The Baseball Diaries: Thursday, May 28th
Welcome to the Baseball Diaries. This is a morning after review of my main team (or teams) on a designated site. This is just simply the process that went into selecting the players, good or bad, in an effort that perhaps you will find something in here that ultimately helps your team selection. If not, then just kick back and read for the revelry. Sometimes the tilt is real… and highly entertaining for the observer.
Once again, I’m going to go back to a comment I made last week about how sometimes it feels like you can throw the stats out the window and just play the game. When you’re running poorly, ease up a bit. When you feel things changing, then play a little extra. As I examined my team from yesterday, I cashed 61/61 games. That sounds great, and as much as I want to feel all high and mighty, I realize that if not for a last-second decision to change a player (Duda for Napoli), I might not have cashed a single game. So I really don’t have all the answers, and in fact, I’m not sure there is a person out there who has mastered MLB DFS.
I believe even the best MLB DFS players are maybe going to cash in 62% or less of their cash games. It’s a great number for long term bankroll growth, but if a person had the spreadsheet that had solved baseball, I would imagine that number would be much higher. I’ve seen really good MLB minds go on serious heaters but have also seen the same guys go on cold streaks. I would think that algorithms and pure stats are immune to cold streaks. So my basic point is that when you feel like someone else has it solved and you are in the midst of losing, just keep grinding away until the tide swings in your favor. Eventually it will. Here’s a look at the team:
Pitchers
Felix Hernandez P
Noah Syndergaard P
Felix was the easy pick. I always roster Felix in cash games with any fair matchup he has. Syndergaard is pretty good and had a solid matchup. It’s still not easy rostering a rookie like that for a chunk of cash. He’s earning my trust, though.
Batters
Roberto Perez – Total punt.
Lucas Duda – Lucky me. This spot was Mike Napoli all day until about five minutes before first pitch when I had $200 left over and was looking to see if there was absolutely any way I could make my team better. I looked at all the positions and options and one of the choices was to replace Naploi with Duda. Duda was just slightly behind Napoli for me, but I looked closer and nudged Duda up slightly and decided to go for it. It turned a slightly profitable, or break even, day into all cashes. Sometimes, no matter how many stats you crunch, you need a little “run good” on your side.
Sean Rodriguez – Another punt more or less. Sean Rod isn’t an accomplished player, but he is decent when he gets a chance.
Lonnie Chisenhall – Lonnie was cheap and I thought he had a fantastic matchup. He will have games like these a few times a year, but he’s not a guy I want to roster too much. It kind of feels like I laid my chips on red, it hit, and now I am leaving the table quickly before the house gets it back. Chisenhall is a straight up “hit it and quit it” type of play. Thanks Lonnie, I’ll see you in a couple of months.
Jung Ho Kang – Kang or Mercer, Mercer or Kang? It was a tough decision and in the end I chose Kang because he’s been much more impressive to me this year.
Ryan Braun – Braun was the second hitter I penciled into this team that was basically a must-play for me. He’s been playing well and had a matchup with Vogeldong. Of course, he went out and tanked it, but they say to trust the process, so I’m cool with it, Ryan. Now, if I wouldn’t have cashed and had to look at that big ZERO from a $5K player, I would have been slightly more irritated.
Andrew McCutchen – Andrew McCutchen was my first choice for hitters. I was going to play him regardless of salary. He had a matchup with a marginal left hander, and I don’t even need to look at the stats to remember that you always play Cutch vs. lefties, because he mashes them.
Skip Schumaker – Welp, the four points isn’t exactly winning any tournaments. However, I knew what I was getting into when I rostered Schumaker. At $2,600 and batting leadoff, he was a solid value pick to make room for Cutch, Braun and Felix.