Hoping to be saved from the pit of irrelevance, I had all my eggs riding on this week’s matchup with last place Bangle-Doof. As the innings fade here on the final evening of scoring, things are looking solidly W. I was saved by a somewhat less effective C. Sale on a second start as the Astros knocked him around a bit. His T. Bauer failed miserably as did my gamble on C. Paddak. I nearly lost it because of my bad waiver moves.

This next week I’m taking a flyer on B. Buxton. I think Minnesota is due for some run. They’re pretty scrappy and that’s what I look for as a metric. Hard to quantify but not hard to see when players either have the stuff or don’t. Often times I find my instincts on picking in this way are less than accurate. Carpet bombing draws a familiar parallel to my methodology up to this point. I feel like I’m getting better at recognizing trends. When teams get hot, they hit better, and that sliding percentage improves depending on the batting order, venue and so on. It’s a lot like football, but that stats go three levels deeper. They have sub metrics for damn near every aspect of gameplay. The Yahoo! league editor only lets you carry 15 statistical categories between batting and pitching, but there are twice as many choices of things to track. The data scrutiny is not a thing I have yet come to terms with. The guys who make money at daily fantasy know who to pick, on what day, and why it is a high percentage pick. Even down to the history of the individual batter’s past plate appearances versus the starting pitcher for the day… the comparisons allow for a super-informed perspective if one has the willingness to comprehend the data set in its entirety.

I am finding I continue to tune my focus; I’m working on understanding the various comparisons that might be of value. I experiment with risks in this somewhat prideless forum. Though, I am unhappy that DerpyDerpDerp is RUNNING AWAY with 1st place and has yet to be defeated. This unbelievably fortunate team is raking in several relevant offensive categories like HR, R and RBI as well as earned strikeouts for pitchers. It’s gross that I didn’t even think that team was relevant, giving in the preseason 3 of 4 ranking. Third place team, trashing me like yesterday’s pancakes.

Well my RP F. Vasquez just got a save to put me in the running for 1st place in terms of overall score. Not bad considering I was on the verge of losing 3 in a row. Yikes.