FanDuel Contest: Vegas and $1 Million?

Fantasy baseball may never be the same. Thanks to FanDuel.com, you have a chance to enter a contest to win a free trip to Vegas, oh, and to pocket a grand prize of $200,000. All it will cost you is $10. Interested? If so, and why on earth wouldn’t a chance to seem some Vegas show girls, to put a $20 spot down on the craps table, or to walk away with enough money to put your kids through school not appeal to you?

$1 Million Daily Fantasy Baseball Championship on FanDuel

For the next 13 weeks a winner will be crowned in the $1 million Daily Fantasy Baseball Championship. Each weekly winner will then be flown to Vegas, all expenses paid by FanDuel.com, and given a shot at the $200,000 grand prize. That’s right. Win two weekly matchups and you’ve got $200,000 coming your way. And don’t think that you have to enter hundreds of times to win. And don’t think that you have to enter hundreds of times to win. Jordy Nelson last year entered once, one time, and he ended up in the Finals in Vegas cause he won his weekly matchup. He then proceeded to win that year’s grand prize of $100,000. All from one $10 entry.

So what do you do? You go to FanDuel.com and sign up for today’s contest that also gives you a chance to win part of the $24,000 in prizes for Friday’s event.

You then put together your salary cap team (the rules are very simple and can be found at the top of the page if you follow the link).

You win, you’re rolling in cash. Simple as that.

Who should you have in your lineup? Never say that The Oracle isn’t a nice guy. In the video below I will discuss some of the matchups and some names that you might consider adding to your lineup, as well as those you would be wise to consider passing on for this Friday.

FanDuel.com

FanDuel Contest: $3000 Friday Tournament

Every Friday at BaseballGuys.com, I relay to you how you can sign up for a daily fantasy baseball game courtesy of FanDuel.com. Today is no different. I’ll spend a bit of time detailing how you can win some cash, and then I’ll give away all my secrets by letting you know who should, or shouldn’t, be in your lineup. Oh, and finally, I’m also going to be in the league, so you will get a shot to take down the obnoxious Ray Flowers.

* NOTE: This information about who to play on Friday is clearly something those of you in standard roto leagues should be looking at as well. Guys like Buster Posey and Dustin Pedroia may not be guys you want in your lineup Friday.

$3000 Friday Fantasy Baseball Tournament

You got $10 laying around? Do you want to spend it on a hot dog and beer? Sure you could do that, but in 15 minutes it would be gone. Well, until the hot dog starts repeating on you in about an hour an a half that is. Why not take that $10 and try to win part of the $3000 cash prize given away by FanDuel.com? Here’s what you do.

Sign up using this link.

Select your salary cap roster by 7 PM EDT, Friday.

Watch the games tonight. Pick up your cash (there are 37 spots that pay out… and even the 37th finisher doubles their initial investment).

So sign up, enjoy the night of games, and then win some cash. Maybe you’ll be able to buy a hot dog and a case of beer for your next Friday night.

Who should you have in your lineup? Never say that The Oracle isn’t a nice guy. In the video below I will discuss some of the matchups and some names that you might consider adding to your lineup for your chance to become a very rich person courtesy of FanDuel.com.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: May22, 2012

(1) D’backs call up Josh Bell to replace Ryan Roberts.

(2) Bryan LaHair really slumping in May.

(3) James Loney heating up.

(4) Chris Capuano pitching like Sandy Koufax.

(5) Kyle Drabek living on the edge.

(6) Adam Lind solid start down at Triple-A.

(7) Miguel Montero and Ryan Braun dealing with groin issues.

(8) Jimmy Rollins out a couple of days to be with first child.

By Ray Flowers

Recent Disappointments

Over the course of the season, every player rides the wave of highs and lows. Today, I’ll high-light some of those players who are barely keeping their heads above the rising tide right now.

