The High Stakes Scene - Favre vs. Cards Gm 3
Editor’s Note: The “High Stakes Scene” is a recurring series giving you an in-depth look into the highest stakes games in the Daily Fantasy world. Our first “High Stakes Scene” features top-ranked STLCardinals84 as he gives you in-depth analysis into his head-to-head matches vs. BrettFavre444. Full details on their match can be read here. We hope you enjoy the near real-time insight below.
I’ll start off the Game Three recap by saying that this is getting easier by the day. I knew this piece would be very difficult to write as you naturally try to defend your own teams and look at things from a selfish point of view. Writing this article series is doing a great job of opening my eyes to figure out how other people think (both Favre and those who comment on the articles). As I sit back and ponder it, analyzing Favre’s teams is really helping me analyze and critique my own game. Although I am sensitive to negative feedback and do tend to take it a little too personally, this has been a nice eye-opening experience.
We threw an interesting twist into this series by making Game Three an all day contest that included both day and night games. I thought it would be interesting to do this with just five night games to minimize overlap, and part of the reason I wanted to do it was inspired by an old BrettFavre444 blog post from September of 2012:
“I love early session DF baseball. Not only do you get to watch the scoreboards all day long, but you also get a nice adrenaline rush as the evening lineups come out and you check to see if the guys you put on your team in the AM are actually playing in the PM.”
Naturally, this sounded fun. What could be more of an adrenaline rush than this when you’re playing for high stakes?
The Short Attention Span Version:
When lineups locked, it turns out both of us were afraid to use too many night players. Just one hitter was picked from the night games and the contest was virtually decided by 4 pm. A late Anthony Rizzo HR gave Favre a comfortable cushion and all he needed was a non-implosion from Drew Hutchison to take the pivotal swing game and a 2-1 series lead. It turns out that Hutchison was dynamic and Favre held on easily.
Breaking Down My Lineup:
1) I went with a different approach today as I was kicking myself for not going elite with pitching in Game Two. There were also a ton of value bats available that were in good matchups and batting order spots. Therefore, I was able to slot in three elite pitchers in Scherzer, Cingrani, and Zimmermann.
2) I debated for a good twenty minutes on whether to go with three elite pitchers or sub out Cingrani for Hutchison and save about $8,000 in salary. I’ve been a big proponent of Hutchison on air this year and he has the potential to be a very solid pitcher for the Jays. In the end, I decided Hutchison was better left unused in a cash game due to his tough matchup and his wildly inconsistent lines. I thought this was the right decision at the time – that Hutchison is much better used as a GPP play rather than a H2H play.
3) Next came all the value bats. The wind was supposed to be gusting out at Wrigley (enter Montero, Hill, and Schierholtz), the Cardinals were facing an aging Bartolo Colon (enter Matt Adams), the Reds were facing a young callup (enter Brandon Phillips), and the Indians were all priced at an amazing value against Bruce Chen (enter three hitters that are solid against LHP in Raburn, Santana, and Cabrera).
4) My final lineup included three of the top five SP options on the day along with a team full of hitters I liked. Every single bat outside of Raburn was hitting in a 1-5 spot in his squad’s batting order and had a decent matchup against a less than stellar pitcher. I was much more comfortable with this lineup than I was for Game Two, and I would happily roll it out again if tomorrow was Groundhog Day.
Breaking Down Favre’s Lineup:
1) Favre actually played the Chicago wind more than I did, which surprised me. I’m usually drawn to the wind-blowing-out situations, so it felt a little weird to see him neutralize all three of my bats from that game while also taking Rizzo and Goldschmidt. It might have been a strategic move by him since he likely knows that’s how I play. Perhaps he just did it on his own accord. Whatever the rationale, it was a sound move in my opinion.
2) Favre did what I should have done with my pitchers. He went with two of the studs in Scherzer and Cingrani and then took Hutchison. Before the games even started, I felt like I was at a disadvantage. Even though I liked my lineup, I’m a big fan of Hutchison (as I wrote above) and knew he had major upside as the cheapest SP on the board. Once again, a solid call by Favre. He had the guts to do it in a high stakes cash game and I did not.
3) He had a little more to spend on the bats thanks to the Hutchison pick. This allowed him to get Goldschmidt and Rizzo while also upgrading a few of my Indians bats to Tigers bats on his own team. Austin Jackson and Nick Castellanos were the choices here.
How The Game Played Out:
1) It was a tight one from the start. Chris Young’s first Mets homer gave me about a nine point lead and I was feeling alright about things. Although the night players were still hidden, you could deduce them because DS shows the total hitter salary spend and total pitcher salary spent by each player. Since he only had one batter hidden yet, I was able to subtract the total spent from all the players in action in the early games and figure out that he had Desmond as his SS. Similarly, I was able to figure out he had Hutchison as his SP #3 and he would have been able to figure out that all I had left was Zimmermann.
2) As the Cubs game hit the 7th inning, my squad was basically done except for Zimmermann. He had all my bats neutralized from that game. I still had about a 6 point edge, but he had one more at-bat from Goldschmidt, one more from Rizzo, a full game from Desmond, and the wild card in Hutchison yet to pitch.
3) The 7th inning of the Cubs game spelled my demise. Goldschmidt doubled home a run and then scored, which is good for 5 DS points. This essentially put us in a tie game. In the bottom half of the inning, Rizzo cracked a solo HR and that gave Favre a nice cushion. With Desmond and Hutchison yet to go plus a little bit of breathing room, there was no way I could catch him unless Zimmermann had a no-hit type of performance.
4) When all was said and done, Hutchison outscored Zimmermann and not playing him was my biggest regret today. I will reiterate that I was happy with the squad I put together. My hitters didn’t perform like I expected, but I at least feel like my roster was logically constructed today. It’s just one of those things that happens in DFS baseball. You can put together a team you like but the guys just don’t perform on that given day.
5) Although I liked my roster, I liked Favre’s too. The Hutchison pick showed balls of steel in a cash game, and the two Tigers bats he took were nice upside picks. Both played well. I played it a little bit safer given the cash game element of this contest. While I don’t think my strategy was a bad move, Favre’s selections were rock solid and paid off for him today. Outthinking me with the Cubs game and taking Hutchison were the two areas where he one-upped me in Game Three. As I said in the first piece, the lines between elite success and average play are very thin in DFS. Over the last two games, Favre has gotten the best of me. In Game Two, I beat myself with a horrid squad. In Game Three, I liked my team but Favre’s was flat out better. Well done – I tip my cap today.
FINAL SCORE – FAVRE 66.25, CARDS 53. FAVRE LEADS SERIES 2-1.
NEXT GAME – Friday, April 25th
Thanks for reading!