Stupid Manager Tricks

If you've looked at the ROI in our chart lately, things have obviously been going well for me. I did learn a new way of messing up a couple of days ago though. According to the MLB.com schedule page, Geer was going to start for San Diego on Friday, and Young on Saturday. I loaded up on 4 Rockies hitters against Geer (who is just bad) for Friday, and made a mental note to use Fowler (not one of the four) against the easy-to-steal-on Young for Saturday. Somewhere along the way, Geer and Young were flip-flopped in the Padres rotation, and I ended up having four hitters face a pretty good pitcher (in Young), and missed out on using the one guy I would have wanted against him (Fowler). I can't remember what the results were, but lesson learned in any case...if you plan your lineups ways in advance, it can't hurt to recheck the scheduled starters as 'lineup lock time' approaches. I can't honestly say that I'm going to do that, but if I ever get to the point where I'm thinking about earning my primary income from these games, I definitely would do so.

On a Roll

I'm on a roll. An absolute huge roll.

Since May 5th, I've waged a total of $119.90 and won $224.64. That's a difference of $104.74 and an ROI of 87.4%. Its not maintainable, but it's sure helped to get me out of the rut I dug myself into at the beginning of the season.

What's the difference. I'm not sure, but here is how I've been picking my teams.

1. I pick my pitcher first and spare no expense. I have no problem spending 378 on Lincecum instead of 10 on Bedard if I think he's going to have a better game by only 1 point.

2. I pick my closer last, but I put aside 90 points for him and add to that whatever remainder I have after picking my remaining 8 players.

3. 90% of the time I take Pujols at 1B.

4. 80% of the time I take either Longoria or Jones at 3B.

5. 70% of the time I take one of the Molina's at C, 20% of the time I take Mauer.

6. I really look for players playing terrible pitchers. I have no problem taking an entire OF for a total of 100 points, if the matchup is good. Gerut (30), Rasmus (6), Crisp (68), Winn (84) and Morgan (54) are just some examples.

7. After I'm done taking players, I'll often have between 100-120 points to spend on closers. I take the one whose most favored by Vegas to be on the winning team.

8. Right before game time I check the opening lineups for all the games that are already posted. Often there will be one player I took thats not in the lineup, so I have to switch them out.

So thats it. My formulas are becoming better at predicting game outcomes, and its obviously having an effect on picking single players. For fun I'm also picking a couple games each night, so you can follow these at www.kylehuberman.com or at @kylehuberman on twitter.

Until next time.

Thru Three Weeks

After three weeks of action at Draftbug this MLB season, I can't say that stv1313 is necessarily on the road to riches, but I'm still trying.

After spending over $200 in each of the first two weeks, I decided to slow down my play this past week. Spending less than $100, I experienced an ROI of 23.49% the past seven days. Inch by inch, I'm getting closer and closer to being "in the black". If nothing else, I'm happy to see that my losses only approximate the rake I've given to the site. Accordingly, I doubt that anyone on the site rates me a fish.

Day after day, I believe that I'm discovering the values in the Draftbug database. I continue to use Bill Hall whenever he faces left-handed starters, and there are several other players that I'm targeting each day - depending on the matchups. As more and more data becomes available this season, I anticipate that I'll start seeing some profits very soon.

In the interim, here's a quick summary of my weekly results so far this year. I hope this is the last time that my cumulative ROI shows a negative figure. ha ha!

1st Invitational Blogger Contest

So on Wednesday I had the opportunity to play in the 1st Invitational Blogger contest as the representative of Draftbug Millionaire. My competition included:

