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DAILY-AMBUSH · March 30, 2021

The Dongers Club Manifesto

Three years ago I put the Manifesto out there for the first time in an Audio format and I honestly do not know that I can ever put together that quality of an effort again so this will remain in written content for now.  Which basically means one night when I am drinking and can’t sleep and my wife has long gone to bed I’ll get some ADD bug up my ass and begin to convert this back into an audio format so you can listen to my Jim Nantz-esque euphonious vocals.

Alright, we got one bullshit comment out of the way already as clearly I do not have Jim Nantz-esque vocals and yes I had go google how to spell euphonious, so just accept it for what it is.

The Manifesto is an original Dongers Club content piece.  It’s purpose is to serve as a baseline and a guide for how I approach MLB DFS and also to provide a set of my Core Theories and Beliefs that I will rely upon over the next 6+ months to get us all through the best DFS sport that any platform could create.

Speaking of DFS platforms.

What the fuck is FanDuel doing?  About 5+ years ago FanDuel had the best MLB DFS product anyone could come up with and one could argue it was the best of any DFS sport out there.  Here’s how it worked.  You logged in and there was a nice $200 Monster which paid $20,000 to first on most normal sized slates.  A normal sized slate of course was 15 games because we didn’t have a woke culture deciding that we needed games to start at 6:05 pm or 6:35 pm so little Johnny and Sally could make sure to attend the MLB game, eat two bites of a hot dog, three bites of a pretzel and an entire tray full of dippin dots while still making it home in time to wake up and go to school the next day.  What the hell is 30 minutes or 45 minutes really going to do?  You think the parents are going to stay for an extra 2 innings with a bunch of little ones on a weeknight?  Hell no.  Try taking your kids to a game when they are under 8 years old.  The allure of the game is during batting practice when you try to catch a fly ball from Ronald Acuna Jr, only to catch a Charlie Culblerson fly ball which one day you can tell your kid was actually Adam Duvall because Adam Duvall once hit 4 home runs in a game and is clearly going to the Hall of Fame.

So by the time you reach the 5th inning with these kids and they’re now completely bored because Baseball honestly is better for a 12 or 13 year old.  You keep placing bad in game bets on a game you aren’t even attending and every time you keep betting the under you get a Tweet notification that some lefty just went oppo-taco off a lefty pitcher and you are getting more and more tilted by the second.  Then the damn cotton candy guy comes by and you obviously splurge $14 for the cotton candy — but do you have a $10 and four ones?  Nooooo, of course not.  So by this point you are like fuck it, take the $20, lets go kid we are going home I’ve had enough of your shit and you start hauling them back out to some parking lot and you remember how great the ALE (Always Leave Early) theory is when you have kids.  You check the clock and yep, it’s only 8:35 PM, if you make it home by 10pm you can set a lineup for the night slate where we can stack up the Angels in Seattle — it never fails!  Now you are feeling better about your plans, only on the way home little Johnny and Sally both fall asleep which means when you get home you’ll have to haul them quietly out of the car up to their rooms tuck them in and then you finally go take a piss and try to set a lineup before going to talk to your wife and bam, it’s 10:07 and you forgot to enter a lineup.

Wait, where was I.

Oh yes.  The start time on the games.  Why do we have these at earlier times now?  Don’t try to sell me that it’s because of the kids.  They’re not even in school half the time anyways and the ones who really do stay for the games don’t go to bed before 1AM anyways.  Trust me, I have two kids who are now adults and I’ve lived it, they’re still up at 1:00 am because when I used to wake up at 2:30 in the morning to piss, roll over, grab the phone to check for the DK you won $ notification all I saw was that someone just purchased some VC or something for NBA2K.  WTF!  Thank goodness my kids are no longer youth age and getting into NFT’s…   So there’s no reason for games to be starting at 6:35 pm.  Just, no.  Bad Manfred!

Back to FanDuel.

They had great slates and the best scoring format out there.  Let’s remember how simple it actually was.  A batter comes up to bat.  He gets a hit.

One point.

Let’s say that hit was a double?

Two points!

Wait, hang on.  What if he hit a home run.  You know.  A four bagger?

…

FOUR!  POINTS!

