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Charging the Mound - A New Variable

Steve (7:15 PM, Tuesday, May 12)

So what is your high of choice these days, Jeff? Are you still a meth man or have you moved on to heroin?

Too bad we had to do this edition all by ourselves. I knew Liss would be too a-scared to match wits with me.

Decided to make a list from TOUT AL (perhaps I'll do TOUT NL next column) of the Top 10 "Ain't Lookin' Too Great Right Now" bids on guys who the BABIP baboon crowd loved in Spring. I tried to stay away from complete injury cases and spent about 10 minutes on this, so don't be too critical (that's my job). In descending order, by price:

1. Brian Dozier - $27
2. Dellin Betances - $19
3. Rougned Odor - $18
4. Rusney Castillo - $16
5. Kevin Gausman - $10
6. Allen Craig - $7
7. T.J. House - $6
8. Josh Rutledge - $5
9. Kendall Graveman - $4
10. Jon Singleton - $4

Of course, none of these guys are mine and that's part of the reason I'm a solid #8 at the moment.

I don't think you can overvalue good prospects in a dynasty league that allows for easy-on-the-salary keeping of minor leaguers, like XFL. In fact, I think prospects were strangely out of vogue for a few years recently in that league, but I think they're making a comeback.

Personally, I don't have roster room for Profar either, but if I was clearly rebuilding for 2015, I'd make a spot for Profar, even at $10, to see where he is at the end of the season.

We could spend several columns and radio show spots on Daily. Last night I put up a 34.5 in FanDuel and lost in a 50/50. So do I agonize more over Yimi "Changa" Garcia blowing the win for my Zack Greinke or Dee Gordon getting a CS instead of an SB, either of which would've put me in the money?

Daily is so much "fun" it makes me wanna jump off a bridge. (Can't someone just teach me to grind?)

Jeff (5:11 PM, Monday, May 11)

I'd call you cranky about something anyhow - it's your nature. We'll rectify the show absences starting this week, now that I've finally got you writing again. It's like McCann-Erickson getting Don Draper to join his firm after pursuing him for 10 years - except hopefully you don't view us as evil/corrupt/soul-crushing, and quit after one column.

I like going against the gravitational pull - it saves you from overpaying for Danny Salazar (2014 version), and maybe Matt Harvey this year. Not that Harvey has been bad, but just not quite as dominant as expected, and I still think that there are some missed starts in his future.

I know I'll be appealing to that huge Dynasty League audience by talking more about the XFL, but you're dominating that league this year, and I still like playing in and talking about those leagues too. So as for Profar, he's going to cost $10 to keep next year, and won't play at all this year, right? Go ahead, pick him up. I screwed up my not trading him in the past, and by keeping him this offseason, but no need to clog up my roster with him when he was going to cost around $10 to keep next year. I think it's a virtual certainty that he'll cost less than $10 to buy in November.

While I'm busy channeling the spirit of Ruben Amaro Jr., do we overvalue our prospects? Or better asked, how much do we overvalue them? I've made "go for it" trades in this league two years running, and actually gave away some prospects without walking away with the crown. Then again, one of those prospects was Zack Wheeler, so I'm not exactly missing him anymore. But I've viewed those trades as mistakes, and of course held onto Profar at all costs. My bad.

I'm one of those that whiffed on Nelson Cruz - I have him in exactly zero of my season-long leagues. Some of my pessimism was predicated on the ballpark change, some of it on thinking he wouldn't stay healthy. There's plenty of time for the latter to come to fruition (no, I'm not rooting for that, but, as Chris Rock used to say a lot more convincingly, I understand...), and really for the former to end up being correct. Three of his homers have been at home. That's one of the beauties of DFS, though - at least I can still use him or anyone else that I got shut out with, or was wrong about.

I'm with you, I can't avoid playing the low-odds tournament, though with one exception I've had the discipline to at least stick to $3-5 entry fees. At least I've done well enough on the 50-50s (on FanDuel, at least - I've had trouble doing well on DraftKings) to pay for those tourney fees. I've cashed often enough, but still haven't hit that big score that we all chase. Good grief, it sounds as if I'm chasing some sort of high. But that's sort of the nature of the beast, isn't it?

Steve (9:36 PM, Saturday, May 9)

Before you call me cranky for complaining about not being on your show, consider that I've been a guest all of once in the past 12 months. That's understandable, because I know you need maximum airtime filled by the faceless parade of "If his ERA is currently this, and his BABIP is this and his groundball rate is this, then his future ERA will be this" sabermetric geniuses (insightful!).