• Alex Zelvin, ‘waiver wire’, The Waiver Wire, http://waiverwire.blogspot.com
• Kyle Huberman, ‘icehube’, Draftbug Millionaire, http://draftbugmillionaire.blogspot.com
• Dave Hall, ‘Roto Guru’, Roto Guru, http://www.rotoguru2.com
• Troy Patterson, ‘TroyPatterson’, Rotosavants, http://www.rotosavants.com
• Sean, ‘scojo’, 27 Pitches, http://www.27pitches.com
• Nick Cichielo, ‘Junkballers’, junkballers, http://www.junkballers.com
• Mark Perry, ‘PokerBankrollBlog’, Poker Bankroll Blog, http://www.pokerbankrollblog.com
• Josh Culp, ‘Future of Fantasy’, Future of Fantasy, http://www.futureoffantasy.com
• Dan Williams, ‘TheInsidePitch’, The Inside Pitch, http://www.theinsidepitch.com
• Justin Hulsey, ‘JayHulsey’, Fandemonium Sports, http://fandemoniumsports.blogspot.com
• Paul Bourdett, ‘The Pick-up Artist’, Rotoexperts, http://www.rotoexperts.com
• Mike, ‘bonds’, Winning at Fantasy Sports Live, http://winatfantasysportslive.com
• Steve Schroeder, ‘stv1313’, Steve’s Gambling Sketchbook, http://stevesketchbook.blogspot.com

I came in 3rd with 53 points, a successful night considering that all the participants are considered to be experts at this game and I still cant remember which Chicago team is in which league. My team that night was:

OF Garret Anderson ATL

OF Nate McLouth PIT

OF Jody Gerut SDP

1B James Loney LOS

2B Orlando Hudson LOS

3B Chipper Jones ATL

SS Omar Infante ATL

C Bengie Molina SFG

SP Jake Peavy SDP

RP Jonathan Broxton LOS

I obviously really liked Atlanta and Los Angles considering that their opposing pitchers had a combined era of 10.67. But the real decision that night (as is every night) was which pitcher to take; Peavy, Halladay, Santana, Lowe and Burnett were all available and some players even took Randy Johnson. My formula told me that Peavy and Santana was a coin flip, and unfortunately I picked the wrong guy. But honestly how do you pick Lowe, Burnett, or Johnson, when clearly there are better pitchers available? I don’t care that they were less expensive. The guaranteed strike out points alone will make up for the cost.

I started this season of embarrassingly and now I’m slowly working my way back to even dollars on the seasons as my formula begins to benefit from seeing an increased number of At Bats.

Evaluating Relievers after One Month

It is still early in the season, but after one month of games, top-tier relievers are getting out-performed by middle-tier relievers. Here is a look at the current Top 8 Relievers:


As you can see, only one reliever in the current top performers is priced over $138. That being Jonathan Papelbon, and he is currently ranked 8th. What about the eight highest priced relievers? Here's a look at the highest priced relievers:


As you can see, none of these high priced relievers have earned more than 67 Draftbug Points this season. Are the relievers priced wrong? Or is this going to even itself out by the end of the year? It's a little bit of both. I expect relievers like K-Rod and Mariano to get their usual amount of saves, but there will continue to be bargain closers the entire season. With Saves being so random, it is generally best to look through the bargain bin when choosing your relievers.

Ethier Ethier Ethier!!

If you're ever going to insert Andre Ethier into your active lineup, I can't think of a better time than now. This evening, Either's LA Dodgers face Chris Young and the San Diego Padres. Young is coming off his worst start of the season (against Colorado) and has a lifetime 5.71 ERA against Los Angeles.

At the same time, Ethier has always had Young's number. Ethier is 9-for-23 lifetime against Young and has accumulated 4 HR's during that span. Considering the relatively modest price tag that comes with Ethier on Draftbug (154), I can't think of any good reason why Ethier shouldn't be in everyone's lineups tonight.

Go Dodgers!

Mark Cuban's Sports Betting Hedge Fund

A number of years ago, Mark Cuban publicly said that he thought there was an opportunity for someone to create a sports betting hedge fund. As far as I know, the idea died when he took over ownership of the Dallas Mavericks. At the time, there wasn't even a suitable vehicle for such a fund, due to the ambiguous legal status of sports betting in the United States. However, I wonder if daily fantasy sports contests will eventually be appropriate for something like that. They offer a legal means of profiting from superior sports selections, a less efficient market than betting on major sports, and more opportunity to diversify picks within one day. All we need now is the publicity and traffic to be able to support the volume of picks a fund would have to make to be a worthwhile pursuit.