Marlon Byrd is batting .226 over his last 93 at-bats with just a single homer as he continues to have one of the most unique seasons in baseball this year. The recent slump has dropped Byrd’s average down down to a still respectable .284, but it’s his run production that is so fascinating. Byrd has a mere 28 RBI in 387 at-bats this season, a pace that would equate to 40 RBI over 550 at-bats. If that sounds awful it is, but it’s even more distressing when you realize that Byrd has spent 30 percent of his season batting third for the Cubs and another 34 percent batting fifth. How is it possible to spend 64 percent of your seasonal at-bats in the third and fifth holes in the lineup and still be on a pace for mere 40 RBI in 550 at-bats? That’s just shocking.

Asdrubal Cabrera has had a remarkable season. It doesn’t look like he is going to get to 20/20, he has 16 steals and last stole a base back on August 13th (yikes), but still, it’s been a rather remarkable season. Coming into the year he had hit 18 homers. He has 22 this season. He came into the year with career bests of 68 RBI and 81 runs. He has 82 RBI and is just two runs off that career best mark with three weeks left in the regular season. If you’ve have Cabrera on your roster all season long you cannot be upset at his performance, not in the least. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t be disappointed by his work over the past month. Cabrera is hitting a sickly .185 over his last 95 at-bats, and though he has knocked in 16 runs, the guy has scored only five times. He isn’t producing hits, isn’t scoring runs, and has stopped stealing bases. Do you dare go in another direction for the final three weeks of the regular season?

Chris Davis has long been my white whale. I look at the prodigious power and his outright domination of Triple-A (.340-38-146 over his last 591 at-bats), not to mention his previous success in the big leagues (38 homers, 114 RBI in his first 686 big league at-bats), and think this guy is a potential 30 homer bat. He still might be that, but he’s looking an awful lot like Carlos Pena with those 21 Ks in 50 at-bats with the Orioles. I think it might be time for me to face facts. Davis might just be a AAAA player (too good for the minors but not good enough to have success in the big leagues).

Adam Lind will be shut down for a few days with a wrist issue. He should have been left out of your fantasy lineup for a long while however. Over the last month Lind has hit five homers while knocking in 18 runs so you might be thinking ‘what the hell are you talking about Ray?’ You wanna know what I’m talking about? How about that .178 average and .575 OPS over the past month. In fact, it’s even worse than that as he has hit .186 with a .562 OPS over his last 46 games. That’s a high price to pay for a few homers.

Martin Prado just cannot get it going. He’s hitting, if you can call it that, .181 with no homers and six runs scored over his last 94 at-bats.

Pablo Sandoval is hitting a mere .247 over his last 81 at-bats to drop his season long average to .297. That’s pretty impressive given his failures last season (.268), and 18 homers in just 371 at-bats is a pretty solid number as well, but he needs to start rapping out hits to help out your fantasy squad down the stretch. OK, the truth is I’m just down on the Giants and not necessarily Sandoval. Where did it all go wrong for the club? It all went wrong when the front office thought the club had enough offense to compete. What a waste of a pitching staff.

Chris Young is hitting, sit down if you missed it, .147 over 156 at-bats since the All-Star break. He has a sprained ligament in his thumb that is the main culprit for the downturn in his production. At this point it’s almost impossible to suggest leaving him in your starting lineup unless you are in a deep NL-only league.

By Ray Flowers

Boring Is As Boring Does

You want boring, don’t read this blog. You want boring, don’t listen to my radio show on Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Radio. You want boring, go home.

Why all this boring talk? Because of the main guy I’m gonna highlight today. His name is Mark Buehrle, and word on the street is that even his wife is bored by him. Ah, but is boring necessarily a bad thing? I’d posit, at least in this case, that it’s not.

Buehrle hasn’t won more than 13 games the past three years. He’s never won 20 games, and only once has be won more than 16 (he came in with 19 victories in 2002). Still, he’s won at least 10 games each of the past 11 years.  It doesn’t sound like much, but the only other pitcher who can match that run is CC Sabathia.

He owns a career ERA of 3.80. That’s solid, but unexciting, possibly even boring some might say. Still, hie ERA has been under 3.90 in three of the past four years and his current mark of 3.06 says he will make it four of five years.

Buehrle never strikes anyone out. His career best for a K/9 is 6.05, and he’s now working on a third straight season under five at 4.79.

