The GPP Scene: Year 3, Week 6

by Justin Van Zuiden (stlcardinals84) Last Updated 2016-07-14 12:54:49

Welcome back to The GPP Scene! If you are unfamiliar with this series, this is an attempt to break down my own tournament entries to determine if we can figure out an “optimal” strategy for tournament play. Here’s the scoop: I will enter the $3 DraftKings “Slider” GPP (3 entry max) five days a week with three different teams. The teams will be composed of the following:

Team #1 – Two-team stacks with 4 hitters from each team, finished off by whatever pitchers I like best that fit within my remaining cap

Team #2 – A 5-man stack from one team surrounded by plays that I like at pitcher and with the other 3 hitters.

Team #3 – The cheapest plays that I like at pitcher surrounded by a team of elite hitters.

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 most recent week of results!

SUNDAY, JULY 3RD

CASH LINE CUTOFF = 130.55 POINTS

In a relative sense, this was probably my worst day of the entire season. I paid up for the wrong pitchers, and I was on the wrong hitters today. That’s not a good combination!

Team #1 – I mini-stacked the Rangers and Indians on Sunday, and the Indians game featured a team that scored 17 runs! Unfortunately, that was the Blue Jays putting up 17 runs on Corey Kluber, while the Indians got locked down by J.A. Happ. Texas put up four runs, which wasn’t nearly enough to overcome the poor performance by the Indians, especially when you add a negative fifteen point performance from Jon Lester on top of that. The good: Shin-Soo Choo and Chris Archer combined for 52 fantasy points. The bad: the other eight players on this roster combined for just over five points.

• FINISH: 57.55 PTS / 3387 OF 3921 FOR $0.

Team #2 – Even though it wasn’t the best matchup for the White Sox against Collin McHugh, I stacked them up because they were cheap and it allowed me to fit two elite pitchers onto this roster. Unfortunately, one of those elite pitchers was the aforementioned Corey Kluber, who finished the day with negative points. It was that kind of day. Noah Syndergaard pitched well, but Kluber was terrible, and the White Sox put up an unremarkable four runs. This was the best performing roster of the day, but that is definitely not saying much.

• FINISH: 86.85 PTS / 2429 OF 3921 FOR $0.

Team #3 – Here we have the worst overall score I have put up this season. I took one “good” cheap pitcher in a bad matchup, and that did not work out for Matt Shoemaker against the Red Sox. I took one “average” cheap pitcher in a good matchup, and that did not work out for Yordano Ventura against the Phillies. If you are keeping track, four of the six pitchers I used on this day put up negative points. The only good performers were Chris Archer and Noah Syndergaard. Yikes. Throw in three fantasy points or less from six of my eight hitters, and you have a certifiably awful DFS roster.

• FINISH: 31.50 PTS / 3802 OF 3921 FOR $0.

MONDAY, JULY 4TH

CASH LINE CUTOFF = 90.85 POINTS

Team #1 – This was a short night slate, and it was one of the lowest-scoring slates of the year. The chalk offense was the Blue Jays against Edinson Volquez, and they did not accumulate a single extra base hit on the night. Outside of Aaron Sanchez, none of the pitchers did very well. That adds up to a low-scoring slate. As for Team #1, I mini-stacked the Blue Jays and Dodgers. Toronto was a swing and a miss, but the Dodgers did manage to put up seven runs with a little more thump. The team was held back by poor performances from two chalky pitchers, though. Danny Salazar was 48% owned and logged just 13 fantasy points as the most expensive pitcher. Julio Urias was 39% owned and put up a negative score. I just can’t get away from the negative pitching performances this week!

• FINISH: 65.05 PTS / 1430 OF 1960 FOR $0.

Team #2 – The five man stack that I chose was the Diamondbacks against Luis Perdomo and the Padres, and the Arizona offense managed to continue the theme of the week — mediocrity. For the third time in two days, one of my stacks ended the day with four runs scored. This team was decidedly average across the board, and I made the mistake of rostering Julio Urias on both Team #1 and Team #2. That negative score just isn’t going to help get the job done.

