see Posey vs. a marginal left hander, he becomes an insta-play.
Adam LaRoche – Well, this pick was based all on Harvey. Because Harvey was so expensive, I needed to get the cheapest first baseman on my list that I deemed worthy of playing on Wednesday night. That guy was LaRoche. So, I bypassed better players like Miggy and A-Gon for LaRoche, and of course he outscores them all. The pick itself had everything to do with Nelson’s struggles against left-handers.
Robinson Cano – Cano is a pretty boring second baseman by all accounts and it takes a special slate for me to roster him. He just doesn’t bring a ton of upside anymore. There just weren’t many other options I liked going into last night at this position. Clearly I based this pick on a large BvP sample (84 at-bats) against Shields. Other guys I would have played, had Cano’s numbers not swayed me, were Kinsler and Dozier. Kinsler was terrible again, but Dozier would have been a solid play here.
Matt Duffy – For me it was either Tulo or punt at shortstop in this slate. Duffy did well. Tulo had a home run taken away by Mike Trout. Fire up that tilt machine again. Duffy has shown to be a solid player vs. left-handed pitching, and when he is hitting up in the order he is a very viable option.
Kyle Seager – I picked on James Shields a little more with this spot. I thought maybe Shields would have some bad American League flashbacks in this game and revert to the mediocre pitcher he was the last couple of seasons. He pitched well though and proved me wrong. Sorry James, I won’t pick on you anymore my man.
Marlon Byrd – You always have to love the chance to fire up Marlon Byrd vs. a bad left-hander and this was such a game. This is one of those plays that makes choosing your team easy when you see it laid out in front of you. Two roster spots were locked up with Posey and Byrd taking on left-handers.
Kole Calhoun – I really felt like either Trout or Calhoun were going to have a big game against Lyles. Lyles left after the first inning and at that point I thought it could be a monster game for someone. That didn’t work out, as the Angels could never manage to break out vs. a bad Rockies set of long relievers.
Carlos Gomez – My thoughts on this game were that I was a fan of the Brewers 2-3-4 combo of hitters. I felt like they could do some damage. If not, then I knew Quintana would roll because the rest of that Brewer lineup looked horrible. Gomez wasn’t good for the most part, then completely salvaged his day with a late inning home run. It came off of a very solid closer. Sometimes things happen for the good and they happen in a manner you never planned them to. Baseball can be so fickle at times.