Amazing!  An RBI?  1 point!  A Run?  1 point!  Here’s two points for a stolen base while we are at it.  And because we value real talent over platoon guys like Matt Adams, here is a -0.25 penalty for getting an out just to keep from having so many ties in the scoring.  A pitcher gets a strikeout?  That’s a point!  A pitcher gives up a run?  Oooh, bad.  -1!

And so it was simple.  Scoring was great.  Then FanDuel said, nah, too simple.  We gotta mix this shit up.  Lets change the scoring and by doing so they created a month worth of nothing but tie’s until finally they did some math and realized we should maybe add back some decimal scoring to prevent as many ties.

Okay, so the scoring changed, but we can live with that.

Then they said noooo, we gotta change it up again.  People cannot get by with deciding if they should roster Carlos Santana or Edwin Encarnacion (seriously, this was the example) and so we created a Utility spot.  But instead of increasing the salary cap with an extra player, we had to sacrifice someone.  Something has to go.  Ah yes, nobody wants to pick catchers they say as they are clearly not fans of the Water Buffalo Wilson Ramos and they rolled out this merged C/1B position.

Fine.

You win FanDuel.  You got your changes.

And we have thus had some peace for a few years now.

Until now.  Now they have added MPE (Multi – Position – Eligibility) … and the reason is …. I don’t know what the reason for this is.  DraftKings has this already and the one thing that the dying brand of FanDuel had going for it was their unique style of a 1 SP site with flat pricing, max 4 batters per stack and players listed at a singular position.  Well, hey, lets kill our only fucking viable selling point for our product by doing the same thing as the guys that we cannot keep up with at all.  That makes brilliant fucking sense.

But it get’s worse.  It’s not just that they added MPE, it’s that they seemingly made every player eligible at two positions.  Jose Ramirez has not played second base since 2018 but he has 2B eligibility.  I could not honestly tell you when Raul Mondesi played multiple games at SS.  Probably also in 2018 when they had Alcides Escobar – who is now in Japan.  He has 2B eligibility as well.  What in God’s green earth are we doing?

This doesn’t help “stacking” out.  It just makes it more confusing to construct out analysis and recommendations on individual positions.  This mindset that everyone must click on an optimizer to build a lineup with two teams stacked together is beyond ruining brains.  It’s as dumb as starting games at 6:45 instead of 7:05 and saying it’s for the kids.  Yeah, right.

Sorry for the long intro rant, but it’s a tradition of the Manifesto and this one just might be the one that irritates me more than any other because we could all see FanDuel from a mile away just thinking to themselves what should we do to draw attention to ourselves — and that’s a dangerous sight.

 

The Dongers Club Manifesto

  • Contest selection determines what type of player you are.
  • If you enter into a tournament with over 10,000 entrants as the main tournament you want to target then you’ll not like what I have to say.
  • Any content writer who focuses their content without explaining the contests they are entering into themselves is like selling you a gallon of paint and not indicating what surface it’s being painted on.
  • You do not need to stack to make money in DFS.  This is the point of the joke that “Stacking Sucks”.  Obviously we WILL stack often and it will pay off quite a bit, but you do not have to only follow that model to having success.  There are contests which will pay out 10x to a lineup which is constructed very well and if you are only playing 1-5 lineups then that’s going to be the way you are going to profit in any DFS sport, especially Baseball.
  • To those who think you can only win with 150 entries in a mini-max because Baseball is a sport of “variance”, I argue that you are just blindly rolling the dice because you’re not disciplined enough to make a decision.
  • Define your contest, then go from there.

CASH GAMES

  • Yes, you can play as many cash games as you want throughout the course of the season.  I have in recent years dropped my cash exposure because the ownership in cash is getting to the point where it’s too high to make sense playing cash in a high variance sport.  When there are slates that have mostly “optimal” lineups in cash there will be a lineup that is full of 60-80% owned plays in it much like NBA is.  But in Baseball why would I want an 80% owned Fernando Tatis just because he is Fernando Tatis?  So what if he is going to get two hits and score a run?  On a big slate I can find a lot of guys who can do that as well at lower ownership in many cases if I like them more.  The bottom line here is you should be able to play spots that you trust and are good in any lineup — especially cash — but any contests where chalk is that high become almost silly when you consider your max upside for beating it out is — 2x?  Hey, if you wanna just grind 2x all the time, go for it and I support that.
  • Just don’t assume you gotta play someone — anyone — because they are chalk.
  • And don’t assume that you need Tatis, or Trout or Acuna in all your cash lineups.
  • Pitching is the most important position in cash.  Figure out that chalk and go from there.

