Analyzing Lineups

Daily Fantasy Baseball Tips: Analyzing Lineups
by RotoPicks.com Staff

Picking a winning daily fantasy baseball lineup is so much more than logging into your favorite fantasy sports site, filling your roster with your desired players and clicking submit. In fact, it's a recipe for disaster.

Let's talk about a mistake made by yours truly on one hot summer day in 2012.

It was one of those days. You know the day, lots of good batter vs. pitcher matchups, dominant pitchers going up against poor hitting teams in big ballparks. It was my day to shine! Or at least I thought!

My first mistake was that I was itching for action early in the day so I engaged in a "blind" snake draft. What is a blind snake draft you ask? It's drafting a team before all of the lineups are out. DUMB! The exciting need for action was also the same hammer that clobbered me later in the day when my bankroll took a big hit.

My second mistake was falling in love with heavy hitting Giancarlo Stanton, who was white hot and playing at hitter friendly Coors Field. What was not to like? The guy was on fire and going up against Jeff Francis, a very hittable lefty.

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So as I'm watching the game, the announcer says something that made me feel really stupid. It went something like this: "Stanton will be lucky to see any pitches today as light hitting second baseman Donovan Solano is hitting behind him."

Oh man did I feel stupid. I hadn't analyzed the lineup. If I'd have seen that Stanton was batting in front of a guy who had ten homerruns in 2795 minor league at bats, I'd have surely reconsidered.

Needless to say, Stanton didn't see anything to hit in his first two at bats. Ironically, he did end up homering in the game, a 474 foot blast which gave him his 5th homerun in five consecutive games at Coors.

Sure, he homered. It was a bad call on my part though. As the announcer stated, Stanton shouldn't" have seen any pitches that day and should have been pitched around with the Marlins taking their chances with Solano batting behind him.

When you're playing daily fantasy baseball, you have to side with probability and odds. If put in this same scenario/situation 100 times, I'd have probably lost 90+ times. Lucky for me, Ozzie Guillen is a bad manager. What was he thinking leaving Stanton unprotected?

My third and fourth (and fatal) mistakes were drafting Nelson Cruz and Mark Teixeira, two players that weren't even in the starting lineup for their teams. Cruz, a heavy hitting right handed bat who beats up lefties, was set to go up against Toronto's J.A. Happ, a guy who's given up many a gopher ball in his day. Teixeira, a switch hitting big bopper who also beats up lefties, was scheduled to go up against southpaw Frankly Morales at hitter friendly Fenway Park. Both were given days off from their managers. Frustrating to say the least.

Snake drafts allow for 2 reserves. Unfortunately for me, both of my reserves were catchers, as I always do so as insurance because you never know when a catcher is going to have a day off. This left no flexibility in my lineup as both of utility/flex positions were occupied by a 3B, so I ended up having to leave Cruz and Teixeira in my active lineup. I can only imagine how happy my opponent was when he saw my incompetent lineup! He was probably belly laughing!

How could this have all been avoided? I should of waited until lineups came out. Once the was all said and done, that early itch for action was eclipsed by the negative feeling of losing my hard earned cash to dumb mistakes. Always wait until lineups are out before you draft!

Good luck!

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