So why am I talking about Buehrle? Because his boring old self has been pretty amazing of late. How amazing? Buehrle worked his 18th straight outing last night in which he allowed three or fewer earned runs (he tied Frank Smith’s 1909 record). That’s over 100 years people. In those 18 starts he’s also posted a “quality start” (six or more innings pitched with three of fewer earned runs allowed), ready for this, 17 times. Now tell me, do you want that boring guy on your team? I do.

NUMBERS

I know none of you listened when I warned about Jose Bautista and the likely fall his batting average would take in the second half, but you should have. Bautista hit .334 in the first half, but in 22 games since the All-Star break he has hit all of .205. He’s still hitting a strong .309 on the year, but I’ve said it over and over again — even hitting .300 has always been a huge stretch for Bautista who has never hit even .265 in a season.

Adam Dunn is hitting .167 in the second half. Amazingly, that’s seven points better than he batted in the first half.

Aubrey Huff is the Giants leading hitter right now with a .249 average (he has the highest average on the club of any player with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting average title – 3.1 plate appearances per team game). He’s been on fire of late though, finally, hitting .353 in August and .305 over his last 24 games. Finally.

Adam Lind is hitting .196 since the All-Star break. The team says the blame rests with a mechanical flaw in his hack. Let’s hope that is the case, but he is unusable right now in mixed leagues.

Kerry Wood has struck out 8-straight batters to tie the all-time Cubs’ record. Kyle Farnsworth and Juan Cruz also pulled off the trick. With the hot stretch Wood has upped his K/9 mark to 9.64 on the year, still nearly three quarters of a point below his career mark of 10.33.

By Ray Flowers

Two Weeks

photo © 2009 petercruise | more info (via: Wylio)

Everyone always likes to take things out of context. Come on, admit it, you’ve done it yourself.

Player A goes 6-for-10 and you want to add him to your club even though he hit .218 last year.

Player B throws a shutout and you want to add him at the cost of a guy who has 175 Ks last year.

Britney Spears is a great singer. Well, if the “context” is me and her in a direct competition, than she is a great singer.

(For more on the idea of “context” make sure you give Context Revisited a read).

Today the context that we will use is FOURTEEN DAYS as in the last 14 days of the 2011 season. When we look at that tiny sample size just look at the craziness that we find.

* Ben Zobrist leads all of baseball with 16 runs scored in just 12 games played. He’s totally going to score more than 210 runs this season. Freddy Sanchez and Aramis Ramirez haven’t scored a single run the past 14 days.

* Mark Ellis and Miguel Tejada haven’t knocked in a single run the past two weeks. Lance Berkman has 17 RBI.

* Adam Lind leads baseball with six homers and he’s second with 15 RBI. To compare, Adrian Gonzalez has three homers and 12 RBI. Is there a single person out there who would prefer to have Lind over A-Gone on their team? If you raised your hand “yes” on that one then your must be related to Lind.

* Prince Fielder is hitting .149, the same mark as Starlin Castro. Anyone want to take me up on my bet that Matt Joyce (.457) doesn’t nearly triple those two in batting average this season?

* Troy Tulowitzki, you remember, the guy everyone was saying would be the most productive fantasy player in the game about three weeks ago after his massive start to the year, has hit .093 the past two weeks. He’s also posted an OPS of .426 in that time. Tulo’s career SLG is higher than that at .497.

* Colby Lewis has a HR/9 mark of 2.57. Anyone out there think that they Lewis is going to end the year with HR/9 mark more than double double previous his previous level (it was 0.94 last year)?

* Rarely is there ever an absolute in the world, but in this case there certainly is one. Shaun Marcum, Jason Hammel, Jhoulys Chacin and Josh Tomlin have 100 percent left on base percentage marks the past two weeks. Given that no one is perfect, and that the big league average is usually right around 70 percent, you know which way this number is going for all for men – drastically downward.

* The last two weeks five pitchers in baseball have an ERA under 1.00 – Shaun Marcum, Trevor Cahill, Jason Hammel, Vance Worley and Madison Bumgarner. It’s possible that at the end of the year that this five-some of arms will have a combined ERA of 4.00.

