Tag: MLB

DFS Baseball /

2015 MLB All-Consistent Team for Daily Fantasy Cash Games

When playing 50/50’s, Double-Ups, or Head-to-Head games, you want to dial down variance by building a safe lineup with consistent hitters—those who produce points on a regular basis at the lowest possible price.

I went through hitter stats in the first half of the MLB season, looking for players that regularly scored points. On sites like FanDuel, where outs cost a batter minus 0.25 points, it makes a big difference if a player can be consistent in bringing his ‘A’ game every day out. [Click here for quick example].

So today, we’re giving you the high floor players. We’ll call this the MLB “All-Consistent” team.

2015 MLB All-Consistent Team for FanDuel Cash Games

These are the players that consistently get on base in the most games, despite being relatively cheaper in price than their PPG counterparts. They are better plays in 50/50 games than GPPs.

INFIELD

Yadier Molina, C, St. Louis: He’s getting a bad rap for not flashing much power this season (or last season), but he still posts a top-five batting average for catchers, and he has posted positive FanDuel points in 65 of 82 games this season. Only Buster Posey and Stephen Vogt have more positive point games this season among catchers.

Alternate: Francisco Cervelli, C. Pittsburgh

Adam Lind, 1B, Milwaukee: His salary started out low, with expectations that he’d miss hitter-friendly Rogers Centre in Toronto, American League pitching and the DH spot. But instead, he’s among the HR leaders at first base with 15, and his 71 positive FD games rank tied for fourth at the position.

Alternate: Kendrys Morales, 1B, Kansas City

Logan Forsythe, 2B, Tampa Bay: The Rays traded Alex Torres and Jesse Hahn to San Diego in January 2014 for a package that included Forsythe and Brad Boxberger. Forsythe was thought to be a handy utilityman, but now he has turned into one of their most important hitters, batting in the heart of their order. His low salary bumps him past Joe Panik for this spot.

Alternate: Joe Panik, 2B, San Francisco

Manny Machado, 3B, Baltimore: There are only a few third basemen with more home runs than Machado (19), only a few have a higher batting average (.298), and a handful have higher average salaries this season ($3,565). But no third baseman has more positive-points FanDuel games than Machado (75).

Alternate: Trevor Plouffe, 3B, Minnesota

Erick Aybar, SS, L.A. Angels: I was as surprised as you to see this name here! But Aybar has picked it up since a quiet April (.222 BA, 0 HR, 8 RBI, 4 Runs), and no shortstop has scored positive FanDuel points in more games this season (68). He’s also second at the position, behind Alcides Escobar, with 45 runs scored.

Alternate: Xander Bogaerts, SS, Boston

OUTFIELD

Among the outfielders, the only one to come close to Mike Trout and Bryce Harper is Jose Bautista, but we’re going to look a little farther down the list for cheaper plays for our All-Consistent Team!

J.D. Martinez, OF, Detroit: Batting in the heart of the Tigers’ lineup is a great place to be, and Martinez has posted 70 positive FanDuel games, with just 13 games with fewer than zero points.

Lorenzo Cain, OF, Kansas City: Another outfielder from the AL Central, Cain provides better speed than power numbers, but only six outfielders (including Martinez, Trout and Harper) have scored more runs (54). Amazingly, he has just 10 games (out of 76) in which he’s scored zero or fewer FanDuel points. Just five outfielders are averaging more FanDuel points (3.31), while 32 outfielders have higher average salaries.

Nick Markakis, OF, Atlanta: If it’s true that chicks dig the long ball, then they are definitely not fans of Markakis, who has zero homers this season. But DFS chicks dig winning, so they’re happy to know that Markakis has 71 games with positive FanDuel points, even thought he’s averaging just 1.97 FD points per game.

Alternates: Jay Bruce, OF, Cincinnati; Curtis Granderson, OF, N.Y. Mets; Kevin Pillar, OF, Toronto

PITCHERS

Pitchers, of course, are a much different story on FanDuel, as they don’t often post negative points–and if they do so regularly, you and their MLB team aren’t using them anyway. So I chose the following pitchers by looking closely at quality starts (minimum of 6 IP, no more than 3 ER), which comes out to 3.0 FanDuel points, not including points for strikeouts or wins.

Zack Greinke, Pitcher, L.A. Dodgers: It’s Greinke on this list and not his counterpart Clayton Kershaw. His average salary on FanDuel ranks 10th, and his 13.46 FanDuel points per game ranks him 11th. But the National League starting pitcher in the All-Star Game is our starting pitcher, too, with just three games of more than two earned runs allowed (Scherzer had four).

