Tips for the SportsTradex $15K Opening Pitch GPP
We’re about to close out the first of a six-month baseball season. Yes, it seems we’ve already been playing baseball DFS for awhile now, but there is still plenty to go!
We’re hosting our largest GPP of the month today at SportsTradex, the $15K Opening Pitch. The contest features a $200 buy-in and max total entries of 83. The contest is well over half full already, so don’t wait too late to register to ensure a spot.
The $15K Opening Pitch uses our tiered draft format where you can choose a 9-, 10-, or 11-player team. If you choose the smaller team, you can draft more Tier A players (i.e. elite pitchers). The other teams allow for a larger roster with more Tier B and C players (good hitters and scrub pitchers basically).
Let’s go through some of my favorite players in each tier.
Tier A:
David Price: The Tigers pitcher got absolutely lit up in his last outing, but he’s the #1 player on the board in my opinion. He’s on the road against a mediocre Twins team, so he should rack up a fair amount of strikeouts and not give up too many earned runs. While some players may avoid him due to his performance against the Yankees, I expect he’ll be an extremely popular choice.
Tier B:
Vance Worley: Choosing a Tier B pitcher can be a high variance move since ERs are scored -4.5 at Sports Tradex (we don’t punish for walks/hits against a pitcher though). However, I think Worley is a prudent decision. After a rocky first start, he’s only given up 2 ERs in 11.2 innings. Worley will likely pick up a decent amount of strikeouts in the game. Worley’s career K/9 ratio is 7.1 and while the Cubs have certainly improved this year, they still do strike out a lot.
Paul Goldschmidt: The Rockies/Diamondbacks game may not be in Coors Field, but it will likely play out like a game in Denver. If you’re going to choose a hitter from Tier B, it’s hard to go wrong by choosing the best hitter in what is likely the highest scoring game.
Tier C:
Chris Davis: The power hitter is facing a lefty in a game with a pretty high total. He’s about as close to a Tier B hitter you can get in Tier C.
Prince Fielder: Taijuan Walker posted a 2.61 ERA last year (though only through 38 innings), but he’s been absolutely lit up this year. Fielder is facing the struggling young pitcher at home, and he definitely has a good chance of blasting one out of the park.
Tier D:
Elvis Andrus: Picking on Taijuan Walker and constructing a mini-Rangers stack may be a solid strategy. There’s quite a few options in Tier D, but Andrus strikes me as a player that has a high margin of safety in terms of providing at least a decent amount of fantasy points.
Seth Smith: The Mariners should score quite a bit tomorrow as well, so I would definitely take a flier on this power hitting lefty assuming he is batting near the top of the batting order.
There’s quite a few options and strategies you can use in tonight’s $15K Opening Pitch. With quite a few games with high totals and not too many all star pitchers, a batting heavy approach may be the way to go. In that case, go with the 11-player team and choose one of the Tier A pitchers and then draft a few mini-stacks of power hitters in Tiers B-D.