* I know that Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in baseball, but I’m fairly certain he won’t be able to maintain his 18.00 K/BB rate from the past two weeks. I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that Daniel Hudson (17.00) and David Price (14.00) won’t be able to keep up their paces either. How can I say that? The single season record, for a minimum of 162 innings pitched, is 11.00 by Bret Saberhagen in 1994.

Remember folks – context and sample size are key. If you focus to so closely on what is right in front of you there might be situations that arise in which you actually think that Britney Spears is a great singer. Pay attention to what is going on at all times, but never lose site of the context.

By Ray Flowers

Hot Stove: Signings Galore

Its been another wild and wooly day in the world of baseball as a whole handful of fantasy relevant players have decided where they will play in 2011.

Edwin Encarnacion: Well look at that. After casting EE adrift because they didn’t want to overpay him (he was picked up off waivers by the Athletics who subsequently decided not to offer him a contract as he was non-tendered), the Blue Jays brought Encarnacion back into the fold. Paid $4.75 million last season, Encarnacion signed a one year deal for $2.5 million with a club option of $3.5 million for 2012. You might not be aware, but Edwin hit 21 homers last season which is more than Scott Rolen (20), Kevin Youkilis (19), Casey Blake (17) and Kevin Kouzmanoff (16) despite the fact that he had just 332 at-bats. A poor third basemen, it appears that the current plan is for Edwin to see some time at third, first and DH this season, potentially splitting time with Adam Lind at 1B/DH. For more of the Encarnacion love fest make sure you read Jason Collette’s Free Agent Forecast: E5 where he expounds about his unhealthy man-crush on the free swinging infielder (it’s kind of creepy how much Jason digs Edwin… I’m just saying Jason).

Bobby Jenks: Buster Olney is reporting that the Red Sox and former White Sox closer Bobby Jenks have agreed to a 2-year deal for $12 million. This signing is a bit odd since the Red Sox already have young flame thrower Daniel Bard, not to mention closer Jonathan Papelbon. It’s pure speculation at this point, but why would the BoSox bother to bring in Jenks to pitch the 7th inning? The point is, they wouldn’t. This leads to the obvious – perhaps the Red Sox are going to rid themselves of Papelbon. Problem is, Jonathan is coming off his worst season since becoming the closer, and he will likely make upwards of $11 million or more through arbitration. Who wants to take on a slumping closer who will make more than $11 million, especially when he will become a free agent after the 2011 season (for more on Papelbon see Around the Horn: Offseason Moves)? Good question. As for Jenks, he is coming off a career worst 4.44 ERA and a five year low of 27 saves, but he actually pitched very, very well. In addition to a five year best with a K/9 rate of 10.42, Jenks also managed the best GB/FB ratio of his career at a superb 2.80. If he combines those two numbers again in 2011, his ERA should fall by at least a run if not back into the 2′s.

Russell Martin: I wrote about Martin’s decision to sign a one year deal with the Yankees in Hot Stove: Lee Isn’t Only Newsmaker. Now comes word that during his physical it was determined that he will need minor knee surgery. The Yankees still signed him to the contract with this knowledge, so you have to think the issue is relatively minor, but it can’t make you feel good about Martin’s 2011 outlook given that he is coming off of two mediocre seasons (at best) and a fractured hip. He’s dropping down my draft list.

Magglio Ordonez: Jon Heyman is reporting that Mags will return to the Tigers on a 1-year deal for a rather large $10 million. The Tigers likely had to overpay a bit since they only wanted to do a one year deal with a guy coming back from ankle surgery. Ordonez has been working out and is said to already be close to 100 percent healthy. For more on Ordonez and his prospects for the upcoming season check out Around the Horn: Offseason Moves.