Max Scherzer, Pitcher, Washington: There’s a reason Washington (and DFS players) paid big bucks for Scherzer. With eight games of nine or more strikeouts this season, Scherzer remains one of the most expensive pitchers you can choose. But you have to pay up for pitching on FanDuel.

Chris Sale, Pitcher, Chicago White Sox: Sale pitches in a hitter’s park, which is scary to many DFS players, but he has 10 games with at least 10 strikeouts this season. And only four regular starting pitchers have a higher percentage of quality starts this season than Sale (82%).

Alternates: A.J. Burnett, P, Pittsburgh; Gerrit Cole, P, Pittsburgh; Carlos Martinez, P, St. Louis

DFS tourneys /

Single entry rides Cueto’s complete-game shutout to $20,000 top prize on FanDuel

FanDuel user “aaronklaw” used a single entry to take down a stacked field and bring home $20,000 in last night’s MLB Monster tournament.

The $300, 555-entry contest was loaded with names familiar in the Daily Fantasy community, including some successful high-volume players, but only 3.2 percent benefited from Johnny Cueto’s 11-strikeout complete game shutout.

That 24-point performance gave Aaron a significant edge over the majority of the field, and his inclusion of little-used Mariners Robinson Cano (7 points, 4.1 percent owned) and Austin Jackson (10.25 points, 5.9 percent) elevated him to the top spot with 58.25 points.

It always requires at least a minor leap of faith to deploy a handful of Mariners in a single entry – especially in offense-sapping Safeco – but given the prices plus the matchup, the choice must have been made a little easier.

Tigers spot starter Kyle Ryan has been pretty awful this year, and after getting shelled for five runs through 2.2 innings Tuesday night, he’ll probably be highly targeted for opposition stacks – assuming he gets another start.

Combine Ryan’s track record (17:14 K:BB, failing to make it to the fifth inning in three straight starts) with bargain bin prices at the top of the Seattle order, and the winning thought process becomes apparent.

Austin Jackson strikes out too much and doesn’t walk enough, but he’s been pretty good against lefties this year (.368 wOBA, .851 OPS) and as long as he’s at the top of the lineup at the minimum price, he makes an intriguing tournament play. Ditto for Cano, who is showing signs of life lately, but who still isn’t back in the good graces of the fantasy community.

DFS news /

High-profile league partnerships, capital inflows cushion DFS in question of legality

To the casual observer, the current explosion in the popularity of Daily Fantasy Sports looks like a harbinger of bright days and big profits for the industry’s major companies. But those closer to the nexus of this rapidly expanding universe paint a more nuanced picture of the future.

Of the potential hurdles looming on the horizon, perhaps none is more menacing than the question of legality. DFS, like traditional fantasy formats, operates under the legal protection provided within a carve-out of the UIGEA of 2006, and those within the industry maintain that daily contests are games of skill—not chance—and as such are fully protected.

However, some have questioned whether the daily-game format would pass legal merit under close inspection.

Those fears are not unfounded, but each day that passes and each new partnership formed with pro leagues lessens the probability of a Black Friday-like DFS apocalypse, according to numerous industry observers.

Adam Krejick of Eilers Research went into detail on the matter Wednesday on The Eric Jackson Podcast:

“It’s a polarizing issue. I guess from our perspective, we try to monitor both sides. I’m far from a legal expert, but an area that we always come back to that gives us increased comfort is just the partnerships that DFS companies have been able to cut with major media corporations and the sports leagues themselves. I think their approach to working with the sports leagues and working with these very big media conglomerates is very smart in the way that once you have some of these big leagues on board, and in some cases as equity holders, to us that greatly reduces the chance – not that regulation won’t come, but that this industry will just be shut down.

FAN DUEL APRON COURT DIAGRAM 2

“The analogy a lot of people like to use, the bearish people on this issue, is that this is similar to what happened with online poker, where all of the sudden you woke up one morning and these sites were shutdown and players couldn’t withdraw their money. We think this is a much, much different scenario and landscape, and really don’t think that will ever happen. I’m not saying that increased regulation won’t, but again, we kind of fall back to the investments made by very big and powerful companies, and to us, it’s kind of tipped the scale in favor of the DFS companies here.”

That echoes the opinion of attorney/Forbes contributor Darren Heitner. Similarly, Justin Fielkow, an attorney and legal columnist for RotoWire, pointed out that “no DFS operator has ever been prosecuted by the federal government,” and as the DFS industry continues to grow, the likelihood of prosecution dwindles.

That doesn’t imply that high-profile partnerships will provide fool-proof assurances against any or all future regulations, but they do appear to provide a valuable layer of insulation.