Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

I finally gave in and I’m going to give daily fantasy sports (DFS) a shot this year. This is my first year playing so there will be bumps in the road, but if you read my fantasy guide you know I am going to be overly prepared before I do something.

I’m playing at Draft Kings so all of my analysis and picks will be based on their scoring system.

My Strategy

To maximize your scoring potential you need to find pitchers who throw a lot of innings, strikeout a lot of batters and have a good chance for a win. Since you also lose points for hitters reaching base (hits, walks, hits batsmen) you want to avoid high strikeout, high walk pitchers (Francisco Liriano for example). Also, if they’re walking a lot of batters their pitch counts will be high, which means they won’t pitch deep into games.

With hitters you want players who will hit for extra bases because the scoring increases progressively for extra base hit type. Also, there are no penalties for hitters making outs so you can draft a Mike Zunino and not worry so much if he goes 0-4 with three strikeouts. Power is emphasized in the scoring so it’s imperative to find players who are going to hit home runs and make hard contact.

Speed is another way to find easy points at a low cost, but you want to make sure you grab players who have a high stolen base success rate because you lost points for every caught stealing.

Last Note

This is the most obvious thing, but it has to be said. You are responsible for your own lineup. It is your decision to play or not play a specific player or in general. I’m giving the best analysis I can and if you agree then, that’s great. I’m going to be wrong sometimes. In fact I’ll probably be wrong a lot because like I said at the start I am a beginner there’s going to be a learning curve.

My 50/50 Lineup

• P: Clayton Kershaw (LAD) vs. K. Lohse (MIL) — $12,00
  
• P: Jesse Hahn (OAK) vs. P. Hughes (MIN) — $6,000
  
• C: Derek Norris (SD) vs. M. Bumgarner (SF) — $3,100
  
• 1B: Freddie Freeman (ATL) vs. A. Harang (PHI) — $4,200
  
• 2B: Jose Altuve (HOU) vs. R. Detwiller (TEX) — $5,400
  
• 3B: Ryan Zimmerman (WSH) vs. D. Phelps (MIA) — $4,400
  
• SS: Hidden
  
• OF: Giancarlo Stanton (MIA) vs. J. Zimmerman (WSH) — $4,900
• OF: Hidden
  
• OF: Hidden

The match ups and data you see below were pulled Friday afternoon. The data is for the 2015 season. Please be aware the match ups are subject to change. If you have any questions about the rankings hit me up Twitter @MattCommins

These are rankings for the entire week so I give the edge to a lot of fantasy pitchers who pitch twice. Also, the rankings are based on traditional 5×5 categories. I also provide write-ups for a few pitchers. My hope is after you read them you have a better understanding of why I ranked them.

Shane Greene was the fantasy darling to begin the season but after two brutal outings against the Indians and Twins his fantasy stock has decreased. The reason why he’s struggled has been due to lefties — they have a .775 OPS compared to .545 against righties. The White Sox do not have an overly left handed lineup so he could be a sneaky option in DFS, but I’m avoiding him in his start against the Royals.

I watched Mike Foltynewicz’s Major League debut as a starter and I see a future top ten closer. He has the body to hold up for 200-plus innings a year The fastball is an 80 pitch that reach triple digits, but what about the secondary offerings? He throws a couple of variations of the curveball and one of which looks like a slider to me, but the bottom line is they can miss bats. He only threw 3-4 changeups so the sample size is small, but they didn’t look good. The question is the command going to be there to turn over a lineup three times? The delivery has a lot of moving parts to it so it may take awhile for the command to come around (if it ever does). A player comp I’ve heard is Garrett Richards, which makes sense. Since the Braves are going to be bad this year they can give him an opportunity to have 40-60 Major League starts before deciding what he ultimately becomes.

Chris Archer has looked nothing less of fabulous this year. I’ve watched his starts and he has a great chance to finish the year as a top 15-20 starting pitcher (assuming the wins are there). I’ve said for two years if he’s going to take a big step forward the changeup has to improve. Historically he’s been a fastball and slider pitcher, which works great against righties, but not so well against lefties — before 2015 lefties had a .708 OPS compared to only a .549 OPS against righties. This year lefties have a .490 OPS and righties a .432 OPS. I want to see how he fares against lefties in his next 1-3 starts, but a breakout is coming.

Collin McHugh is 14th in the majors (among starting pitchers) in swing and miss strike rate on pitches in the strike zone. Last year he was 17th. Those rates put him in the same class as Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale, Alex Cobb, Zack Greinke and so on.What he’s doing is legit. He’s going to finish the year as a top 20 starting pitcher.

Is it time to worry about Clayton Kershaw? No. The quality of his stuff is still there and his swing and miss rate on pitches in the strike zone is still the same. He currently has a 20 percent HR/FB rate and a .384 BABIP. Both of those numbers are going to positively regress. If you could get him at a discount I would do so in a heartbeat.

I finally gave in and I’m going to give daily fantasy sports (DFS) a shot this year. This is my first year playing so there will be bumps in the road, but if you read my fantasy guide you know I am going to be overly prepared before I do something.

I’m playing at Draft Kings so all of my analysis and picks will be based on their scoring system.

My Strategy

To maximize your scoring potential you need to find pitchers who throw a lot of innings, strikeout a lot of batters and have a good chance for a win. Since you also lose points for hitters reaching base (hits, walks, hits batsmen) you want to avoid high strikeout, high walk pitchers (Francisco Liriano for example). Also, if they’re walking a lot of batters their pitch counts will be high, which means they won’t pitch deep into games.

With hitters you want players who will hit for extra bases because the scoring increases progressively for extra base hit type. Also, there are no penalties for hitters making outs so you can draft a Mike Zunino and not worry so much if he goes 0-4 with three strikeouts. Power is emphasized in the scoring so it’s imperative to find players who are going to hit home runs and make hard contact.

Speed is another way to find easy points at a low cost, but you want to make sure you grab players who have a high stolen base success rate because you lost points for every caught stealing.

Last Note

This is the most obvious thing, but it has to be said. You are responsible for your own lineup. It is your decision to play or not play a specific player or in general. I’m giving the best analysis I can and if you agree then, that’s great. I’m going to be wrong sometimes. In fact I’ll probably be wrong a lot because like I said at the start I am a beginner there’s going to be a learning curve.

My 50/50 GPP Lineup

• P: Scott Kazmir (OAK) vs. C. Lewis (SEA) — $7,400
  
• P: Jose Quintana (CWS) vs. K. Gibson (MIN) — $7,200
  
• C: Evan Gattis (HOU) vs. R. Elias (SEA) — $3,900
  
• 1B: Mike Napoli (BOS) vs. CC Sabathia (NYY) — $3,800
  
• 2B: Jose Altuve (HOU) vs. R. Elias (SEA) — $5,000
  
• 3B: Miguel Cabrera (DET) vs. C. Young (KC) — $5,400
  
• SS: Hidden
  
• OF: Giancarlo Stanton (MIA) vs. J. Williams (MIA) — $5,600
• OF: Hidden
  
• OF: Hidden

I was shocked to see Scott Kazmir’s price point. I have to assume it was an error on DraftKings part or maybe this is a trap game. Either is possible, but Vegas has Kazmir heavily favored so I feel good having him in my lineup. Jose Quintana has not performed up to his standards and the velocity on the fastball is slightly down, but if he doesn’t bounce back against the Twins it may be time to start panicking. In regards to my hitters it’s obvious I’m going with a heavy hitter lineup. Mike Napoli mashes lefties and he’s batting fifth; at his price he was too good to not use.