Home Forums Skybox Sports Bar Selections Central fantasy sports point of view

I think that fantasy sports offers a ton of information useful for picking winners.
The main reasons i like this approach is because

i am reasonably sure that an important player is going to have a big day and carry his team to the win.
I have an idea what to expect from the other skill position players involved in the game from both sides.
It sucks putting your money on a game when you cant name more than one player involved in the outcome.
I dont know of anyone else who is using this approach. With the current popularity of fantasy sports (especially NFL football) there is a nice opportunity to put our heads together and pick some winners.

I dont have a lot of free time to come up with a play everyday so I encourage anyone who is interested in this topic to share their thoughts. It would be awesome if we could get enough interest to maybe have our own topic on the forum board.

Today I am going with NY yankees on the run line +115 and -1½ runs. I like taking the run line for value in games where I have a strong home favorite and a high total. In this case the money line is nyy-160 with a total of 10. So I shouldnt have to worry too much about a 2-1 or 3-2 game. Also it is old timers day so we will see if the youngsters are in the mood to show off.

For the fantasy perspective I picked Ivan Nova up off the waiver wire today in my 10 team standard scoring league with head to head weekly matchups. I am tied in pitcher wins so i need a W out of Nova today. He is 3-1 in his last 4 with a 3.04 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP (walks + hits divided by innings pitched). This is also a play against Colorado and Juan Nicasio 6.23 ERA and 1.57 WHIP over the last couple weeks.

The relievers did the job for you in this one. Giving up 1 hit over the last 3 innings for the Yanks while the Rox relievers blew the save and gave up the win. I'll follow you on this to see how you do. I've never seen this approach before and can't say if it will or won't work. 1-0 is always a good way to start!

a little bit lucky on that one. Regular season baseball its difficult to find much of an edge. Rather than wait around for what looks like an ideal situation i decided to try posting my best play every day. But i will rarely lay more than -150 on a baseball game fyi.damn i was leaning to ny mets this week but didnt think it was strong enough to post and they score 30 runs in 2 todays wtf.

I like St Louis Cardinals (Garcia) -130 vs. Baltimore Orioles (Matusz).
the fantasy baseball site i use ranks the starting pitchers on a scale of 1 to 10 with 9 or 10 being a must start. Garcia is given a 9 and Matusz a 3. Also they get ranked by the experts opinion ( someone who watches fantasy baseball for a living). Garcia is ranked 6 of 18 and Matusz is 18 of 18 for the day. So if Garcia was available i would definitely start him. Garcia has been pretty good this year but not great. He had one bad outing on may 28 in colorado that skewed his numbers a bit. For the season he is 6-3 3.06 era 1.22 whip and the last 3 weeks 0-2 3.09 era 1.50 whip. That 1.50 whip is a little worrisome as 1.20 or 1.30 is average. This play is really more of a play against Matusz. he is 1-3 6.85 era 1.84 whip for the season and 0-3 11.12 era 2.47 whip for the last 21 days. Pretty ugly numbers. The Orioles have been struggling lately with the bats and have already lost the first two games of this series. I had a hard time thinking of a fantasy stud player in the O's lineup. I went and looked they have Adam Jones and Vlad Guerrero who are both having down years so far. The cards are with out Pujols but still have Holliday and Berkman and they just got David Freese their 3rd baseman back off the DL. I dont follow the bullpens too much that would be a full time job in itself. I know the cardinals just cut their former closer Franklin. I have a guy on my fantasy team named Fernando Salas who has been picking up saves. He has 12 so far but was running a little cold lately. He did pitch in the 1st game of this series 1.2 innings with no runs and 2 Ks.
So all in all not a lock but slight edge. If I can get 7 innings out of Garcia and 3 runs allowed or less (this is the definition of a Quality Start) I think I have a good chance with a slight road favorite.