• FINISH: 75.80 PTS / 953 OF 1960 FOR $0.

Team #3 – The two cheap pitchers that I chose were Archie Bradley and Daniel Norris, and they only combined for 15 fantasy points. It was a bit of bad luck for Norris, who left the game early due to injury. The good news is that this wasn’t exactly bad, because the overall pitching performances on this slate were terrible. The key to this slate was combining all the right hitters, and I managed to do that on this roster. Six of my hitters combined for double-figure fantasy points. led by Jean Segura, Corey Seager, and Yasiel Puig. I took almost every high-priced hitter not on the Blue Jays, and that worked like a charm since the Blue Jays under-performed on the day. For the first time in this series, we finally have a breakthrough for Team #3.

• FINISH: 120.60 PTS / 19 OF 1960 FOR $30.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6TH (EARLY GAMES)

CASH LINE CUTOFF = 113.40 POINTS

Team #1 – The wind was blowing out at Wrigley Field on a hot afternoon, so I couldn’t resist mini stacks of the Reds and Cubs with two average pitchers on the mound in Adam Warren and Anthony DeSclafani. The game had a Vegas total of 11 runs, so offense was projected to be the name of the game. Zack Cozart led off the game with a solo home run, and we were on our way. Unfortunately, the game fizzled to a 5-3 final, though there were three home runs in the contest. I had two of them, with Ben Zobrist smacking the other one in addition to Cozart. Jacob deGrom and Sonny Gray put up decent pitching performances totaling 40 fantasy points, and a few more runs from Wrigley would have put this squad into the money. Instead, it ended up about six points short.

• FINISH: 107.45 PTS / 527 OF 1960 FOR $0.

Team #2 – The Mets offense was the choice for my five-man stack, as I can never resist picking on Justin Nicolino. I was surprised at how highly owned the Mets were, as Yoenis Cespedes was almost 40% owned on this afternoon slate. Naturally, he put up a goose egg on the day. Guess how many runs the Mets scored? That’s right. Four. Four runs. I’m going to see fours in my sleep tonight. None of the players on my stack scored more than 12 fantasy points. The pitchers that I rostered here were deGrom and Kevin Gausman, and they combined for 33 points. This team was unremarkable and lagged to a disappointing finish.

• FINISH: 86.80 PTS / 1232 OF 1960 FOR $0.

Team #3 – I never thought I would see another day where Bud Norris was 32% owned in daily fantasy. A lot of folks have bought in to his turnaround. I am not there yet, but he served the purpose of throwing a cheap pitcher out there. He only put up ten fantasy points, but at least it wasn’t another negative score. Sonny Gray was the other cheap pitching option, and he put up a score of 15 on the day. The cheap pitcher that I should have chosen was Ervin Santana, who pitched a complete game shutout opposite Gray at just a 7% ownership level. A few of the big bats did all right, but disappointing days from five of them (Kris Bryant, Joey Votto, Adam Duvall, Stephen Vogt, and Yoenis Cespedes) held this squad back and kept it out of the money.

• FINISH: 93.95 PTS / 945 OF 1960 FOR $0.

THURSDAY, JULY 7TH

CASH LINE CUTOFF = 122.25 POINTS

Team #1 – I opted for some contrarian stacks today, stacking up the Nationals against Bartolo Colon and the A’s against Doug Fister. Outside of Bryce Harper, every single one of my hitters was less than 6% owned. I got what I was looking for here, and that gave this team some major upside. Washington responded with seven runs, but my four Oakland hitters combined for just 13 fantasy points. Because I went so contrarian with the bats, I used two chalk pitchers in Danny Duffy and Jason Hammel. They were the two highest owned pitchers on the slate, at 23% and 35%, respectively. They combined for a reasonable 36 fantasy points. In the end, the poor performance from the Oakland hitters kept this team just short of the cash line. For the second day in a row, Team #1 was tantalizingly close to the money only to fall just shy.

