DFS Amateur Hour - Tuesday Night

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Published on May 12, 2015

First off, I have to confess yesterday I played a large-field tournament on Draft Kings because I had some money left in that account, and I wanted some action. I didn't blog or record it because it's not part of this bankroll, and I even broke my rule about following it live. It was a $27 buy-in, so I could have won a lot of money, but did not.

Second, I'm not feeling my nine lineups today. The soft FanDuel pricing has me down, I think. There are too many good options and permutations, and I'm sure I've got the right pitchers with the wrong stack, and the right stack with the wrong pitchers. Or maybe it's the wrong stack and the wrong pitchers which is the second-best outcome because you're liberated from what might have been. Actually, whenever I see a roster that would have cashed but for a last minute change, or a 50/50 call, I remind myself how many extra lineups would have cashed if you got credit not only for who you used, but who you thought about using. It's like all those poker hands I've folded before the flop that would have turned into monsters.

In any event, I'm getting bored. Maybe it's because I'm slowly bleeding my bankroll, and my occasional wins have all been small. I can imagine one large cash jumpstarting my enthusiasm again, but I'm resisting the temptation to just go all-in at bigger stakes and blow the bankroll or make real money in a hurry (most likely the former.)

Or maybe it's because I feel my lineups lack the requisite rigor to be positive-EV after the rake. I could always get lucky and take down a big pot, but I'm pretty much just eyeballing match-ups according to the basic tenets (opposite-handed hitters against weak pitchers, decent lineup slots for the price, etc.) It's why I only rarely play blackjack at the casino anymore - I don't have the bandwidth to count cards, so while my basic strategy is more or less sound (I always forget whether to hit with 13 against a 2) - I know I'm negative EV, so why bother?

The other possibility is I'm actually setting good, positive-EV lineups but just running cold. The correction is coming soon, I swear. Check out my BABIP and strand rate! But that's what C.C. Sabathia owners the last couple years probably told themselves too.

The more I look at it though, it comes back to the soft pricing. I usually have a good feel for a few players or pitchers I like or in whom I see upside. But there are so many ways to make the puzzle fit now, I'm almost randomly guessing on the rest. When the puzzle had fewer solutions, I'd pick my 4-5 guys, and the rest would fall into place by elimination. Maybe there was a 50/50 call or two for the final slot, but now it seems like there are 4-5 good options for all five fungible slots.

Either way, I'm committed to seeing this through, so for better or worse, here are today's lineups:

$10 Double Ups

Pos	Player	$	Player	$	Player	$
P	Sale	9,600	Strasburg	9,100	MCHugh	8,800
C	Norris	2,900	McCann	2,300	Vogt	3,700
1B	Fielder	3,000	Abreu	3,400	Votto	3,800
2B	Cano	3,400	Cano	3,400	Pedroia	2,900
3B	Machado	3,500	Seager	3,000	Machado	3,500
SS	Aybar	2,200	Aybar	2,200	Escobar	2,500
OF	A.Jones	3,700	Trout	5,400	Betts	3,400
OF	Stanton	4,500	Cabrera	2,700	Kemp	3,100
OF	Crisp	2,200	Gordon	3,300	Gordon	3,300
		35,000		34,800		35,000

$3 GPP (Large) Tournaments

Pos	Player	$	Player	$	Player	$
P	Syndergaard	7,100	de la Rosa	6,700	Burnett	8,200
C	Vogt	3,700	Vogt	3,700	Perez	2,600
1B	Cabrera	4,600	Hosmer	4,000	Hosmer	4,000
2B	Cano	3,400	Cano	3,400	Pedroia	2,900
3B	Machado	3,500	Seager	3,000	Seager	3,000
SS	Aybar	2,200	Escobar	2,500	Escobar	2,500
OF	A.Jones	3,700	Gordon	3,300	Gordon	3,300
OF	Stanton	4,500	Cain	3,300	Kemp	3,100
OF	Crisp	2,200	Stanton	4,500	Harper	5,200
		34,900		34,400		34,800

Pos	Player	$	Player	$	Player	$
P	DeSclafani	7,200	Syndergaard	7,100	Strasburg	9,100
C	Vogt	3,700	Vogt	3,700	Vogt	3,700
1B	Votto	3,800	Votto	3,800	Cabrera	4,600
2B	Pedroia	2,900	Pedroia	2,900	Cano	3,400
3B	Seager	3,000	Seager	3,000	Seager	3,000
SS	Semien	3,300	Semien	3,300	Escobar	2,500
OF	Crisp	2,200	Crisp	2,200	Crisp	2,200
OF	Reddick	3,700	Reddick	3,700	Reddick	3,700
OF	Harper	5,200	Harper	5,200	Beltran	2,600
		35,000		34,900		34,800

My thinking behind the Double Ups was, as usual, to start with the pitchers I liked and build lineups around them. I picked Sale, Strasburg and McHugh mostly on hunches. Strasburg and McHugh are both +140 or better favorites, the former being a threat to strike out double-digit batters and the latter facing a soft Giants lineup at home. Now that I look at it again, Sale might have been a reach given his mild favorite status, high price and road start against a right-handed-heavy Brewers lineup. Probably better to have used him in a tournament actually for his strikeout upside.

For the hitters, I mostly spread the remaining money around on diverse guys who struck me as underpriced and used whatever was left for some big bats, though the soft pricing made it possible to afford Stanton on the Sale team.

For the six tournaments, I rolled out five different pitchers, doubling up only on Syndergaard, a foolish idea given I used more than half my NFBC budget on him this week and will be doubly disappointed when he gets shelled. I also used Strasburg in one tournament because I think (probably erroneously) he has a 14 or 15 strikeout game in him at any time.

For the hitters, I stacked left-handed A's against Justin Disasterson in a few, and in two I stacked Royals in Texas against due-for-a-nasty-correction Nick Martinez. But as I said, I'm not really feeling any of these.