how every day of baseball feels lately

Yesterday felt like a coinflip due to one underpriced lineup and three similarly priced pitchers that were roughly equal. Playing today is low edge for a different reason: every pitcher sucks. There isn't one pitcher I feel comfortable locking in today.

• Michael Pineda has a reasonable moneyline and opposing team total, but has a terrible strikeout prop and a matchup vs an Astros team that has increased patience and upside. He could easily get blown up.
• Zack Greinke is facing a putrid Pirates offense that was shut down by Kenta Maeda, Julio Urias, Alex Wood, Zach Davies, Chad Kuhl, and Gerritt Cole the past week, but he is pitching in the second highest run scoring ballpark in baseball on a 90 degree day and is far more expensive on Draftkings and FantasyDraft than Pineda/Estrada/Cole.
• Marco Estrada is facing a weak Mariners lineup without Robinson Cano, but he doesn't strike anyone out.
• Dallas Keuchel is an underdog, also strikes nobody out, and is overpriced.
• Gerritt Cole strikes lots of people out, but he is an underdog, the Diamondbacks team total is above 4.5, and it's a scary matchup where he could get shelled.
• J.C. Ramirez, Derek Holland, Clayton Richard, and other punts are just not that safe

The result is across 3 sites I have 5 different pitchers. Throw in an underpriced Dodgers lineup at Coors field due to a late pitching change and we have another coin flip day. I've managed to book two solid wins the past couple days despite a perceived lack of edge, so hopefully that trend continues.

Draftkings

P Marco Estrada P 100% 0 swap out
P Derek Holland P 100% 0 swap out
C Jonathan Lucroy 4 100% 0 swap out
1B Cody Bellinger 4 100% 0 swap out
2B Brian Dozier 1 100% 0 swap out
3B Nolan Arenado 3 100% 0 swap out
SS Corey Seager 2 100% 0 swap out
OF José Bautista 3 100% 0 swap out
OF Steve Pearce 5 100% 0 swap out
OF Joc Pederson 1 100% 0

I thought Estrada ($800 cheaper than Pineda and the funds were necessary), Lucroy, Bellinger, Arenado, Seager, and Joc were locks today. I wanted to have J.C. Ramirez instead of Holland, but there was no optimal way to do it: I had to give up one of the lock plays. Given I have J.C. Ramirez on Fantasydraft instead, I was fine with some Holland exposure.

I had $200 leftover and I probably should have played Nelson Cruz over Jose Bautista (my projections liked Cruz better), but I thought Bautista would be higher owned and I didn't love having a player against my pitcher. Bautista is higher owned, but Cruz already homered so I feel a little silly manually changing him out, womp womp.

FantasyDraft

P Marco Estrada $16,400 0.00
P J.C. Ramírez $13,600 0.00
IF Corey Seager $10,500 0.00
IF Steve Pearce $6,400 0.00
IF Nolan Arenado $10,200 0.00
OF Joc Pederson $9,600 0.00
OF José Bautista $7,600 0.00
OF Cody Bellinger $9,600 0.00
UTIL David Peralta $7,200 0.00
UTIL Brian Dozier $8,800 0.00

I would have preferred Brandon Belt to David Peralta, but FantasyDraft is an early lock site, and the Giants did not release their lineup til 4:07PST, so I rolled with Peralta instead. The rest of my players are pretty chalky: highest owned guys I don't have are Derek Holland, Michael Pineda, Ezequiel Carrera, and Justin Turner. I suppose a Ramirez+Pearce to Holland+Turner swap was possible, but I wanted to balance my Holland/Ramirez exposure across Draftkings/FantasyDraft (similar pricing on these sites).

Yahoo

PZack GreinkeSPvs PIT23.819.9346
PMichael PinedaSPvs HOU24.718.9646
CJonathan Lucroy4vs SD4.16.929
1BSteve Pearce5vs SEA3.66.547
2BBrian Dozier1@ CWS7.17.8317
3BNolan Arenado3vs LAD7.79.0122
SSCorey Seager2@ COL7.18.9521
OFJoc Pederson1@ COL4.28.7312
OFJose Bautista3vs SEA5.27.8011
OFDelino DeShields1vs SD4.87.508

This was the clear lock lineup. I had a choice of going Estrada over Pineda -- I actually had Estrada projected slightly higher today -- but there was no effective way to spend the extra money, I wanted to have exposure to Pineda, and I knew Pineda would be the most popular pitcher on Yahoo. There was no choice but to run this lineup and I will be surprised if it isn't duplicated in even small field 50/50s.

Going to keep the blog short today as the lineups were complete coin flips, both Pineda and Estrada are already getting rocked, and one of my two manual adjustments is off to a terrible start. Let's hope for a higher edge slate tomorrow!

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My name is Ryan Daut and I'd love to have you as a follower. Click here to go to my page, then click in the upper right corner if you would like to see my blogs and articles regularly.

I am a professional gambler, and my interests include poker, fantasy sports, football, basketball, MMA, health and fitness, rock climbing, mathematics, astrophysics, cryptocurrency, and computer gaming.