Josh Willingham: Buster Olney is reporting that Willingham will be dealt to the Athletics in exchange for two players (one who has major league experience). I have to hand it to the A’s, they are doing some nice things. Not only have they added two arms to what was potentially the best staff in the AL last year with Rich Harden and Brandon McCarthy, they have also augmented the offense by adding Hidkei Matsui, David DeJesus and now Willingham (you can read more about the addition of Harden in Hot Stove: Pitchers Dominate the News and more about Matsui in the link above in the Martin writeup). Willingham missed the end of 2010 because of knee surgery, and he will be a free agent after the coming campaign, but the guy can hit. Over the past five years Josh has averaged 20 homers and 66 RBI a season despite an average of just 434 at-bats a year. It is a concern that Oakland’s home park doesn’t reward power hitters, and that Willingham hasn’t had even 430 at-bats in any of the last three seasons, but he does add some needed thump to a lineup whose biggest home run hitter in 2010 was Kevin Kouzmanoff with 16.

By Ray Flowers

The AL MVP Race

Yesterday I touched on the NL MVP Race, and with things not nearly as clear cut over the AL, I thought it would be beneficial to present my thoughts for the top-10 players in the Junior Circuit for your perusal.

Like yesterday, I want to let you know that I won’t be listing any pitchers here, they already have their own season ending trophy.

NL Cy Young

AL Cy Young

10 – Bobby Abreu
Got no respect at all on the free agent market so he was forced to take a 1-year deal with the Angels. No one in Southern California is complaining now as Abreu hit .293-15-103-96-30 in a terrific all-around campaign that was his seventh straight year that he has scored at least 96 runs, while knocking in 100 and stealing 22 or more bases.

9 – Evan Longoria
The Rays fell on hard time in 2009 but second year third baseman Evan Longoria wasn’t to blame as he led AL third basemen in homers (33) and RBI (113) while finishing second in runs with 100 (Chone Figgins had 114). Still, it was a bit of a disappointing effort for Longoria since he had 13 homers and 55 RBI in his first 51 games this season.

8 – Adam Lind
Who saw this coming? Dude was flat out stud-like hitting .305 with 35 homers and 114 RBI. Lind also scored 93 times and produced a .932 OPS even if no one noticed because he plays for the Blue Jays.

7 – Kendry Morales
The best power hitter on the best team in the AL West, Morales came out of relative obscurity to blast his way to a .306-34-108 line as he remained a steady power bat despite injuries to Vlad Guerrero and Torii Hunter.

6 – Jason Bay
May not get the publicity of some of the other guys on this list but he was second in the league with 119 RBI as he also scored 103 times while going deep 36 times. Add into the mix a .921 OPS and you have a guy who will break the bank in free agency this offseason.

5 – Ichiro Suzuki
Once again led the league in hits with 225 as he hit .350 (actually .352) for the fourth time. Did lose his 8-year run of .300 with 100 runs and 200 hits though as the terrible offense around him plated him only 88 times despite the fact that he posted an OBP of .386, eight points above his career mark. Still he had a marvelous season doing what he does best – and he did it better than anyone else yet again.

4 – Miguel Cabrera
Was an embarrassment late in the year – you can read all about it in Around the Horn – but he still posted tremendous numbers over the course of the season as he used 198 hits to bat .324 with a .396 OBP and a .942 OPS as he slugged 34 homers, drove in 103 runs and scored 96 times for the Tigers.

3 – Mark Teixeira
It helps that he is a Yankee, but he also tied for the AL lead in homers with 39 (Carlos Pena) and led the league with 122 RBI. When you add on to that a .292 average and a .948 OPS you have yourself one hell of a season in his first year in pinstripes.

2 – Derek Jeter
Jeter scored his customary 100-runs with 107, and he was third in the league with a .334 batting average while producing 212 hits, 18 homers, 66 RBI and 30 steals. He also played much better defense than you may have thought

1 – Joe Mauer
When you set an all-time single season record for batting average by a catcher (.365), a mark that leads the league, and you also pace the circuit in OBP (.444), SLG (.587) and OPS (1.031), it’s an easy call for MVP even if you missed a month of the season with a bad back.

By Ray Flowers

The Last Man

I have nothing to say about the Dodgers or Kim Kardashian, I just like to look at her so I put her picture at the top of this piece.

There is one day left to vote on for the final player to be added to each league’s All-Star team for next week in St. Louis. If you need a little bit of perspective on who are the best choices in each league, here are my thoughts.

