DFS Amateur Hour - Friday Postscript/Saturday Lineups

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Published on May 30, 2015

I set 10 lineups last night, not including the two free rolls, and cashed in only two. Part of the problem was four of them had Stephen Strasburg who lacked the decency to announce his injury ahead of time. In any event, I won $25, but invested $50, so it was a net loss of $25, to bring my bankroll down to 1,025.60.

Because I felt cheated out of the Strasburg lineups, I put in eight more $5 entries today to make up for it:

$70K MLB Rally

Pos	Player	$	Player	$	Player	$	Player	$
P	Wacha	8900	Wacha	8900	Wacha	8900	Hahn	7500
C	Molina	2200	Molina	2200	Gomes	2600	Posey	4000
1B	Ortiz	2600	Ortiz	2600	Ortiz	2600	Ortiz	2600
2B	Pedroia	3300	Wong	3400	Cano	2600	Cano	2600
3B	Carpenter	3900	Seager	3600	Seager	3600	Seager	3600
SS	Peralta	3300	Miller	2500	Andrus	2600	Crawford	2900
OF	Ramirez	3200	Grichuk	2600	Cruz	4400	Cruz	4400
OF	Cruz	4400	Trout	5100	Trout	5100	Pence	3000
OF	Betts	3100	Ramirez	3200	Hamilton	2600	Upton	4300
	Total	34900	Total	34100	Total	35000	Total	34900

Pos	Player	$	Player	$	Player	$	Player	$
P	Ross	9000	Ross	9000	Lincecum	8100	Lincecum	8100
C	Posey	4000	Chirinos	2700	Posey	4000	Posey	4000
1B	Belt	3600	Fielder	4300	Fielder	4300	Fielder	4300
2B	Cano	2600	Wong	3400	Wong	3400	Pedroia	3300
3B	Seager	3600	Beltre	3300	Beltre	3300	Beltre	3300
SS	Crawford	2900	Peralta	3300	Crawford	2900	Crawford	2900
OF	Pence	3000	Holliday	3200	Choo	3300	Choo	3300
OF	Ramirez	3200	Hamilton	2600	Grichuk	2600	Hamilton	2600
OF	Betts	3100	Grichuk	2600	Pence	3000	Pence	3000
	Total	35000	Total	34400	Total	34900	Total	34800

This is an odd slate because I don't like any of the pitching options. Even Wacha, who I used on three rosters, makes me nervous, especially because I have him in a couple key places (notably the NFBC Main Event.) Wacha's gotten lucky thus far, but sometimes pitchers with good stuff parlay luck into earned results over time. In other words, he might be lucky given his low K-rate, but maybe instead of normalizing luck causing a major correction, he simply pitches better and no longer needs to rely on it (Wacha's fastball velocity, it's worth noting, is as good as ever at 93.5 mph.) I also hate Tyson Ross, but there was no one else, and a home start against the Pirates isn't bad. Lincecum has been lucky and probably not good enough to pitch his way into earning it, but I rolled the dice because of the strong match-up and because we never know for sure. Maybe the sharper play would have been to bet on the correction and stack Braves, but I didn't do it. Maybe the sharpest play was to stack Dodgers in a possible delayed game against the second priciest pitcher and be the one to cash when Wacha implodes. I didn't do that, either.

Instead, I stacked Rangers, Red Sox, Cardinals, Mariners and Giants mostly, all of which were fairly obvious. With the softer FanDuel prices, lack of aces and short slate, it was nearly impossible to spend all my money, and one of the lineups had $900 left on the table.

There's some threat of a rain delay/postponement in the Cardinals-Dodgers game, but given the size of the tournament, I ignored it and gambled. Of course, I'm obviously risking a repeat of yesterday's wasted lineups if Wacha pitches two innings, and there's a two-hour delay.

Finally, my other impetus for playing today was reading that David Ortiz was back in the lineup after two days off. I sat Ortiz in two NFBC Online leagues (you have to make the move by Friday, and at the time I didn't know how many games he'd miss), and I felt sure he'd have a monster day either today or tomorrow. So I hedged by building lineups around him. Now that I've done so, I'm thinking tomorrow's probably the day.