The Syndicate

Astos are sucking tonight for DFS purposes (and real life purposes, I guess).

The Dodgers have decided to suck all week and now they're facing Bumgarner tomorrow. Whatever, I hate this team and the Bum is on my fantasy team.

Going with the Chicago Cubbies week 3 plz

Week 3: Arizona Diamondbacks

Going to get those Phillies out of the way for Week 3

Alright you baseball people- is it even worth looking at stats yet in helping me pick? Is ERA a even useful this early in the season? I've made two missteps now and I'd like to avoid a three-peat.

Week 3: Colorado Rockies

G-Man wrote:Alright you baseball people- is it even worth looking at stats yet in helping me pick? Is ERA a even useful this early in the season? I've made two missteps now and I'd like to avoid a three-peat.

Not this early. I just look for trends, like see who is overall, and who is moving up & who is steady.

G-Man wrote:Alright you baseball people- is it even worth looking at stats yet in helping me pick? Is ERA a even useful this early in the season? I've made two missteps now and I'd like to avoid a three-peat.

Not really. The Reds had a stellar Week 1, but they're having an incredibly rough Week 2.

This early in the season, gut is almost the best way to make a pick.

Ah, so basically, I (as a non-baseball person) am hopelessly screwed unless I hit some big-time dumb luck. Got it.

Us baseball people are hopelessly screwed,too.

Welcome to baseball

I don't think I'm going to be splurging in DFS baseball like I did basketball a few months ago (another unfamiliar sport). Way too much variance for my taste. Maybe I haven't figured it out, but it's a different monster.

I'll take the Chicago Cubs for Week 3.

Just making my rounds of the NL Central.

This cold be filed under the realm of bad ideas but here goes:

When I played tee-ball, my teams name was the Brewers. I'll pick Milwaukee for Week 3.

G-Man wrote:Alright you baseball people- is it even worth looking at stats yet in helping me pick? Is ERA a even useful this early in the season? I've made two missteps now and I'd like to avoid a three-peat.

1) ERA is not a very good statistic in examining pitcher quality. Sabermetrics' stats like FIP and xFIP are generally a better indicator.

2) For this season as a whole, it's probably too early to be looking at most statistics as reliable. Just not a large enough sample size yet. Once we get through June, that usually starts to solidify a bit better.

Also, I think I'm just going to start picking teams that play the Reds every week. The Cubs series made me realize just how bad this team could potentially be this year.

The Braves need to win a few games at some point though. We need to start getting competitive for the #1 pick for next year at some point!

I'll try to post the Week 2 results tonight when I get back from an in-law family function.

I did not get picks from Russ or Turnip Head but I did randomize them teams this morning. Russ got the Yankees and Turnip Head got the Twins.

birdwithteeth11 wrote:Also, I think I'm just going to start picking teams that play the Reds every week. The Cubs series made me realize just how bad this team could potentially be this year.

The Braves need to win a few games at some point though. We need to start getting competitive for the #1 pick for next year at some point!

The Cubs are also an incredibly talented team. :P

I picked the Walkers.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

birdwithteeth11 wrote:Also, I think I'm just going to start picking teams that play the Reds every week. The Cubs series made me realize just how bad this team could potentially be this year.

The Braves need to win a few games at some point though. We need to start getting competitive for the #1 pick for next year at some point!

The Cubs are also an incredibly talented team. :P

Oh absolutely. They're destroying everyone and everything in their path so far. It's like some kind of Scorched Earth policy for baseball.

G-Man wrote:Alright you baseball people- is it even worth looking at stats yet in helping me pick? Is ERA a even useful this early in the season? I've made two missteps now and I'd like to avoid a three-peat.

ERA is hardly even useful at the end of the season. Most of baseball's most well-known statistics are close to useless, especially when it comes to pitching.

It'll take me another day to get the Week 2 scores figured out. I failed to grab a screenshot of my stats page showing total runs through Saturday's games. Now I'll have to calculate it the long-ish way. Easy to do come morning.

