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Results and Takeaways

by Churp Daly

TL;DR: Draft “injured” players.

On Sunday afternoon, I made my second appearance in seven days at an urgent care center. Last Monday, I cut my finger and got a few sutures, and by Saturday they were looking not so hot. I woke up Sunday and things were worse, not better, so off to the doctor we went. It was the first time that day that a semi-hurt guy was betrayed by a stitched together piece of skin, but it wouldn't be the last.

Enter Noah Syndergaard. Thor was the highest salary pitcher that day, and also the only one to appear on Fantasy Draft with a red “DTD” tag. That's day to day, to you BTLs, and it means a pitcher is maybe, kind of, not really hurt. Or he was sort of hurt a few days ago. Put it this way: if a pitcher makes a scheduled start during the first month of the season, and isn't on a pitch limit, I consider him healthy. Chad thought it was weird that I would pay so much for a guy who was DTD. The word on Syndergaard was that he had some biceps weirdness and refused an MRI. Silly Chad, that tag don't mean nothing.

For me, the most interesting part of a tournament on FD is that shining moment, five minutes after lineup lock, when my lineup's ownership numbers are revealed. I want to win and everything, but you learn so much in that moment, and it can be the most exciting part of the slate before anything has even happened. Sunday afternoon, it was exciting. My ownerships were so low that day, I restarted the app a couple of times to make sure they were real. I had Dozier at 0%, Kepler at 2%, Sano at 2%, Ryu at 4%, and lots of other exciting bullcrap. At the top of the screen was Syndergaard, 7%. There are two times when you should find Syndergaard at ownership that low: when he's pitching at Coors and when he's not pitching. As a reference point, Dallas Keuchel was 64% owned in the same tournament.

In a vacuum I think Keuchel and Thor presented about the same value. I honestly thought Thor was a pretty chalky play, and it didn't hit me just how much opportunity “DTD” presents. If you had told me Syndergaard would be 7%, I would have entered ten lineups instead of one and he would have been in all of them. Thor got hammered to the tune of five runs in the first inning and was pulled in the second after logging 38 pitches. Welp.

The rest of the lineup did very well, and I finished in the top 10% even with -7 from Syndergaard. If I had played Keuchel instead, I would have finished first.  

So what did we learn? The fact that Thor left the game so early, without being in immediate danger of giving up more runs, doesn't mesh well with my claim that he wasn't really hurt. Maybe this time he was. But at the time I submitted my lineup, he was both hurt and not hurt, like that German guy's cat. You can form your own takeaways, but here's mine: I'm going to make a lot of theoretical money playing Noah Syndergaard at 7%. Don’t have an account? Sign up now at draftkings.com/r/ChurpDaly HMU with your questions on Twitter @realChurpDaly

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EP34 - Pukesgiving

On this week's cast, we talk about recent reports of sexual misconduct, the Stranger Things kids, video games, Thanksgiving, hair loss, death and Fake News. Joe barfs, then we play trivia games.

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EP33 - Hamsterpocalypse

John, Churp, Carl and Joe together again for episode 33. Talking about Larry Walker's love for the number three, Thor, Stranger Things, John's daughter's dead hamsters, Joe's "Baby Battle" app idea, video games and more. Joe's got some trivia games, including everyone's favorite "The Google Review Game." #PodcastRightNow, fastest growing outlaw audio in North America!!!!!

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EP32 - Prarry Hamik

This week on podcastrightnow, John was out with the wife so the rest of the podcast boys were joined by their pal Prarry Hamik. They talked about Stranger Things, Beetlejuice 2, fake news and all sorts of other shlim shlam. They also played some trivia games including Guess the Bowie and The Google Review game as Joe got wine drunk. They did it all for you.

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EP31 - Jesus is Lord (Don’t Question It)

(Recorded in Early October) This week Joe sings a song, we play a bunch of trivia games, Churp delivers a steaming pile of Fake News, and we talk about all sorts of stuff...(including but not limited to) pumpkin spice life, John's pool, John's upcoming wedding, angry space birds, butts, lettuce, Jesus, vaginas, coffee, Harvey Weinstein and Jurassic Park. Prepare to be offended?

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E28 - IT and Other Shit

Churp saw IT and we have spoilers and opinions, John talks about playing Destiny 2, plus Fake News, Weed, Trivia, Guess the Bowie and more! Enjoy!

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E27 - Noincidence

Back to the basics with those classic podcast boys. Talking about the fight last week, more karaoke stories, fake news, sports and SO MUCH MORE. Open your earholes and listen.

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Fade the Headlines

by Churp Daly

Last Friday, Clayton Kershaw took the hill against the Rockies in Denver. I have a few thoughts on this.

First of all, from a pro wrestling standpoint, this is a dream booking. Baseball clubs don’t normally look forward to facing Kershaw, but the Rockies front office must have been pleased to see this matchup. I seriously think this should go on their promotional calendar. 

