I'm doing a little bull pen work during the ASG and thought I'd share. Here's FG's second half projections sorted by WAR:




With 4 days off everyone will be well rested for the start of the second half, so I'm not even looking at YTD usage (or YTD unit stats as a lot of relievers have been hurt, demoted, traded by this point, so what any given unit did in april or may can be mostly irrelevant). What I am looking for is rough spots on the schedule to help me identify fatigued pens ahead of time. I took a quick look at all 30 schedules for July-Aug and this is what I've come up with:

Ari- 20 iar (in a row) Aug 9-28

Bal- 46 games in 48 days July 15-Aug 31

Bos- 43 in 44 July 10-Aug 31

CHW- 17 iar July 15- 31

Cin- 13 iar Aug 12- 24

Cle- 33 in 34 July 29- Aug 31

Col- 33 in 34 July 15- Aug 17

Hou- 17 iar July 29- Aug 14

KC- 30 in 31 July 22- Aug 21

Mia- 20 iar July 15- Aug 3

Mil- 43 in 44 July 19-Aug 31

Min- 30 in 31 July 15- Aug 14

NYM- 30 in 31 July 22- Aug 21

Philly- 26 in 27 July 15- Aug 10

Oak- 13 iar July 15-July 27, 16 iar Aug 2-Aug 17

SD- 13 iar July 15-July 27, 16 iar Aug 9-Aug 24

Sea- 33 in 34 July 29- Aug 31

STL- 30 in 31 July 15- Aug 14

Tex- 26 in 27 July 22- Aug 17

Wash- 20 iar Aug 12- Aug 31

Here's a couple lineups I like for tonight. I like 1 a lot more than the other though. Disregarding Trout/Harper as they're the same price and totally interchangeable here (if I liked these enough I'd run it 4 times with bro and trout twice each) anyone want to weigh in on which lineup is better, and why?

This thread has garnered about as much interest as paint drying on a wall yet for some reason I feel committed to stick it out so I'm gonna keep posting results and my thoughts on the day to day grind. Who knows, maybe something interesting will happen before the year is over. Also, my bull pen tracking system is evolving pretty much every time I stop to think about ways to improve it. I know most of the people that read this thread have no use for it but I'm probably going to be posting more stats and thoughts on the subject. My model (lol model, more like a couple dozen legal pads filled with all kinds of random stats and notes and poorly hand written charts) is a bit of a disorganized mess at this point in the season, mostly a lost cause until I can clean it all up over the off season. Point being this is as good a place as any for the BP stuff, and I know at least a couple guys are following it.


On to the weekends results; Fri was a good day, finished 14/70K in the $5 super rally. Of course 14th pays $750 where 1st pays $50K, but that and a lot of cashes made for a decent day, nice to bookend the ASB with decent wins. Sat and Sun were meh, esp the Sun early only, $500 in gpp entries and $100+ in sats for a $12 return and a sat brick. Late slate went better with a small profit and 6 more slam tickets. I've been playing way under my roll the last couple weeks mostly skipping anything over $5 other than a few odd lineups I really like here and there. I've been looking to ramp back up a bit I just haven't found the right slate, though I will be playing at least 100 entries in Tue's super slam and 100 in Fri's big $12 game.











Day 104

Buyins $1100, Payout $2345, +$1245

Season +$32,890







Day 105

Buyins $500, Payout $401, -$99

Season +$32,791









Day 106

Buyins $950, Payout $504, -$446

Season +$32,345


I'm considering rolling with Fernandez 100% tomorrow, depends a lot on how the forecast looks 12 or so hours from now





---------- Warning: Boring bull pen **** beyond this point ----------

I just don't have the time (or ram) to dig into all 30 pens the way I was posting about Ari and Cin earlier in the thread. All I really need is a quick reference guide in most cases, so that's what I've been working on. I posted over the break all the teams that had rough patches on the schedule in July/Aug, here's the BP pitch counts this weekend for teams that started on the 15th:

Bos 87
Bal 134
CHW 91
Col 128
STL 136
SD 171
Oak 281
Phi 141
Min 185
Mia 160


Ari has this Mon and Thur off, along with 2 more days in early Aug before their 20 in a row starts, so they weren't really on my radar for fatigue.






