The GPP Scene - MLB Week 4

by Justin Van Zuiden (stlcardinals84) Last Updated 2014-05-12 02:25:41

Hello again everyone, and welcome to another edition of “The GPP Scene” – where I attempt to make some sense out of the silly thing we call MLB GPP play. First off, I will offer my sincerest apologies for the lack of article last week, but I didn’t enter the FD Line Drive on enough days last week, which when coupled with all the articles I had written on my high stakes series with Favre made me decide to just skip the article. I entered on three days last week ($90 in entry fees) and got $80 back, so I’m simply excluding the meaningless week from my overall totals. Enough of the rambling – let’s get to this week’s results!

Here’s the way it will work. I will enter the $10 FanDuel Line Drive GPP five days a week with three different teams, and only those three teams. The teams will be composed of the following:

¹ – This is my general GPP strategy on FD.

I’ll document the results of each team along with my profit and loss and return on investment as the days go by, with some final analysis for the week at the end of the article. Let’s get to the week one results!

MONDAY, APRIL 28

This was really my only good day of the week across the DFS industry, and it will show in these results. In fact, this day will provide my only cashes of the week in the Line Drive. Luckily, it was enough to make this a great week for purposes of this analysis.

Team #1 – St. Louis (vs. MIL) and Arizona (vs COL) mini stacks with Wacha at pitcher vs Brewers. This team was very solid as both teams put up some early runs, but the Cardinals struggled over the course of the game and got stuck on three. Wacha got off to a great start but fell apart in the 7th as Mike Matheny left him in way too long after he had lost his stuff. When all was said and done, this was a nice overall squad but it had the potential for so much more in the beginning.

• FINISH: 44.33 PTS / 135 OF 1673 FOR $30.

Team #2 – I went with Darvish as my stud pitcher and immediately regretted it given his horrible history against the A’s. He had the shortest start of his MLB career which equated to just 3.33 FD points. If you pay up for the most expensive pitcher on the board and he has a game like this, you literally have little to no shot at cashing. Allen Craig and Matt Holliday were some nice value bats as both of them homered, but the rest of the bats totaled next to nothing and the hole from Darvish was just way too deep to overcome.

• FINISH: 22.08 PTS / 1224 OF 1673 FOR $0.

Team #3 – Finally. The punt a pitcher but spend on bats strategy has finally paid off. After weeks of watching my big bats fail in this spot, they came through on this Monday. Tulowitzki had a mammoth game with two doubles and a HR, Carlos Santana continued his recent hot stretch, and Mike Trout put up a nice game too. Tyson Ross was the punt choice given that he had just dominated the same Giants a few weeks prior, and he wasn’t great but he squeezed out a win a 9.33 FD points. This was the most satisfying squad of the year so far for me, as Team #3 had frustrated me many a times to date.

• FINISH: 56.58 PTS / 5 OF 1673 FOR $400.

The Punt Pitcher Finally Pays Off!

TUESDAY, APRIL 29

Team #1 – Colorado (at ARI) and Texas (vs OAK) mini stacks with Wood at pitcher at Marlins. This team was not good. Wood finished with a whopping zero fantasy points as it appears the Marlins offense is becoming a force to be reckoned with. Neither stack did anything noteworthy today and the Texas offense surprisingly continues to struggle at home. Chalk it up as an all around poor team here.

• FINISH: 11.50 PTS / 1738 OF 1811 FOR $0.

Team #2 – Jose Fernandez was the easy ace of choice today against the same Braves that he carved up two weeks ago. He didn’t disappoint, hurling another gem with eight scoreless innings and 8 K’s. The bats weren’t horrid, led my nice games by Derrick Norris, Jose Reyes, and Alex Gordon. This would have been a very good 50/50 team but it fell just short for GPP’s.

• FINISH: 46.25 PTS / 204 OF 1811 FOR $0.

Team #3 – Jason Vargas was the punt choice today because I have a weird place in my heart for the guy that I can’t explain. He was average at best, and the bats didn’t quite do enough to put me over the hump in this one. Tulowitzki had yet another solid game and he is having a blistering start to the year, but poor games from Matt Carpenter, Ian Kinsler, and Paul Goldschmidt kept this team buried in the middle.

• FINISH: 34.83 PTS / 633 OF 1811 FOR $0.

THURSDAY, MAY 1

Team #1 – Mets and Rockies mini stacks in a Coors Field showdown between the two teams with Red Paterson as a total cheap play SP against the Twins (3K price tag). The Mets offense was terrible until they got 3 meaningless 9th inning runs which I basically had no part of since I had the other part of their lineup. The Rockies scored seven but most of the damage was from the bottom of the lineup. This team was less than inspiring and the streaky stacks are struggling this week.

• FINISH: 15.66 PTS / 1456 OF 1614 FOR $0.

Team #2 – There weren’t many studs on the mound today so I was pretty much forced into Ervin Santana against the white-hot Marlins. He only scored 8 points, and four of my hitters had one point or less. Nobody really stood out on this team as none of the hitters had more than six, either. It was a very boring performance and there isn’t much else to say about it as it finished below the 50th percentile (though barely) on a low scoring night.