If you really want to dig deep into the numbers side of baseball, I tend to read Fangraphs on an almost daily basis this time of year. Fair warning: there is quite a bit of math involved, and it may take some time to learn about some of the main statistics they track, but we have an entire baseball season and several months to get through all of that. :P

http://www.fangraphs.com/

Here are the final Week 2 scores. First, a reminder of who picked which teams:

AllAlongTheBoardwork- NEW YORK YANKEES
birdwithteeth11- SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
Draconus- WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Epignosis- COLORADO ROCKIES
G-Man- SAN DIEGO PADRES
JaggedJimmyJay- COLORADO ROCKIES
Metalmarsh89- PITTSBURGH PIRATES
MovingPictures07- KANSAS CITY ROYALS
Russtifinko- CHICAGO CUBS
S~V~S- ATLANTA BRAVES
Sloonei- LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Spacedaisy- NEW YORK METS*
Turnip Head- TORONTO BLUE JAYS*

Now for the Week 2 and overall leader boards:
Draconus took in the most runs during Week 2 but it wasn't quite enough to put him in the lead overall:

1. Draconus (38 runs)
2. Epignosis (37 runs)
2. JaggedJimmyJay (37 runs)
4. Russtifinko (36 runs)
5. birdwithteeth11 (35 runs)
6. Metalmarsh89 (26 runs)
6. MovingPictures07 (26 runs)
6. S~V~S (26 runs)
6. Sloonei (26 runs)
10. Turnip Head (21 runs)
11. Spacedaisy (19 runs)
12. G-Man (15 runs)
13. AllAlongTheBoardwork (10 runs)



Now for the new overall standings. JaggedJimmyJay has a 3-point lead. We'll see if he can hold on to it for another week.

1. JaggedJimmyJay (66 runs)
2. Epignosis (63 runs)
3. birdwithteeth11 (61 runs)
3. S~V~S (61 runs)
3. Sloonei (61 runs)
6. Russtifinko (60 runs)
7. Draconus (57 runs)
8. Metalmarsh89 (55 runs)
9. Spacedaisy (54 runs)
10. MovingPictures07 (52 runs)
11. G-Man (34 runs)
12. Turnip Head (33 runs)
13. AllAlongTheBoardwork (25 runs)

Them Nationals, though

10 Smashcoins say I'm in last this week

Sorry folks. It's been another crazy week. Here are the Week 3 team selections:

AllAlongTheBoardwork- CHICAGO CUBS
birdwithteeth11- COLORADO ROCKIES
Draconus- PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
Epignosis- TEXAS RANGERS
G-Man- MILWAUKEE BREWERS
JaggedJimmyJay- ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
Metalmarsh89- CHICAGO CUBS
MovingPictures07- WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Russtifinko- NEW YORK YANKEES*
S~V~S- CHICAGO CUBS
Sloonei- COLORADO ROCKIES
Spacedaisy- CINCINNATI REDS
Turnip Head- MINNESOTA TWINS*

*= Randomly Selected Team (player did not pick in time)



And here is how we're all doing so far this week:

1. G-Man (23 runs)
2. JaggedJimmyJay (21 runs)
3. Turnip Head (20 runs)
4. birdwithteeth11 (15 runs)
4. Sloonei (15 runs)
6. Spacedaisy (14 runs)
7. MovingPictures07 (13 runs)
8. Draconus (11 runs)
9. AllAlongTheBoardwork (10 runs)
9. Metalmarsh89 (10 runs)
9. S~V~S (10 runs)
12. Epignosis (9 runs)
13. Russtifinko (8 runs)


Now for your weekly reminder- please make your Week 4 team selections by midnight (EST) on Saturday, April 23rd. Those who miss the deadline will have teams randomized for them.

If there was any doubt that the Reds were decent whatsoever, I give you tonight.

Watching the disparity between us and the Cubs so far (and I know it's only 1 month so extremely small sample size) just shows how many more years we have to go in our rebuild. And how long the Cubs are going to be this good.

Oh look, the Cubs just scored 16 runs and no-hit the Reds.

