The Baseball Diaries: Thursday, May 7th
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. I ran two cash game lineups last night and this is what they looked like:
FanDuel Cash Game Lineups: May 6th
Player Analysis
Lance Lynn – Gerrit Cole – I like to grab the best pitchers on the board in cash games. Sometimes it fails and this was a night where it didn’t work. Cole has been spectacular this year and he was my #1 ranked pitcher. He just had an off night. Lynn was a guy I was targeting due to the matchup with a strikeout-prone team. I lost money on FanDuel last night and it really boils down to these choices at pitcher. You just can’t spend that kind of money and get 6 and 7 points out of that spot.
Brian McCann – The catcher options on FanDuel were limited for me. The other guys I wanted at this position came with $4K price tags. McCann was a bit cheaper and had a nice matchup with Buehrle, who is a reverse splits guy. He struggles against left-handed hitters and McCann is acceptable vs. left-handed pitching. That -1 doesn’t feel good though, as I should have just punted all together and gone minimum priced catcher here.
Adam Lind – Carlos Gomez – Scooter Gennett – Ryan Braun – After reading some scouting reports on Joe Wieland, I identified the top of the Brewers order as hitters I wanted to target on my teams. Anytime Gennett is batting second in the order and facing a righty, I’m all aboard that train. It was a great first inning but then kind of fizzled out once Wieland got his feet under him.
Nelson Cruz – Mike Trout – I group these guys together because they were the two high-dollar batters I wanted to have exposure to in my lineups. I couldn’t put both in the same lineup with the cost of pitching, but I made sure to stagger them in each of my lineups on both sites. Cruz has been a terror this year and was facing a soft left-hander (C.J. Wilson), and Trout is always a threat for a monster game. Well, Trout hit a homer and that worked out, but whenever you spend over $5,000 on a batter you feel disappointed in an effort like the one Cruz had. MLB DFS is funny like that sometimes. Those 2.5 points for Cruz don’t equate to the salary you had to pay, but he did hit two singles and score a run. Slightly better placement on those singles and they would have been doubles. This is a fickle game we play, and sometimes it can be heartbreaking.
Cody Asche – I wanted to include Asche in this writeup as a statement of what NOT TO DO. He’s a terrible player and I was just looking for the salary relief he offered in a decent matchup. It’s tough for a hitter to post a -1.25 score on FanDuel, but Asche got it done. Once again, let me reiterate – Cody Asche is a terrible player. He might have a few games this year where he performs well, but if you roster him consistently, wait for it, “you are just going to lose”. This team deserved to tank because of this selection.
Josh Donaldson – Freddy Galvis – This grouping is intertwined because it was the last two roster spots I had on this team. I had that decision to make with regards to what combo to take. It was both Donaldson and a scrub at shortstop or Luis Valbuena and a mid-priced option. I chose the Donaldson team because I will usually gravitate to the combo with the stud in it in baseball. In NBA DFS, I would likely take the more balanced combination. However, in baseball I’ll take the massive upside of a guy like Donaldson against a left-hander who has been sketchy.