• FINISH: 25.25 PTS / 882 OF 1614 FOR $0.

Team #3 – Since I actually used a punt pitcher on my stack tonight, I put Brandon Cumpton on this team as the punt after he pitched well in his first start. The Orioles got to him a bit, and I also got bit by my arch nemesis Billy Hamilton on this squad. He injured himself making a diving catch attempt in the first inning and never saw a plate appearance. The hitters were otherwise solid, led by Evan Gattis and Adrian Gonzalez, but they couldn’t quite overcome the poor pitching performance and Hamilton’s goose-egg.

• FINISH: 28.16 PTS / 677 OF 1614 FOR $0.

SATURDAY, MAY 3

This was one of the highest scoring MLB nights I’ve ever seen. One mistake and you were toast. I was toast.

Team #1 – Mets and Rockies mini stacks part deux in a Coors Field showdown between the two teams. Everyone had these bats tonight, so the 11-10 score didn’t really have much of an impact. The problem: I slotted Yovani Gallardo as a contrarian play against the Reds knowing that most would be on Cueto. This allowed me to get most of the big bats from the Mets and Rockies. It didn’t pan out as Gallardo only scored 3 fantasy points while Cueto scored 20. Toast served.

• FINISH: 45.75 PTS / 587 OF 1248 FOR $0.

Team #2 – Well I put Cueto on this one, so that was good for 20 points. I also rostered Daniel Murphy and David Wright here, and they combined for right around 20 points. However, I couldn’t quite fit Tulowitzki on this squad and had to go with Hanley Ramirez, who only got 0.5 points. Two of my punt outfielders (Lagares and Reed Johnson – both of whom were leading off tonight) didn’t do anything, either. This team was close, but again, one mistake and I was toast tonight. Toast served.

• FINISH: 58.00 PTS / 134 OF 1248 FOR $0.

Team #3 – The punt pitcher was easy tonight – Brandon McCarthy against the Padres. The Padres have been woeful all year offensively and McCarthy actually has good peripherals despite an 0-5 record coming in. He did not disappoint with 17 points, and Dee Gordon was fabulous for this team. However, I made the mistake of taking Trout over Tulowitzki, and I put Hanley on this team at shortstop too. That was a stupid mistake on my part. Toast served.

• FINISH: 54.75 PTS / 219 OF 1248 FOR $0.

SUNDAY, MAY 4

I pretty much sucked on every site today. My best finish on DK was a 51st place in the $109 High Heat that paid out 50 spots. That pretty much sums it up. Today was sucktastic.

Team #1 – The Rockies lineup wasn’t out yet and I felt like Tulowitzki might get a day off since he hadn’t had one all week. Taking no chances there, I stacked Mets with Mariners as I figured Collin McHugh was due for a turd of a performance after his two random gems. The Mariners scored nine runs but most of the damage was done by guys like John Buck, who I did not have. The Mets did okay but it wasn’t enough to make up for me taking the wrong Mariners. Verlander against KC was the pitcher on this squad and he did fine. This was the best team of the day but it was still a good 50-60 spots from cashing.

• FINISH: 39.50 PTS / 207 OF 1340 FOR $0.

Team #2 – Knowing that a ton of folks would be on Fernandez today, I decided to roll Darvish out in GPP’s. He was predictably underowned and put up a solid 16.33 fantasy points, outscoring Fernandez slightly. The problem – my bats stunk around him. Matt Wieters was bad, and I’m getting a little tired of picking Orioles bats. When is Adam Jones going to start hitting? Also, why do I keep getting sucked in by Gerardo Parra at $2,500? Nobody else does, and I need to start listening.

• FINISH: 34.08 PTS / 431 OF 1340 FOR $0.

Team #3 – With an ERA under 1.00 in two starts, I was amazed to see McHugh as the second cheapest pitcher on the board along with Maurer. I zagged again here and took Maurer as the contrarian pick. He didn’t do any worse than McHugh but wasn’t great either. I did put Giancarlo Stanton on this team and he had a double dong day, but underwhelming days by Carlos Gonzalez and Andrew McCutchen combined with the poor pitching score kept this team just shy of cashing.

• FINISH: 38.00 PTS / 253 OF 1340 FOR $0.

FINAL RESULTS: THROUGH 4 WEEKS

MY ANALYSIS

It’s becoming clear that the stud pitcher-punt hitter (Team #2) strategy is a solid one for cash games. That squad has the highest floor but lowest ceiling on a night-to-night basis. However, it’s really hard to hit on enough low-end bats to produce a huge GPP score. Granted, our sample size is still kind of small, but that’s a common conclusion that I think a lot of people are logically drawing right now.

As some readers have pointed out, the punt pitcher would eventually pay off. It did this week for our biggest score to date here. My stacks struggled, and frankly I struggled as a player this week outside of Monday. The bankroll took a hit, but for this study we actually came away with a really nice week thanks to that $430 payday on Monday.

As always, thanks for reading, and we’ll see you next week!