They are terrible though, I mean they already were terrible before trading away their best reliever before the break, their 2 and 3 are now 1 and 2, and they've been getting killed. This is a team with no real 7th, 8th, or 9th inning guy, just a couple weak 6's and replacement level scrap. They got knocked around and worked for 252 pitches this weekend, so 3 days after the ASB and they actually need Mon off already. I'll be targeting this group regardless but a couple rough games this week and I'll really go after them, esp the weaker starters, like LOLcorbin


Pit and Wash played 18 innings Sun and obviously both went through their entire pens. I don't have the numbers in front of me but the Pit pen threw something ridic like 350 pitches this weekend. Both teams have this Mon, and next Mon, and next Thur off though, so it's not actionable, yet, just something to keep an eye on.


Tue Mil starts 43 games in 44 days

Fri NYM, Tex, and KC start runs

Good stuff man, keep with the thread. I've enjoyed reading it.

Hey DrO, will do.


I've got a little time waiting for a couple more lineups to come out before I can really get started so I wanted to correct a small error. I saw this typo:



and just assumed they were starting their run of 43 games in 44 days on the 15th, when in fact they have today off and it starts tomorrow, the 19th. No big deal but I couldn't let it slide...

my Fernandez plan looks shot to **** with this forecast:




I can't risk that, so unless things change soon it looks like a 3 way split of Sale, Kluber, Lester. Kluber's the only one I even remotely trust at this point. In the long run I'd probably be better off going with my gut and cutting the others loose for value, like I was willing to do with the stronger Fernandez play, but that just adds even more variance. Maybe a 50/25/25 split.

Also, as of now it looks like I'll have near zero Coors exposure, and that's not even factoring in an iffy weather forecast there.

I for one am a fan of the thread and hope you keep it up. Ever thought of just betting on baseball? Give how much you know about the players to play at this level I would think you could find some good spots.


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I've kicked around the idea of adding baseball bets. The problem is I don't know anything about the state of off shore betting these days. Pulling this out of my ass so maybe I'm way off but I think I'd be just as likely to lose/get ripped off as win/always get paid in the current environment.


Now if I could go back to the wild west days (say 2000-UIGEA) with neteller and almost unlimited line shopping options and bonuses to clear I'm pretty sure I could churn out nice profits. In those days my poker roll was never big enough to do much more than **** around at the books. Even then I'd find decent middles all the time. Like -13.5/+14.5 on college football with negative vig on both sides due to bonuses. So like you make $17, or the middle hits and you make $1017.


If I'm in a position to change over once DFS looks dead that's probably something I'd pursue.

LA, I think its my first post here but this is the most interesting thread content wise in the forum. Please keep it going, and good luck.

I am reading this frequently but more for the results as I'm not really into watching sports but I think what you're doing is pretty cool. You actually made me look up all these betting sites and got me interested but I'd be a huge underdog for a long time before I get anywhere because I don't know anything about the sport scene. I just play the sports lol.

Pretty big night tonight, I won these in sats



I'll buy that up to at least 100 entries. I might do 150 but this thing is extremely top heavy




so probably not.



Perfect slate for a big tournie too with several aces going, here's the 6 I'm considering right now




I'll use a lot of Thor, CMAR, and Kuechel and at least some Arrieta and Guerra.


To go with all the pitching there's just some incredibly bad pitching to target as well. You just don't see this much trash on an avg night














and that doesn't include Coors or a couple lesser, yet still targety targets. There's really almost unlimited targets tonight. I wont be making as many similar lineups as usual because I want as many cracks at first and second as possible tonight, the more unique the better I think, esp with all these options.

good thread, interested to follow along when I'm back on my HS NFL grind Can't wait for football season!

Man I'm really looking forward to football too. Contests were up around this time last year so probably soon. Nice having 7 or 8 weeks to tweak on week 1.


Making lineups was a lot of fun today for reasons alluded to above. A worsening forecast in STL changed my plans quite a bit, tho I did keep CMAR in the lineups I had built before 5pm, I just quit using him after that. I'm more of a value player by default, try to put more teams in the money than most and hope for an outlier every once in a while. So like nitty, value shopper me could have easily defaulted to all Arrieta and Thor. but with this pay table, not tonight. I made a lot more lineups that look like these than my typical ace/6 value plays/2 big hitters.