Note: I’m purely addressing who is the most qualified option paying no attention to position or what the All-Star squads may or may not need given how the rosters are configured.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Chone Figgins, 3B, LAA: .310-1-27-63-24 in 318 ABs
Figgins has produced the average that he didn’t last season (.276), and he is on pace to return to the 40-steal plateau that he reached in 2005-07. He isn’t hitting well against lefties (.227) but he is smoking righties to the tune of a .342 mark. He ranks 11th in the AL in average, fourth in steals and he leads the junior circuit in runs scored.

Brandon Inge, 3B/C, DET: .267-19-54-48-2 in 285 ABs
Really scuffing of late hitting just .205 with a .655 OPS the past two weeks, Inge has been a life saver for the Tigers, and for those fantasy leaguers who have been running him out there as a catcher eligible player. Though he has played exclusively third this season, if we compare his numbers to the other catchers he leads the way in home runs and is second in RBI to Victor Martinez (57). As is, he leads third sackers in homers and his 54 RBI are second to Evan Longoria (64).

Ian Kinsler, 2B, TEX: .252-20-54-60-17 in 333 ABs
Never has a potential 30/30 season from a second basemen looked so bad. The reason is that .252 average. Kinsler, who hit .322 in April, has hit .226 over his last 60 games. Still, he is tied for the position lead with Aaron Hill in home runs, is second to Hill in RBI (59), is second in runs (Brian Roberts has 62) and he is tied with Roberts for first at the position with 17 steals. That’s a whole lot of top shelf work, minus the batting average.

Adam Lind, OF, TOR: .308-18-57-49-1 in 321 ABs
He has been a breakout star all year, and he just keeps hitting. Still, his numbers don’t really stand out until you compare him to other AL outfielders and realize that he has more homers than Torii Hunter (17) while he has knocked in more runs than all but two others (Jason Bay has 71, Hunter 65).

Carlos Pena, 1B, TB: .228-23-55-59-1 in 294 ABs
Leads the AL in home runs, but other than that, his performance has been awful including being second in the league with 106 Ks, and don’t even get me started about how absurd it is to be considering a man who is hitting .228 for the All-Star team.

5. Pena
4. Lind
3. Inge
2. Figgins
1. Kinsler

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Cristian Guzman. SS, WAS: .310-3-21-41-3 in 297 ABs
The opposite of Pena above, this man’s value is totally batting average driven as he has as many home runs this season as Paul Konerko hit on Tuesday night. Guzman also has no speed at all – those three steals are the same as Tyler Greene who has only seen the field enough for 104 at-bats with the Cardinals.

Matt Kemp, OF, LAD: .307-10-45-44-19 in 306 ABs
Kemp still hasn’t developed the power that some believe he one day will, but it’s tough to down a guy who is hitting over .300 with a pace that would result in 85 runs, 85 RBI and 35 steals. Oh, and you want to make sure he is always in the lineup if there is a lefty on the hill as he simply murders them (.384/.483/.630 in 73 ABs).

Mark Reynolds, 3B, ARI: .265-24-62-53-14 in 309 ABs
Yes he strikeouts out at an embarrassing rate (114 Ks or one per 2.71 ABs), but the man still produces as he leads the position in home runs and RBI while he is third in steals behind Wright (20) and Emilio Bonifacio (18). Not many players go 25/25 with 120 RBI (it’s only happened 16 times in big league history).

Pablo Sandoval, 3B, SF: .328-13-48-38-3 in 287 ABs
This is exactly the type of guy the league should be looking to publicize. Portly, a free spirit quick with a smile, and one hell of a young hitter, the Kung Fu Panda has it all. He has a better batting average, more home runs, more RBI and a higher OPS than David Wright (.322-5-42 with a .878 OPS). Nuff said.

Shane Victorino, OF, PHI: .306-6-39-60-13 in 330 ABs
Pains me to list this guy fourth in the NL, but others have been more impressive. Still, he is the only outfielder in the NL who is hitting at least .300 with 60 runs, 10 steals and 100 hits. That should result in some love shouldn’t it?

5. Guzman
4. Victorino
3. Kemp
2. Reynolds
1. Sandoval

By Ray Flowers