Cha Ching !

cardinals won 9-6. it was 8-0 after 2½ innings. Matusz ended up with a line of 3.1 innings pitched 8 runs allowed and 9 hits and a walk. Thats an ERA of 20+ and a whip of 3+. The only bad news is he got sent to triple A after the game so I cant fade him anymore. Garcia wasnt great but he was pitching with a big lead. 5.1 innings 5 runs 10 hits and 1 walk. That's an ERA of about 9 and a WHIP of around 2.
So i am 2-0 and plus 2.1 bets. Having a tough time finding anything else like that game. Rather than playing on the big name pitchers who everyone knows about and therefore have no value, I am going to continue the strategy of playing against starting pitchers who look like they are about to get whacked. In doing that I want to continue to follow my general guideline of not laying more than -150.
The game I like today is Boston (Andrew Miller)-140 @ Houston (J.A. Happ) 7:05 eastern time.
I am naming this game "the battle of the tall skinny underachieving lefties".
For the season Happ is 3-9/ 5.54/1.54 The team has lost in his last 8 straight starts. Happ took the Loss in 5 of his last 8 starts. Over his last 2 starts 0-1/11.74/2.74. The Astros as a team are 14-31 at home while the Red sox are 25-18 on the road. Andrew Miller was recently recalled from triple A after signing as a free agent in December.Andrew Miller is a guy i watched a couple years ago get drafted by my home team the Detroit Tigers out of U of N Carolina. He didnt spend any time in the minors he just came straight from the college world series to the major leagues. He Looked good except he was a little wild. He then was involved in the big trade with Florida that brought Miguel Cabrerra to Detroit. I look back at his career stats it looks like he has struggled with his control some at 16-26/ 5.74/1.73. This years since getting recalled 2 starts, 12 innings 1-0/3.09/1.46 with 10 strikeouts and 5 walks. Still a little iffy on the control issues but not that bad. What I am thinking is what happens in a case like this all he needs is a pitching coach who can make the right adjustment. They must have saw something they could do with him ( or maybe they just wanted a cheap insurance policy to eat up some innings; gulp). The pitcher rating system i mentioned earlier also has Miller ranked low at a 2 at a scale of 1 to 10 and Happ is at a 4. Both are near the bottom of the author's rankings. So careful now we are going to talk ourselves out of this play. Keep in mind the strategy is to play against Happ not on Miller. I expect the Red Sox to score early and often so a repeat of Millers first two starts is all i need. It looks like the Redsox offense re awakened last night with a come from behind 7-5 win. Adrian Gonzalez looks like the guy most likely to have a big game for the Sox while Hunter Pence is the guy to watch out for in the stros lineup. Overall a slight edge here I probably need to win about 65-70% of these to make any money but we are playing with the mans money, we have a team loaded with quality batters against a pitcher who belongs in triple A, and i have a good gut feeling.

Cha Ching... be sure to post an overall record along with units won/lost :)

redsox win 12-4. Miller went 6 innings and gave up 2 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks and 3 K's. The redsox bats did the rest.
My season record now is 3-0 with a balance of +3.15.

Not much time for a writeup but i like San Francisco (Vogelsong) +115 @ Detroit (Porcello).
On the 1 to 10 scale vogelsong gets a 9 and Porcelo gets a 4. In the daily overall rankings Vogelsong is 7 out of 30 while porcello is 24 out of 30. Cliff Lee is number 1. Porcello in his last 3 starts is 0-3 with a 10.31 era and 2.18 whip. vogelsong on the season is 5-1 1.86 era 1.09 whip and his last 3 is 2-0 3.00era 1.38whip.
I watch the tigers games fairly often and i can tell you that any kind of half decent mediocre pitching is all it takes to make them look silly. I certainly expect to get that out of vogelsong today (even though he did get roughed up a little last time out at Wrigley with the wind blowing out). Porcello has been terrible his last 3 and i dont see anything changing today. Porcello seems to struggle when he loses the movement on his fastball. The scouting report says he still is throwing 93-95 mph so velocity is not the problem. Pablo Sandoval has been killing the ball for the Giants. For the tigers victor martinez is day to day after getting hit by a foul ball last night and Johnny Peralta is getting the day off. He has been the other hot hitter for the tigers. Tigers will need someone else to help miguel cabrera.
Expect a low scoring game for the tigers and san fran may light it up again this afternoon.

Giants lost 6-3. My luck must have run out on that one with a bullpen meltdown and 6 million dollar infielders who cant make routine plays with the game on the line.
So now my record is 3-1 and a balance of +2.15.
I can usually tell when a pitcher is a little under rated because he will be available on my fantasy league waiver wire. That is where i found todays pick.
Washington Nationals (Gorzelanny)-139 vs Chicago Cubs (Wells).
The Washington Nationals are 26-15 at home this season and the Chicago Cubs are 15-26 on the road.
After starting the season 2-2 with 2.87 era Gorzelanny hit a rough a 3 start rough patch followed by a 4 week stay on the DL. Now his last 2 starts have been very good with 14 innings 13 hits 1 earned run with 2 walks and 16 strikeouts. Thats a 0.64 era and a 1.07 whip, 8/1 K to bb.
Wells has had 7 starts since being on the DL in April and part of May for a right forearm strain and still doesnt appear to be in form. His last 2 starts have been 12 innings 12 runs 18 hits, 4 walks and 6 Ks. Thats an era of 9.00 and a whip of 1.83.