• FINISH: 118.30 PTS / 1129 OF 4705 FOR $0.

Team #2 – I am not sure what made me go so contrarian on this slate, but for some reason I opted to five-stack the Yankees against a good pitcher in Trevor Bauer. They were cheap, and that allowed me to fit both Drew Pomeranz and Danny Duffy on the roster as pitchers. This worked well, as Pomeranz was one of the top pitchers on the slate with a 29 fantasy point day. The Yankees managed a reasonable five runs against Bauer and company, but I was missing a good chunk of the production on my stack. In addition, my additional three hitters (Nolan Arenado, Jed Lowrie, and Carlos Gomez) combined for just ten points. This squad finished in the middle of the pack.

• FINISH: 92.20 PTS / 2821 OF 4705 FOR $0.

Team #3 – The cheap pitching choices were Jason Hammel and James Paxton. Although Paxton pitched eight innings and allowed just two runs, he only logged two strikeouts against those pesky Royals. He also didn’t earn a victory, as the Seattle bullpen blew the game in the ninth. It was the most hollow fantasy performance you could have from a decent real life performance, as Paxton scored just 13 fantasy points. Some of the big bats were pretty good, as Daniel Murphy put up 23 points while George Springer and Ben Revere also reached double digits. This team finished in the top half overall, but it was not quite enough to make the money.

• FINISH: 108.05 PTS / 1769 OF 4705 FOR $0.

SATURDAY, JULY 9TH (EARLY GAMES)

CASH LINE CUTOFF = 105.00 POINTS

Team #1 – The two mini stacks that I chose were the Indians (against C.C. Sabathia) and the Cardinals (against Chase Anderson). Both teams scored well, with the Yankees scoring seven runs and the Cardinals putting up eight. This was about the worst way I could have stacked these teams up, however. Matt Holliday was a late scratch. Four other hitters put up single digit fantasy points. I missed most of the production on both sides, and Lance McCullers disappointed with just eight fantasy points on the day. What could have been a very solid roster instead became just average.

• FINISH: 86.25 PTS / 972 OF 1960 FOR $0.

Team #2 – I opted for the Angels as my five-man stack against Yovani Gallardo, and this became one of the more disappointing stacks of the week. The Angels scored just two runs on the afternoon, and my five Angels bats combined for just 17 fantasy points. Carlos Martinez and his eleven strikeouts in five innings was the only highlight on this roster. Since the Angels bats were relatively cheap, I was able to fit Martinez on this roster along with Danny Salazar. That didn’t work out, as Salazar put up just 4.75 fantasy points against the Yankees. There’s nothing special to see here, as his team finished near the back of the pack.

• FINISH: 62.60 PTS / 1693 OF 1960 FOR $0.

Team #3 – Jake Peavy and Nick Tropeano were my two cheap pitching choices, with Peavy being the chalk choice of the two. He was 23% owned, while Tropeano was just 3% owned against the Orioles. Peavy lagged to a seven fantasy point day, while Tropeano pitched six solid innings with eight strikeouts against a dangerous offense. The big bats were nothing special, as six of my eight hitters scored in the single digits. It was a mediocre finish to a relatively mediocre week.

• FINISH: 79.85 PTS / 1206 OF 1960 FOR $0.

FINAL RESULTS – THROUGH WEEK 6

My Analysis

This was not one of my better weeks. For the first time this season, I managed just one team in the money out of 15 rosters. I was on the wrong stacks, and the pitching performances were well below average. These are the downswings that you sometimes hit with heavy GPP play, as there were a lot of days where my rosters weren’t even close to the cash line cutoff positions. Thankfully, I was not the only one who struggled this week. The cash lines on average were very low, and it was a weird week of baseball. In addition, the one cash that I managed was enough to cover 67% of the entry fees for the week. All is not lost.

Enjoy the All Star break everyone, and thanks for reading!