MY BELIEFS — PARK FACTORS

  • I believe in park factors first.  Weather second.  Pitchers third.
  • Park factors matter more than anything else and not the park factor list that is on ESPN or other Statistical websites.
  • I mean real legit park factors.  Like the dimensions, the wall size, the wind flow, the dugout massage tables, the local food spots, the local clubs, the humidity, the sight lines, the chick behind home plate with the giant rack keeping score.  Well, mostly the dimensions — but you get the gist.
  • Freddie Freeman in Arizona because he says he loves the Giant Black …. Batters Eye.
  • Nolan Arenado in PETCO and LA because he grew up near one and went to school near the other.
  • Jackie Bradley Jr in Baltimore because his family attends all the games there.
  • Ryan Braun in Philly because, well not really, Ryan Braun is retiring.
  • But Juan Soto in Philly?  Hell fucking yes.
  • Lefties in PNC, not because Anthony Rizzo gave an interview to a guy who is no longer giving out Yankee Stacks as his top play and claiming he has a new website launching in a month (wait two weeks, wait two weeks, wait two weeks).  It’s because look at the damn park.  It’s 2 miles to left field and on the way to left field you gotta get past Sidney Crosby’s shrine to himself and nobody wants to do that.
  • Why do teams suck on Sundays in Miami?
  • South Beach on a Saturday night
  • Google it
  • Kauffman Stadium is huge but gets really hot in August and in day games?  The ball flies.
  • Wind in Wrigley is your Grandma’s Weather Factor.
  • Wind in Comerica is Dongers Club Level sharp.
  • Camden Humidty?  Not quite Atlanta, but solid.
  • How about those new condo’s in DC?
  • How about the concrete drying in Minnesota, Atlanta and now Texas?
  • Nevermind, Texas new stadium sucks.
  • Has anyone ever jumped in the fish tank in Tampa btw?

MY BELIEFS — ANALYTICS

  • I love stats.  I honestly do.  This includes analytics.
  • But anyone who is doing research 7 days a week for the specific slate and looking at analytics is doing it wrong.
  • Your research should consist of looking at who, what and when.  Who is playing?  What do I think about the game and when am I going to stop tinkering so I can go to the bar and tinker more.
  • Your research process should consist of those three W’s.
    • And a walk up song.  Get a walk up song.  Or in this case, a lineup making song.
    • Mine is Testify by RATM, unless it’s Friday and then it’s When the Levee’s Break by Led Zeppelin.
    • I may or may not sometimes force a musical narrative in my article based upon what is playing at the time I am writing.
    • How in the world do you think Freddie Freeman became the Sharp Dressed Man?
  • Back to analytics…..
  • If you want to break down Sean Maneaea and how often he throws certain pitches to RH and LH batters + the velocity and all the other metrics then fine.  Do that when he isn’t pitching and do it so that you can actually remember it about the players if it matters.   What you will find is that someone like Sean Manaea just plain ole sucks and you won’t even consider him 80% of the time unless he’s
    • WHO – Pitching
    • WHAT – Cheap and facing a team you already know cant hit
    • WHEN – Is going to be someone you might consider when you build out lineup(s)
  • So get to know the new players when they come up.  Do a little research on them that does not involve fangraphs.com.  Find out about their path to the big leagues, how big they are or how small they might be.  Find out what scouts said about them but then also what they are showing in their career in the minors or now in the majors.
  • Unless of course it’s a rookie pitcher not named MacKenzie Gore.  We don’t do those, so just research and then store it away for 3 years.
    • Exceptions Brady Singer and Casey Mize in a pandemic season.
  • Which stats are helpful?
  • The ones which produce the most fantasy points.  Duh.
  • I want hitters who can hit for power.  So yes, I believe in ISO and SLG and yes I believe in the X stats. Because this remains one area where we can talk about X without talking about Y and not be canceled out of society.  The X stats simply put stand for the expected output of an event and over the large scheme of things give a better true indication of luck/variance and overall skill.  That is why those stats are incorporated into the model which is intended to simplify the research for us lazy bastards who don’t wanna scrape every single aspect of things to store in our tiny noggins.
  • For pitchers I believe in strikeouts but unfortunately we gotta find non strikeout guys lots of times.  And I want someone who can get into the 6th inning and do that with a high amount of ground balls.  Keep the ball down, keep the pitch count down and get to the 6th.
  • Not all X stats are good though.  XFIP?  Worthless.