Gorzelanny pitched for the Cubs the last 2 years so he should have a little extra adrenaline today. He will need to avoid Aramis Ramirez from having a big game for the Cubs who as a team are not scoring a lot of runs this year except when the wind is blowing out at Wrigley. A repeat of his 2 previous starts should get the job done. The Nats have a decent closer in Drew Storen who has been hot lately and the rest of the bullpen has been decent lately.I have been doing well with these spot starters off the waiver wire so i will try to continue that trend today with the Nats.

hey just an update the nats pulled that game out 5-4 as both starting pitchers gave up 4 runs. That runs my record to 4-1 with a balance of 3.15
Havent been able to spot any good plays the last couple days. i liked andrew miller and the red sox a little bit last night but the line was just a bit too high. i kind of like my tigers and porcello tonight vs KC and kyle davies although i dont trust porcello enough to make it a play. and i am leaving for a Cinderealla and Jackyl concert in a few minutes so good luck and i will hope to be back in the morning.

Cinderella :) I saw them open up for Bon Jovi numerous times in the mid 80's. I wasn't there for Bon Jovi like everyone else, I was there for Cinderella. I actually got a guitar pick from the Long Cold Winter tour. It just came to my mind that I still have the VHS tape, yes kids, VHS tape, Night Songs. That's the one with all of their videos up that point and a few live songs I believe from Philadelphia.

I would go around saying......... "Sounds like a crowd Fred" Good ole Tom Kiefer.. :)

Thats good you can remember details like that Freak. The sound man from Cinderella was a little off his game here. I dont think they have been on tour for a few years. They had the sound cranked up so loud the words to the songs were almost inaudible. And they didnt work very hard on engaging the crowd. It took me a couple days for my ears to stop ringing. Jackyl stole the show in my opinion. Good ole boy Jesse James Dupree is a entertaining crowd favorite. Nobody plays the chainsaw as good as he does that is for sure.
That was a long all star break. I have heard enough already about womens soccer and about millionaires arguing. I spent a little time over the break trying to come up with a way to judge middle relief bullpen effectiveness ( Since this is not included in most fantasy baseball scoring but can and often is a deciding factor in the outcome of a baseball game). This looks like a tedius time consuming job to keep updated and may not even be effective in the end. If anyone knows of a website that does this or knows of a good way let me know. I am thinking it would be a big help to be fluent in the current spreadsheet programs that are out there (which I am not at fluent in at this time). For now I am going to continue considering the closers and maybe the 8th inning setup man and assume the rest of the middle relief as a luck based uncontrollable factor.
Since I had to wait 3 days and I cant decide between the two, I am going to pick 2 games today.
Cleveland Indians (Masterson) -110 @ Baltimore Orioles (Guthrie).
Seattle Mariners (Vargas) +108 vs. Texas Rangers (Holland)

I put my picks in italics. I have to apologize but i ran out of time to do a writeup now. i have to go to my regular job. These picks are based on superior starting pitcher matchups and my own personal factors.

recap: cleveland won and seattle lost so the record is 5-2 and the balance is still +3.15.
Today I am going to take Texas Rangers (Ogando) -130 to win over LA Angels (Chatwood).
May as well ride this 11 game winning streak the Rangers are on. This is one tough lineup they send up there. Ogando is a converted reliever who isnt showing any signs of wearing out. 9-3 2.92 1.01 on the season and 2-0 3.29 0.88 for his last two starts with 13K's in 13.2 innings. His closer is Neftali Feliz who is 6 for 6 in saves over the last 3 weeks. This guy was rookie of the year last year and then gets converted from starter to closer and it looks like he has it together now.
LA Angels just lost 3 of 4 at Oakland. Chatwood is 5-5 3.62 era 1.55 (whip) on the season with 52 walks and 52 K's. 0-1 3.48 2.23 over his last 2 starts. The whip numbers are too high against a dangerous line up like Texas.
Also on the fantasy league advice 1 to 10 scale Ogando is given a 10 and rated 3rd overall on the day behind only cliff lee and jordan zimmerman.
Chatwood rates a 3 out of 10 and 22 out of 30 overall.