It's going to be a long season.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Oh look, the Cubs just scored 16 runs and no-hit the Reds.

It's going to be a long 2-3 seasons.

FTFY :P

Week 4 - New York Mets

I'll take the Toronto Blue Jays for Week 4.

Thanks for the picks guys. I just realized I never got around to resetting the week # on the first post. I'll keep that current from now on.

I will take the Cardinals, please.

I'm watching the Pittsburgh Penguins annihilate the New York Rangers in hockey. I'm going to take this as a sign to pick Pittsburgh's baseball team for Week 4. Pittsburgh Pirates for me.

I'm picking the Washington Bryce Harpers this week.

I'll take the Boston Red Sox this week.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I'll take the Boston Red Sox this week.

Well picked.

Sloonei wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I'll take the Boston Red Sox this week.

Well picked.

I think so too. I noticed that they play the lowly Braves, as well as the Yankees next week.

Also, one of my strategies for picking thus far has been to pick teams that play 7 games during the week rather than having Thursday off. Fortunately, Boston falls into this category this week.

And despite their poor pitching, it appears they've managed to put up a lot of runs too.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Also, one of my strategies for picking thus far has been to pick teams that play 7 games during the week rather than having Thursday off. Fortunately, Boston falls into this category this week.

That's been my secret strategy so far too but I keep picking the wrong max-games teams. The Brewers did pretty well for me though. At this rate, I need everyone ahead of me to have two bad weeks in a row for me to catch up.

I pick the team with the most overall runs that I did not pick yet

G-Man wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Also, one of my strategies for picking thus far has been to pick teams that play 7 games during the week rather than having Thursday off. Fortunately, Boston falls into this category this week.

That's been my secret strategy so far too but I keep picking the wrong max-games teams. The Brewers did pretty well for me though. At this rate, I need everyone ahead of me to have two bad weeks in a row for me to catch up.

I just realized how much separation there is between the top 10 and the bottom 3. That's insane!

But yes, I imagine such a trend like this won't stay the same. This is baseball after all.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I just realized how much separation there is between the top 10 and the bottom 3. That's insane!

But yes, I imagine such a trend like this won't stay the same. This is baseball after all.

Thanks for reminding me. :P

Yes, this seems like it should be a marathon and not a sprint. *crosses his fingers*

I'll post the results later this afternoon. For now, here are the randomized teams for those who did not send selections in to me. Looks like Random.org was mostly generous this week.

AllAlongTheBoardwalk- Toronto Blue Jays
Draconus- Chicago Cubs
Russtifinko- Kansas City Royals
Turnip Head- Colorado Rockies

Okay, time for the Week 3 final scores. Here is who everyone picked for the week:

AllAlongTheBoardwork- CHICAGO CUBS
birdwithteeth11- COLORADO ROCKIES
Draconus- PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
Epignosis- TEXAS RANGERS
G-Man- MILWAUKEE BREWERS
JaggedJimmyJay- ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
Metalmarsh89- CHICAGO CUBS
MovingPictures07- WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Russtifinko- NEW YORK YANKEES*
S~V~S- CHICAGO CUBS
Sloonei- COLORADO ROCKIES
Spacedaisy- CINCINNATI REDS
Turnip Head- MINNESOTA TWINS*

*= Randomly Selected Team (player did not pick in time)

And here is how everyone did for Week 3:

1. JaggedJimmyJay (41 runs)
2. AllAlongTheBoardwork (39 runs)
2. Metalmarsh89 (39 runs)
2. S~V~S (39 runs)
5. G-Man (32 runs)
5. Turnip Head (32 runs)
7. Spacedaisy (28 runs)
8. Draconus (26 runs)
9. MovingPictures07 (24 runs)
10. birdwithteeth11 (23 runs)
10. Sloonei (23 runs)
12. Russtifinko (20 runs)
13. Epignosis (19 runs)

Congrats to JJJ. He snagged his first weekly win with a team I certainly wouldn't have thought to pick.