 

RANDOM STUFF (as opposed to the rest of the damn Manifesto)

  • Baltimore – I once ate about 8 hot dogs at a game when I was a kid and wound up so sick in the bathroom that the security had to let us out of the stadium because they had closed the gates long after the game while I was still there.  So you see, going to the game early does no damn good for the kids.
  • Boston – My brother in law passed away a couple years ago and he was a huge Boston fan.  After he passed my wife and son snuck into Fenway park and spread his ashes there.  True story.
  • Yankees – Giancarlo Stanton when he is on a streak is crazy good.  Otherwise, he stinks.
  • Tampa Bay – Mike Zunino is one of two players to cost me insanely bad beats on live final trips
  • Toronto – When in Toronto they always win Saturday afternoon home games and I never understood why until I went to Toronto and stayed right next to the stadium and had lots of lots of drinks.
  • Cleveland – Someone once wrote an article claiming the batters eye was bad for Lefties here.  LoL
  • Minnesota – I miss the Metrodome.  Greatest playoff game I ever watched was played there.  Should be easy to name.
  • Kansas City – Someone once said I hype them too much.  Pffft.
  • White Sox – My least favorite team in Baseball.  Jack McDowell did not deserve the 1994 Cy Young
  • Detroit – The strip from the pitchers mound to home plate I believe is the last active one in the big leagues.  A+++ and fuck off Chase Field grounds crew for removing theirs.
  • Yes, I curse in my articles.
  • Seattle – Part of ROOT sports network — broadcasts are terrible
  • Angels – Same is true with the Dodgers, but guys who are from the L.A. area always do well in L.A. stadiums.
  • Oakland – I love drums, but not sure about this guy.
    • Best all time Drummers?  Go!
      • Neal Peart
      • End of list
      • Thanks for coming
  • Texas – Stadium is a dump, should have kept the old old stadium w/ the Giant sign shaped like the state of Texas.
  • Houston – Use short pitchers against Jose Altuve and not tall pitchers because the tall one’s cannot get the ball down in the zone as easily.
    • If that is the first time you have heard that theory you probably just tilted your head and you know you agree with it.
  • Atlanta – Lots of strip clubs here.  Supposedly.
  • Philadelphia – Why do the Mets always score 8 runs in the first game of a 3 game series in Philly?
  • Washington – Don’t ask me about the weather, I give up.
  • Miami – South Beach Theory.  Sundays.  1PM.
  • New York Mets – Sunday Home Overs.
  • Cincinnati – The Brennaman’s were great.  But why is this stadium home to all the best brawls over the last 10 years?  Someone always comes into Cincinnati and dominates it new every year.  Usually someone from the Brewers too.  I guess JBJ is homering 3 times in Cincy this year now.  Fun.
  • Milwaukee – They have a slide.  that’s pretty damn cool.  unfortunately it’s in Wisconsin.  But there’s a restaraunt in Wisconsin which has an outdoor whiffle ball field you can play on while eating.  That’s cool.
  • St. Louis & Pittsburgh – Pirates/Cardinals is an auto play the over all 3 games in the series and profit.
  • St. Louis – Unders on Sunday’s
  • Pittsburgh – Pitchers on Sunday’s at home.
  • Wrigley Field – I am the guy who was complaining about having to walk what felt like a mile to go from left field bleachers to the pisser in my stadium article.
  • Dodger Stadium – Why. Do. We. Not. Have. A. Vin. Scully. AI. Bot. Doing. Games.  Period.
  • Giants Stadium – Looks ugly on TV.  Looks amazing in person.
  • Padres – Another legendary broadcaster gone.
  • Rockies – Nothing legendary about these broadcasters, but their social media team is the best in the bigs.
  • Diamondbacks – Google Chase Field girls on phones.
  • Chase Field – Roof Open = Overs.  Roof Closed = Not Overs.