The old Chan Ho Park quote was something like, "If you keep him and he sucks, you've got an excuse, if you cut him and he explodes (for someone else), you've got a nightmare." Makes me think of Corey Kluber this year, although Kluber isn't exactly being hammered. But trading Kluber for 75 cents on the dollar right now probably isn't a good idea, especially in a deep league. I also can't help but recall all the Kluber-slobber on the floor at Shandlerfest in November. I knew right then and there I'd have no 2015 Kluber shares because he'd be too expensive.

I mentioned Profar to you because I know I tried to get him from you more than once in the past. I'll bet someone will take a shot at him in our monthly free agent draft. The rebuilding teams would be silly to pass him up.

I'm in on DFS this year for sure and it's a lot more "fun" than I thought it would be. By "fun" Liss' description of how the only real fun in fantasy sports is that rare moment when you're basking in a title; the rest is pretty much agony. DFS is that every day.

From what I can tell, the strength of the Inside Edge data is identifying cheapo picks who will do well (indeed a strength). To some extent, choosing between Mike Trout and Nelson Cruz is a coinflip decision most nights. (And, by the way, didn't we all think Cruz would be looking up from the bottom of the shitter by this time after moving to Seattle?)

As a novice, I'm currently trying to master the 50/50s. What's most frustrating ("fun" to some) is all the human element that still has to go into putting the puzzle together even with the best tools. Seems when I lose, it's often by one guy, with a non-chosen but considered alternate who'd have put me over the top.

What I crave is a "Follow steps A,B,C,& D every day and you'll win 50/50s 60-70 percent of the time and occasionally stumble into a big whopper score." (Does this exist somewhere?) The once-in-a-while, stars-aligning whopper is why one always has to play some kind of low-odds tournament. You don't wanna finish first in a 50/50 without playing anything else.

I absolutely worry about the long game falling by the wayside. Heck, if you're new and you can learn one game with cash payouts every day or another game with cash payouts once a year, who's gonna go long-term?

And finally, I hope everyone played all their Rockies this past week. Full week at Coors! Woo Hoo!!!

Jeff (4:04 PM, Thursday, May 7)

We're going to change up how we do Charging the Mound this year, adding our old (and I do mean old) friend, Steve Moyer. Many of you might remember him back from the days when he used to write "Baseball Outsider" for us, and others of you that listen to the show might recognize him as the cranky guy that complains about not being on the show enough when we get him on.

But he's done so much more than that. He's one of the original members of both LABR and Tout Wars, and he was at the forefront of the sabermetric expansion, first with Stats Inc. and then later when he co-founded Baseball Info Solutions. But most importantly, he came up with the "Oh No, Chan Ho" equation, inspired by his ownership in NL LABR. Chan Ho Park used to be good. Really, really good, until Steve owned him. LABR has really restrictive roster management - you can't simply bench a player when he's going poorly, or when he's got a bad matchup. With few exceptions, if you own the player, he's going to be on your active roster. So when Park, who went for $15-20 in the auction that year, started going bad, Steve was left with the dilemma on whether to keep rolling him out each week and take the beatings, or cut him and risk that someone else gets the windfall if/when he turned it around.

Another dilemma is when to give up on players in keeper leagues and dynasty leagues. Steve and I both play in the XFL, which is a 15-team league with 40-man rosters that don't require long-term contracts, but rather where the salaries rise either by $3 or $5 per season, depending on when/how you acquired the player. Steve noticed that I finally dropped Jurickson Profar in that league, tiring of waiting for him to come back from injury while seeing his salary rise. Is this going to spark his career?

One area where you don't have those concerns is in Daily Fantasy Sports - every day is a new draft. Steve, I know that you said that you were interested in taking up DFS when I talked to you in March. Have you followed through with that? How are the tools that you're helping to develop with Inside Edge helping you? Or are you too busy with XFL, Tout and LABR?

For a long while I was skeptical that DFS would take off, or that I would ever embrace it. I viewed it as "timing the market," something I almost always advise season-long players against. But it's here to stay, and after dipping my toes in the pool last year, I'm taking swimming lessons this year. However I'm sticking in the shallow end, doing my best to avoid the sharks and trying to build a bankroll. I still hate the sort of marketing that dissuades people from playing season-long fantasy, but I think I can reconcile being involved with both pursuits. They are separate games, however, and it's hard to overestimate how much time it takes to do well. How do you feel about DFS and the issues that arise from them? Will we see you blogging about your results?