My Opening Day Pitcher

Okay, so now it’s time to pick my Opening Day pitcher.

After logging in to FanDuel, my first stop is the Lobby. There, I click on the MLB button for Fantasy Baseball. Because I think I’m sharp enough to beat half of the other players, I’m going to play a 50/50 contest.

Pressing that button takes me to the listing for 50/50 contests.

You can play 50/50 contests for as little as $1, for as much as $1,065, or for almost any amount in between. Since I’m a beginner, I want to get my feet wet for a $10 starting point. So I scroll down until I find a $10 contest.

Here’s one. There are already 34 players entered – leaving 66 openings. The prize money is $900 – which will be split among the 50 winners. Doing some quick math, I’ll be risking $10 to win $8. If you want to win more, find a contest with a higher entry fee.

The guys playing for $1,065 will win $1,000.

Next, when I hit ENTER, I’m taken to a page that lists that day’s MLB games across the top, the Available Players underneath and to the left, and Your Lineup underneath and to the right. In between, you’ll see the Salary Remaining and the Avg/Player amount left to spend on the remaining players.

This page lists all the players.

I want to pick my starting pitcher, so I hit the “P” button – and I’m taken to a page that lists the starting pitchers scheduled to start on Opening Day. There are 14 games on the schedule and 26 pitchers listed. So there are two pitchers who are yet to be listed.

I’m interested in Clayton Kershaw, so I click on his link and go to an Info Page.

For now, you get last year’s stats for both Clayton Kershaw and his mound opponent – in this case right-hander James Shields. You can get more info by clicking the three tabs – Summary, Game Log, and Player News.

By clicking Player News, I just found out that Kershaw took a ground ball in the face in a split-squad game last Friday. The ball knocked him to the ground and there was some concern, but he shook it off and kept pitching.

For more in-depth research, I use Baseball-Reference.com – which I’ll get into momentarily.

With Clayton Kershaw starting, I want to use him if it seems feasible. He was one of the best pitchers in baseball last season. He’s elite. But I want to dig a little before I decide on him for sure.

(1) First I compare the teams.

Using pre-season ratings, the Dodgers are rated second in the NL with odds of 4.0 – that’s 4/1 – to win the pennant. The Padres are rated sixth with 12.0 odds – that’s 12/1. So, on paper, the Dodgers should be the favorite to win the game.

Next, I want to see two things specific to Clayton Kershaw:

(1) First – How did Kershaw do on Opening Day last season?

Using Baseball-Reference, I searched Clayton Kershaw and went to his Game Log for the 2014 season.

As you can see, he started against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Opening Day last season, on the road. He pitched 6-and-two-thirds innings, gave up 1 earned run, and struck out 7. But best of all, he picked up the win. So he was awarded fantasy points like so:

He earned 17.7 points on Opening Day last season – which is good.

(2) Next – How did Kershaw perform against the Padres last season?

He couldn’t have done much better. When I sorted to isolate Kershaw’s games versus the Padres, the results came back in reverse chronological order. So I flipped them and inserted them into a Fantasy Points chart. See below.

Kershaw pitched against the Padres three times last season. He won all three games and pitched 9, 8, and 8 innings. He gave up just one earned run per game and he struck out 11, 10, and 8 batters. His fantasy points were 24, 22, and 20.

On paper, he’s looks like a great choice.

His only negative is his $11,700 salary hit.

As you can see, picking Clayton Kershaw drained almost one-third of my moneys available. I’ve only got an average of $2,913 per player to spend on my other eight players. I think he’s worth it – and I think I can still fit a team around him to score enough runs to win.

But before I make it official, I want to check out a hunch.

The Phillies – my team – look like the worst team in baseball. The Phillies are opening the season in Boston against the Red Sox – rated as the best team in the American League. The Red Sox should win the game easy, but what are the chances that the Red Sox starter will pick up the win?

Clay Buchholtz is listed as Boston’s starter. His salary hit is only $7,300 – which would free up $4,400 to spend on the remaining eight players. Which is $550 more per player than the funds available if I use Clayton Kershaw.

Clay Buchholtz went 8-11 in 2014 with a 4.34 ERA last season. That’s almost bad enough to forget about my hunch. But I want to check out one more stat – his first outing last season.

As you can see, he didn’t pitch on Opening Day. He made his first start in Boston’s fifth game of the season on April 5, He didn’t pitch well – no decision, just 4-and-a-third innings pitched, 6 earned runs, and just 3 strike outs.

He earned just 1.3 points – not a wise choice from where I’m sitting. To me, it looks like the Red Sox will be heavy favorites to win, but someone in the bullpen is likely to pick up the victory. Even if Buchholtz does get the win, he’s not a strong choice to go deep or to rack up many strike outs.