If you’re not familiar with Kershaw or Coors Field, he’s the best pitcher in baseball and it is the most extreme hitter’s park in the history of the universe. The acreage of the diamond is typical, actually pretty large. The magic of Coors Field is the altitude in Colorado, which affects the density of the air. On an average night in Denver, a fly ball travels about 30% farther than at sea level. But it doesn’t stop there. A good major league pitcher does a lot more than throw hard. They put ridiculous, professional amounts of spin on their pitches, to the point that you or I would be an underdog to catch a breaking ball with a gloved hand on the first try. In thinner air, there’s less water, fewer molecules for the ball to grab, and a curve ball just hangs there, like it was in space. 

So this guy in this stadium is about as close as you can get in baseball to God fighting the devil. 

Now, imagine there’s a UFC card where the main event actually is God fighting the devil. I would pay $59.99 for that. Some would bet on God and some would bet on Satan, but the key takeaway for us is that no one would have an opinion on the undercard. For fantasy purposes, this is a big mistake, because while God and Satan is an interesting real life fight, there’s no reason to think it will include more significant strikes, round bonuses, and whatever else the scoring events in fantasy MMA are. In fact, the two forces effectively cancel each other out to some extent, and that will be reflected in the box score. 

In practice, the spectacle of a matchup like this can draw a ton of attention from the field. Part of this is because they see an opportunity to prove how smart they are, and part of it is because they might plan on watching anyway, and sports are a lot more exciting when you’re invested financially. 

We can win in this environment by keeping a rule of thumb: the more we hear about a story in real life, the less we should buy into the narrative as gamers. Let’s think through some hypotheticals and how we would approach them from a fantasy perspective. 

Hypothetical 1: LeBron James bruised his hand yesterday. Fantasy outlets are reporting that he participated briefly in shoot around, but Tyronn Lue states that he will play a normal load of minutes.

Fantasy Take: People think LeBron James is hurt, and I might get him at low ownership. Play.

Hypothetical 2: LeBron James and Jimmy Butler have been shit talking each other all year. They play tonight and each one has been posting pictures of the other’s mom on social media.

Fantasy Take: People expect these two to play with more intensity. There’s no real reason to think that, and they might be at risk for technicals. Fade and play the other studs at low ownership.

Hypothetical 3: Jacob DeGrom is the most dominant pitcher on the slate, pitching against the Royals, who strike out more than any other team in baseball.

Fantasy Take: The Royals do not strike out that much more than any other professional baseball team. Fade and play the 2nd most dominant pitcher at a fifth of the ownership.

The general idea in all of this is that the stories that get the most attention, by definition, are exaggerated versions of reality. Human beings are wired to be attracted to stories and extremes, but reality tends to be more chaotic and vanilla. 

Btw, I think it’s pretty weird that the Rockies never got a cable deal. The Cubs and the Braves have national followings in large part because of their associations with WGN and TBS back in the day. For as long as I can remember, mass appeal in baseball has been about home runs, and here’s this park that produces them at 2.5x the normal rate, and no cable deal. What gives?

Don’t have an account? Sign up now at draftkings.com/r/ChurpDaly HMU with your questions on Twitter @realChurpDaly

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PCRN Weekly MLB Contest

Sports fans, don’t forget to check out Churp’s personal spreadsheet and join the Free Weekly MLB Contest!

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The Silence of the Jake Lambs

by Churp Daly TL;DR: Don't be afraid to play a left handed hitter against a left handed pitcher. Most nights I fire a single bullet at the $25 GPP on Fantasydraft.com. Saturday night that lineup included Diamondbacks numbers one through three. That was A.J. Pollock, Chris Owings, and Paul Goldschmidt. No Jake Lamb. Goldschmidt and Pollock appeared on 40%+ of lineups that night, Owings on 16%. Decent production from my guys in the early innings.: Pollock single, Goldschmidt walk, Pollock and Goldschmidt each steal a base. Then, in the 5th inning, Lamb goes deep with a man on base. Bad news for me and my mini stack, I thought. To my surprise, Jake Lamb shows up on the MVP list and I get a peak at his ownership, a measly 4%. How, in a top 5 hitters park, against an average pitcher in Tyler Anderson, were #1 Pollock and #3 Goldie drafted ten times more often than #4 Jake Lamb? For me, he wasn't an intentional fade, just never on my radar. Lefty versus lefty. Meh. First principles, gamers. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing, ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man we seek? He hits for power... he has favorable splits... he- No!That is incidental. What is the first and principle thing he does? He plays professional baseball. Research is important, and in general, we want to target players who have something working in their favor in any given matchup. But, again, this guy was hitting cleanup in Chase Field. And was owned at a rate of 4% compared to a rate of 40% for the guy in front of him. Why? Lefty versus lefty. Meh. Somewhere in the back of all of our minds is the idea that with enough research we can control everything. It's just not true. We need to embrace the element of randomness in fantasy sports, and part of that is recognizing that a professional baseball player in a “bad” spot can represent value in the long run. Pollock, Owings and Goldschmidt were in good spots that night, and Lamb wasn't. But so what? This is a professional baseball player, and a good one at that. George Springer was also in a good spot that night, and went 0 for 4, as he often will. When you play Lamb instead of Springer, you'll be right much more often than 1 in 10 times. And it could be the difference between making money and not. Some nights the Diamondbacks will hang 15 on Tyler Anderson and it could win you a tournament. Now, it turns out that Jake Lamb is actually particularly bad against LHP lol. Maybe not the best example, but I really wanted to quote that movie. And if you're telling me that every player on Fantasy Draft knew that Lamb was as bad as he is in that situation, then well... they didn't. They saw left on left and moved on. Last week on Rotogrinders I heard Dean remark that Marco Estrada became an autofade when Russell Martin, a catcher, was announced as the starting third baseman. Then Pepsi pointed out that Estrada is an extreme fly ball pitcher, and therefore still playable. Thanks, Pepsi. I was worried there for a minute. In DFS, you win by interpreting information better than your opponents. Finding the signal in the noise. Often times the clearest signal is just how much of what we hear is noise. <sniff> Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns pinch hits for Ken Griffey Jr. at the company softball game because the pitcher is left handed? That's you, when you ignore the Jake Lambs of the world.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now at draftkings.com/r/ChurpDaly HMU with your questions on Twitter @realChurpDaly