Now for the overall standings:

1. JaggedJimmyJay* (107 runs)
2. S~V~S* (100 runs)
3. Metalmarsh89 (94 runs)
4. birdwithteeth11 (84 runs)
4. Sloonei* (84 runs)
6. Draconus* (83 runs)
7. Epignosis (82 runs)
7. Spacedaisy* (82 runs)
9. Russtifinko (80 runs)
10. MovingPictures07 (76 runs)
11. G-Man (66 runs)
12. Turnip Head (65 runs)
13. AllAlongTheBoardwork (64 runs)

Here's a fancy-pants graph to show how our weekly scores have brought us to where we are:
Looks like things are spreading out a little but we've got a lot more season left! I'll post the Week 4 picks a little later on.

What do the asterisks in "Overall Standings" mean?

S~V~S wrote:What do the asterisks in "Overall Standings" mean?

It means you had the most runs (sole or tied with someone else) for a week. Once someone gets the most runs a second time, they'll have two asterisks behind their name. I'm just curious to see if everyone will get lucky and be a weekly leader by the end of it all or if some of us will get shut out by you ringers.

Okay, Week 4 is already under way, so here is a look at who we all picked for this week:

AllAlongTheBoardwalk - TORONTO BLUE JAYS*
birdwithteeth11- CHICAGO CUBS
Draconus- CHICAGO CUBS*
Epignosis- LOS ANGELES DODGERS
G-Man- PITTSBURGH PIRATES
JaggedJimmyJay- NEW YORK METS
Metalmarsh89- BOSTON RED SOX
MovingPictures07- TORONTO BLUE JAYS
Russtifinko- KANSAS CITY ROYALS*
S~V~S- ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Sloonei- WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Spacedaisy- SAN DIEGO PADRES
Turnip Head- COLORADO ROCKIES*

*= Randomly Selected Team (player did not pick in time)

Also, as a hockey person, it was incredibly difficult for me to override my instinct to write Maple Leafs after Toronto and Avalanche after Colorado. :P

I need to get out of the NL.

G-Man wrote:Okay, Week 4 is already under way, so here is a look at who we all picked for this week:

AllAlongTheBoardwalk - TORONTO BLUE JAYS*
birdwithteeth11- CHICAGO CUBS
Draconus- CHICAGO CUBS*
Epignosis- LOS ANGELES DODGERS
G-Man- PITTSBURGH PIRATES
JaggedJimmyJay- NEW YORK METS
Metalmarsh89- BOSTON RED SOX
MovingPictures07- TORONTO BLUE JAYS
Russtifinko- KANSAS CITY ROYALS*
S~V~S- ST. LOUIS BLUES
Sloonei- WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Spacedaisy- SAN DIEGO PADRES
Turnip Head- COLORADO ROCKIES*

*= Randomly Selected Team (player did not pick in time)

Also, as a hockey person, it was incredibly difficult for me to override my instinct to write Maple Leafs after Toronto and Avalanche after Colorado. :P

But you could not get past the St Louis Blues

S~V~S wrote:

G-Man wrote:Okay, Week 4 is already under way, so here is a look at who we all picked for this week:

AllAlongTheBoardwalk - TORONTO BLUE JAYS*
birdwithteeth11- CHICAGO CUBS
Draconus- CHICAGO CUBS*
Epignosis- LOS ANGELES DODGERS
G-Man- PITTSBURGH PIRATES
JaggedJimmyJay- NEW YORK METS
Metalmarsh89- BOSTON RED SOX
MovingPictures07- TORONTO BLUE JAYS
Russtifinko- KANSAS CITY ROYALS*
S~V~S- ST. LOUIS BLUES
Sloonei- WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Spacedaisy- SAN DIEGO PADRES
Turnip Head- COLORADO ROCKIES*

*= Randomly Selected Team (player did not pick in time)

Also, as a hockey person, it was incredibly difficult for me to override my instinct to write Maple Leafs after Toronto and Avalanche after Colorado. :P

But you could not get past the St Louis Blues

Let me go fix that. Bear with me folks- it's going to be a long season.