Once again, not as much time as I'd like to set lineups and write extensively about them before the games start, but a few thoughts:
(1) I don't love any of the starting pitching options tonight. That makes it hard for me to decide between playing an entry as a Double Up* or a tournament lineup that pays only the top 10-15 percent. If I have a dominant pitcher in whom I'm confident, it seems like a better fit for a 50/50 or Double Up. If I have a sleeper pitcher, the lineup fits well in tournaments that payout bigger prizes to a small portion of the pool . I see neither here.
(2) I picked out a lineup I liked, thought I'd put it into one Double Up and one tournament with big payouts. I realized later I had instead accidentally entered two different $10 Double Ups of different sizes. I thought about deleting one of them, but instead let it ride.
(3) Before I realized I had accidentally doubled up on Double Ups, I entered another Double-Up for $5, for God knows what reason. I guess I wanted to roll with a few other players I thought were good values.
(4) Once I realized all three of my entries were Double Ups, i.e., lacking upside, I threw in another $10 on a high-upside tournament. I also used this entry as an experiment, picking weird players about whom I felt no hunch, but who I thought were decent values. I stacked Astros against Taijuan Walker even though I have Walker in two season-long leagues and am rooting for him to break through. I felt like I was taking a home underdog against the spread whose path to covering I couldn't fathom. But even though I can easily see Walker turning it around against the strikeout-prone Astros - and even hope that's the case - the Astros could just as easily destroy the shell-shocked rookie.
* A "Double Up" is what it sounds like - a chance to turn your $10 into $20, and nearly half the pool doubles its money while slightly more than half comes away with nothing.
Here are the lineups:
| Contest | Double Up | $10 | Double Up | $10 | Double Up | $5 | Tournament | $10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Player | $ | Player | $ | Player | $ | Player | $ |
| P | Liriano | $8,400 | Liriano | $8,400 | Carrasco | $9,100 | Santiago | $7,200 |
| C | Ruiz | $2,200 | Ruiz | $2,200 | Castillo | $2,300 | Norris | $3,000 |
| 1B | Votto | $4,000 | Votto | $4,000 | Lind | $3,300 | B. Moss | $3,500 |
| 2B | Utley | $3,200 | Utley | $3,200 | Gyorko | $2,900 | Altuve | $4,100 |
| 3B | Asche | $2,500 | Asche | $2,500 | Middlebrooks | $3,300 | Valbuena | $3,200 |
| SS | E.Cabrera | $2,700 | E.Cabrera | $2,700 | C. Colon | $2,200 | Reyes | $3,700 |
| OF | Granderson | $2,800 | Granderson | $2,800 | Revere | $2,600 | Arcia | $3,100 |
| OF | McCutchen | $4,500 | McCutchen | $4,500 | J. Upton | $4,600 | Braun | $3,500 |
| OF | Kemp | $4,300 | Kemp | $4,300 | Harper | $4,500 | Springer | $3,500 |
| $34,600 | $34,600 | $34,800 | $34,800 |
Couple thoughts on the lineups:
I have Liriano in a couple important leagues including the NFBC Main Event. I hate backing pitchers in DFS for whom I'm already rooting because it feels like I'm doubling down unnecessarily. If he does well, I'll already be happy, so why create the possibility of even more misery if he gets shelled? That's obviously a handicap, so I overrode it and took him anyway in a home start against the Cubs where he's a -149 favorite.
I stacked the Phillies of all teams in the first two lineups because I liked the prices of their lefties (Utley and Asche) against an over-the-hill Dan Haren. And Ruiz was dirt cheap and hitting cleanup.