I ended up stacking 13 teams, a ton of ARI, DET, BOS, and SF

Yeah, I really could have used 10 runs from 1 of those teams, instead I got 7 from all 4 combined, bloodbath! Here's the last couple days:








Day 107

Buyins $725, Payout $535, -$190

Season +$32,155










Day 108

Buyins $3055, Payout $528, -$2527

Season +$29,628


Another shot goes down in flames, back to grinding the $3's for a while. The season is getting shorter and shorter so unless things pop really soon the idea of moving up and making any real noise is pretty much dead for 2016 MLB. Hopefully I can turn it around, but if not football's right around the corner. If that doesn't work spring training starts about 2 weeks after I get home from Florida. Barring a total bankroll disaster I'm all in on this through 2017.

Good luck . I'm done till football

I've been seeing a lot of lineups that look a lot like this at the top




Whereas my typical lineup looks more like this




I still think B is better, but if you can't beat em, well, I've be mixing in more and more A. I'm trying to be tighter about it than most and sticking to my rules, like this one

This lineup




is cut from the same cloth as lineup A above that I hinted at sucking, except with a total shot in the dark pitcher who's been brutal since very early in the season. I mean his game logs are worse than most I look at for bad pitchers I'm looking to target. So needless to say it's my best finish in the squeeze all season...


One might think it proves me wrong and I should just go over to the dark side and stfu about creativity, but really I think it proves me right. I NEVER see duplicate lineups to mine, I mean I build 1000+ a week so obviously it happens from time to time, but I never notice it when looking at teams around me on the leaderboard.




I split 2nd with 4 other exact duplicates. Tinderella even liked it so much he ran it twice. lol, c'mon man, That's a 2fer lineup?


If 4 people are coming up with this highly questionable lineup we're really close to 4/4 being dead in the water. I really hate all the talk about going contrarian as it's so often misapplied and misunderstood but I know I will at the very least be looking to switch it up with something different.



Anyway, nice to have a decent cash, esp after my Tue disaster. Here's the last couple days:








Day 109

Buyins $515, Payout $218, -$297

Season +$29,331









Day 110

Buyins $555, Payout $4004, +$3449

Season +$32,780

So what is the fundamental difference between A/B? Are you seeing more winning lineups trotting out double stacks? It seems like in the past you would just stack one team and then choose the other best available players.

I play mostly on DK. I don't see that many duplicate lineups but I am sure having to choose a 2nd pitcher cuts down on the duplication.

A is a monster stack with a second stack just because it fits, B is the same monster stack with 4 power hitters in good spots.

Yes, but a lot of ties with duplicate lineups. so much so that it's had me wondering how many guys were working together and why they'd be entering the same lineups in GPP's. Now I know, so many people are doing it that duplicates are bound to happen.

Lots of nice pitching options tomorrow but I'm thinking about going for it and rolling with 1 freaky weirdo:

I love Scherzer, but man I love Fernandez too, hard to roster 2 pitchers today on DK

I think they were my two most used pitchers at the half way mark

Same here. I mean Fernandez has an even lower implied total against, and for good reason. It's just that I think Max is so much more likely to get the win that I'm gambling a bit. W/O looking at DK prices and assuming Maeda is more expensive Ray and maybe even Davies are guys I'd look at as a 2, at least for GPP's. I'm betting against Leake throwing a 3rd very un-leake-like gem in a row, he's a turd.

I got beat up all weekend (sat wasn't bad until Story hit his second bomb) including a goose egg today. I'm playing lower stakes but I'm definitely going for it more (like using all giolito and tallion today). It;s even more variance but I'm pretty sure also higher EV.

Fri-Sun:























Days 111-113

Buyins $2125, Payout $817, -$1308

Season +$31,472


All in all I'm feeling pretty good about things and think I'm playing better than I have in a long time. I don't know if it was burnout, or turning around the losing streak or what, but since the ASB I've been enjoying the process again. Back to doing what I love, I just need to, you know, make some money at some point.

Ended up going with both in H2Hs actually once I heard Sale got scratched and the tigers were dirt cheap ended up working out pretty well.


Tomorrows early slate looks very interesting, I know you don't play DK but Stras in 10.2k seems too cheap

I hate throwing NL SP's @AL parks.

Tough SP matchup as well, pickem':



Threw a DK lineup together for the first time in over a year just to see how tight the pricing is, surprisingly it's not at all tight:




Probably too many padres, but they're cheap, and of course Stras works fine for either of those guys if that's your preference.

.