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Episode 8 - Stupid Idiots

No Johnny-Boy this week. Just Carl, Kevin, Joe, and our special guest, once again, the great Chad. Car trivia hosted by Chad, Churp Daly Sports, Podcast Pot of Gold, A new "sponsor," The Lena Dunham Fiasco, WWE Payback, and MORE! #podcastrightnow

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Clean Plate Club - Keep Your Breakup Songs to Yourself - EP [Explicit]

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Ownership

by Churp Daly Welcome back, gamers! Before we get into it, there's a key resource that I forgot to mention in my introductory lesson, and that resource goes by the name Kevin Roth. Follow him on Twitter now. Roth is a rockstar in the fantasy world, a weatherman who reports on every fantasy sport influenced by weather, baseball being the most pronounced of those. An hour or so before lineups lock, count on him tweeting out a neatly packaged summary of any weather you should be aware of. You can also find that report at rotogrinders.com/weather/mlb. Okay, so ownership. In a tournament with 200 people, your goal is to finish first. Most beginners would tell you the object of a fantasy contest is to score a lot of points. More probability minded beginners would tell you the object is to give yourself the best chance of scoring a lot of points. Neither answer is correct, and this is a market inefficiency we can exploit. Imagine this game: You and 99 other guys pick one of four players, and the guys who pick the high scorer split $1000 evenly. Everyone knows the chances of each player being the high scorer for the night, and they are as follows: Joey Votto: 50% Adam Duvall: 30% Billy Hamilton: 20% Out of 100 people, you can count on 60-70 people to pick the best player. Here's why that's wrong. Let's say the ownership is Votto: 60% Duvall: 20% Hamilton: 20% If Votto takes the night, 60 people will split 1000 and they will each pocket around $17. If Duvall, 20 people will split 1000 and they will pocket $50, and the same goes for Hamilton. So who's the best play? Votto has a 50% chance of netting $17, for an expected value of $8.50 Duvall has a 30% chance of netting $50, for an EV of $15 Hamilton has a 20% chance of netting $50, for an EV of $10 Not coincidentally, the money comes from the guy whose chance of a top score is higher than his ownership percentage. It turns out that what we're really after is players with a high ratio of actual value to perceived value, players who will be underappreciated by the market. Generally that translates to a goal of finding a decent player at very low ownership, rather than a superb player at medium to high ownership. Think about it this way. On any given night, Mike Trout may be 10% owned, and Nick Markakis may be 1% owned. Ask yourself if Mike Trout is literally ten times more likely to have the better night. He's not. In practice, there are a couple of shortcuts we can use to achieve lower ownership. Try stacking the team that has the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th highest projected run total. Try replacing that team's biggest star with a star from another team. Think the Mariners without Nelson Cruz, or if you're feeling really wacky, the Braves without Freddie Freeman. It's a complicated topic and I'm going to go play Rocket League, but that should be enough to get you started thinking about the importance of ownership in large field tournaments. Try out those new strategies tomorrow night in this week's PCRN free Draftkings contest! Tinyurl.com/PCRNApril21Two Don't have an account? Sign up now at draftkings.com/r/ChurpDaly HMU with your questions on Twitter @realChurpDaly

ADVANCED STATS SHEET

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Episode 3 - #Aprilrealz

Churp Daly returns to the podcast, we talk april fools, and APRIL REALZ. Wrestlemania predictions, Name that Bowie, trivia and tons more nerd talk await. Click play right now.