 

The Three must watch MLB movies before every season are

  • Major League
  • Bull Durham
  • Field of Dreams
    • Honorable Mention:  Eight men Out

 

THE GOOD STUFF:  The Dongers Club CORE

  • Lefties in Cleveland
  • Chalk rookie pitchers are a trap.  Every time.  Most of the time someone is going to be hyping up a pitcher prospect because he plays for a well known team or he ranks somewhere on the prospect list without knowing exactly how the pitcher has been progressing along since he came into the organization.  Unless it’s named Brady Singer, Casey Mize, MacKenzie gore or soon Jack Leiter, stay away.  It happens every year and every year the young pitcher gets lit up like a Christmas tree.
  • Absolutely positively do not play Luis Castillo on Friday’s unless you want your nuts ripped off.  Don’t make me post the GIF.
  • LiPNC
  • Friends don’t let Friends Stack Pirates
  • Right handed hitters in Atlanta and Target but not Wal-Mart.
  • I had a near panic attack when I heard they were rioting Target in Minnesota last year.
  • When Matt Joyce is in the Dongers Club, you play Matt Joyce
  • Walker Buehler at home on a Friday at 5% ownership remains the single greatest cheat in the business.
  • Smack any asshole tout who refers to DFS as “the industry”
  • That honestly stems beyond DFS and into every walk of life.  When did the “industry” become this cliche buzz word that everyone has to use to make it sound like they are justifying their career move even more?  “The whole industry is on board with this”, or “The industry is doing this and that…”.   Did “The Industry” all go to “The U” or something.   Is this like we’re all an Ohio State Cult now or something?  What the hell is up with “The Industry”?
  • Stacking Sucks (TM)….
    • Someone once tried to use me Tweeting “Stacking Sucks” as if I had no idea what benefit Stacking provided.  Moron didn’t realize and still doesn’t realize that saying “Stacking Sucks” is just like saying “Fuck DFS”.  It’s a tilt saying that is reserved for when you have say 4 guys from one team and they have 18 runs and your 4 guys are 3-28 combined with three singles.
  • Pirates / Cardinals OVERS
  • Mike Trout on a Saturday Night
  • and a Friday
  • and a Tuesday
  • and a Wednesday
  • and a Monday
  • … just not Sunday’s
  • Thursday’s in MLB DFS aren’t real.  They never happened.
  • Especially that 4 game early only slate we all donkeyed and stacked the Rangers in
  • 28-3 jokes never get old.
  • Sunday’s are my favorite MLB DFS day.
  • But Friday’s have long been my GOAT day of the week.   From 1pm to 3pm on a Friday afternoon that little twitch to crank out the article for the night slate and then grab a cold beverage cannot be topped.
  • Monday’s are sneaky second.   Something about playing Mariners games on Monday’s too.
  • again, I don’t know what you are talking about, Thursday’s aren’t real
  • I once watched 5 innings of a Royals-Orioles game a lone at a bar in August when neither team was above .400.
  • It was 1-0 Orioles
  • And I enjoyed every damn minute of the peace and quiet.
  • Jose Urena was right to bean Ronald Acuna and beanings are fine and part of the game.
  • Touting a team because of implied run totals is NOT part of the game.
  • Could there be a more pathetic way to tout a team than their “Implied Run Total”.
  • This isn’t football where we have actual point targets being hit.  The fucking totals are 7.5 to 9.5 when not dealing with Coors and to factor the real Coors O/U, take the Coors total and subtract 3.5 and there you have it.  They’re high / medium and low totals.  So stop taking that and the money line which is entirely based upon the PITCHER probability and coming up with some fucktard metric.
  • Everyone keeps saying I need to do more podcasts.
  • Ok
  • Fine.
  • Trevor Bauer will dominate divisional opponents for the first 3 starts he see’s them.  Then the lure starts to wear off.
  • Don’t trust aces in April or Sunday’s.
  • Don’t assume favorites always win.
  • A Wise man once told me that LOA (Law of Averages) is a real thing..
  • I am sure there is more, but that will do for 2021.

 

Play.  Ball.

 

 

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