WTG !

Rangers win 7-0. Ogando pitched an excellent game throwing 8 inninings with 4 hits, 3 walks and 5 K's. Chatwood did about what i expected with 5 iinnings 3 runs 7 hits and 4 walks and only 1 K.
So now my record is 6-2 with a balance of +4.15.
it is hotter than hell here in west michigan and i got no a/c so i am going to try and keep this short.
New York Yankees (Sabathia) -135 @ Tampa Bay (Shields)
Sabathia is the best pitcher in the American League in my opinion. Even though you knowi luvs me some justin verlander and there are some others that are real good too. But to paraphrase one of my favorite actors edward norton "he a dime dawg!". Over his last five starts Sabathia is 5-0 in 39 2/3 innings with 2 runs allowed 50 K's and 9 walks.
So enough about the Yankees everyone knows how good they are. When I first look at this line it feels like a sucker bet or a trap game. But the value comes from James Shields pitching for the Rays. This guy has pitched great the first half of the season even though his record doesnt fully show it at 8-8. I have seen a few articles saying that his peripheral numbers are indicating that he is in for a big regression in the second half of the season. In other words it is time to sell high on Shields. I just traded him off my fantasy team straight up for Jair Juurjens. The regression may have started last time out with 6 innings and 6 runs allowed vs Boston including 2 home runs allowed. Either way you dont very often get the Yankees and Sabathia at a bargain price like this.

Yankees lost 2-1. Sabathia pitched well but Sheilds was better today.
My record is now 6-3 for a balance of +2.80.
Some of these run lines the books put up are kind of surprising. I am not sure how they make any money doing this. It looks like they use a straight sliding scale based on the win price without the spread. That is similar to what they do with the football and basketball spreads. It damn sure looks to be exploitable if they are going to put numbers up almost blindly. I would think the key is to patiently wait for the right situation and then make your move. Today I am going back to the best team in the American League and get me some of that run line action.
Texas Rangers (Lewis) -1.5 EVEN vs. Toronto Blue Jays (Reyes)
The Rangers are a heavy favorite to win without the run line at -195. There is a lot of runs expected to be scored with the over/under at 10 and a half. The arguement I have heard for not playing the run line is that xx% of games end in a final result of 1 run so therefore the run line is statistically a bad bet. But I wonder if that stat takes into account the times that the heavily favored team loses by 1 run? In this case it wouldnt have mattered if you played the run line or not. Also, in my estimation, games in which fewer runs are expected to be scored would be more likely to end in a 1 run difference. Alright I am out of time for now you can look up the stats for the pitchers yourself. On paper this matchup is a big advantage for Texas. The only downside is Lewis has poor lifetime numbers against Toronto. You cant ever have everything in your favor (all the more reason for a possible shootout).

Texas won 12-2 covered that one easily. My record is 7-3 for a +3.80.
I am going back to the well one more time today with Texas on the runline.

Texas Rangers(Ogando)- 1½ runs -105 vs Toronto Blue Jays (Cecil)

This is an obvious mismatch on paper with Texas a -200 favorite on the moneyline.
The over under is 9½ so Texas will score at least 5 runs.
On the fantasy ratings Ogando is a 9 while Cecil is a 2. In the overall rankings Ogando is 2 of 30 and Cecil is 29 of 30.
The Rangers bullpen is in good shape with Rhodes/Oliver/Feliz. Toronto's bullpen is a bit of a mess with no clearcut closer or rotation with Rauch/Dotel/Francisco.
The Jays big hitters Bautista and Lind have cooled off somewhat from earlier in the week.
The Rangers still have a high scoring line up with Hamilton/Young/Cruz etc.
The only downside I see here is the Rangers put thier RBI leader Adrian Beltre on the 15 day DL with a strained hamstring.

Hey guys just an update here. I lost that last pick as Toronto won 3-0. Cecil pitched a complete game shutout. I was pretty surprised and did not see that coming. That runs my record to 7-4 and +2.75. I have been busy at work all week and havent had time to make any picks. The Ogando/Cecil rematch is today in Toronto but I wouldnt touch that game. A lot of transactions happening around the trade deadline and then the dogdays of August where anything can happen.
Allright I will make a pick today
Arizona(Josh Collmenter)-110 vs. LA Dodgers(Lily)