Relative Position Breakdown: April 9

This week I introduced Relative Position Value (RPV) to Fantasy Alarm. Already readers have discovered the value of RPV per Dollar (RPVPD) for DFS and how the concepts of the Fantasy Black Book will forever change your interpretation of fantasy value. Now that we have laid the foundation, let’s get further into our RPVPD analysis for tonight’s slate of MLB games.

Saturday’s evening slate has a much more “typical” arrangement of arms taking the mound. What we saw earlier in this week with many front line arms opening the season is an obvious anomaly. Now is when the rubber meets the road, so let’s look at the Draft Kings pricing of pitchers and target our best options. Again, since April doesn’t lend itself to responsible player point averages yet, I’m using 2015’s averages and mild projections for the arms who didn’t have a large enough sample size.

Here’s our leader board based on RPVPD:

Zack Greinke is a great No. 1 SP option on DK tonight. He’s the poster child for getting what you pay for and the Cubs are a lineup that has plenty of strikeouts in it.  Garret Richards and Cole Hamels are only moderately cost effective despite their high salaries. In fact, Richards is a potential RPVPD negative (-3% RPVPD). The most upside here is clearly Carlos Martinez. Not only is the Braves’ lineup a joke, but he’s $500 less than Greinke. That allows you to pay up for another arm or bat elsewhere.

Drew Pomeranz has an unfortunate debut this season in Colorado. Despite being bargain basement with upside, the location is impractical even for tournaments. Drew Smyly is intriguing, but Baltimore is no picnic either. Bartolo Colon is the sneaky second tier starter tonight. He’s very cost efficient considering his production potential and he’s facing basically a AAA lineup at home against the Phillies. As long as the weather looks promising, so does Colon’s value.

Now let’s take a look at the third base position using RPVPD and find the best bang for our buck:

Well there’s a surprising name at the top of the value board! Yunel Escobar isn’t jumping off the page to most DFS players, but he did have an OBP of .375 last year and hit well over .300. Players who get on base and put the ball in play find ways to generate points in DFS. He’s facing Cole Hamels, but he hit lefties very well in 2015 so he should be a strong tournament play consideration. Manny Machado is the cash game value stud tonight. His power/speed combination at the top of the lineup is too great to ignore. Miguel Sano I that same contest is quite cost efficient.

Now you could pay up for Nolan Arenado, but when you consider the $600 difference between him and Machado it doesn’t seem like a wise decision. Evan Longoria is the wolf in sheep’s clothing that could slit your lineups throat before the west coast games even get started. Never confuse name recognition with productivity…or value!

Joe Pisapia (@JoePisapia17) is the seven-time best-selling author of the Fantasy Black Book Series for baseball and football. He hosts Fantasy Sports Tonight on Sirius/XM Fantasy Sports Radio and the Dear Mr. Fantasy Podcast.