Welcome back MLB! And welcome in for our first edition of the MLB Expert Recap for this 2017 MLB season. This week’s article is just the appetizer. We need a couple of weeks to establish ownership percentages and other potential trends & stats that we will track this season. For that reason, this week will be a bit abbreviated in the grand scheme of things.
Our MLB content was free this week; however, beginning on Monday, you will need to be a premium member to have access to the full-scope of our MLB content. That premium membership also get you access to our first-class PGA content (that PGA Consensus helped me turn a solid profit at this weekend’s Masters).
In this article, I will give a brief recap of each day we gathered and graded the experts, including how the Industry Consensus picks did, highlighting which experts were at the top for the day and which players were only called out by one expert, but produced an “A+” grade. We will also review the overall standings and highlight the top experts so far this season.
As a reminder, we are currently gathering selections and publishing the MLB Industry Consensus article each weekday during the season, so be sure to check back about an hour or so before the first pitch of the first game to get a look at the consensus picks and sample lineups for the day. As an added bonus in 2017, we will publish the Consensus on weekends when we have a writer available. To begin the 2017 season, we will grade 20 experts that provide pitcher selections and 21 that provide hitter selections daily.
Leaderboard
The top-3 for both pitchers and hitters are below. Check out the full MLB Expert Standings to see how your favorite experts check out.
Pitchers
#1) Rotoballer (Score: 5.56) will wear the crown after one week. Really solid plays on the pitcher side with four of their nine picks scoring an “A+” grade.
#2) DailyFantasySportsRankings (Score: 5.40) trails by a slim margin out of the gate. Seven of their 15 pitcher plays scored the coveted “A+” spot.
#3) DK Playbook (Score: 5.22) makes it three experts with scores of 5.0+ after week one. Four of their nine plays scored an “A+”.
Hitters
#1) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 4.00) made a big splash in his debut to hitter picks. Brad will now provide some “reverse” pitcher options as he will choose some stacks of hitters to pick on pitchers.
#2) Daily Overlay – Value Index (Score: 3.67) makes it a clean sweep at the top of the hitter side from Daily Overlay. Maybe we know what we’re talking about around here!
#3) RotoGrinders 6-Pack (Score: 3.43) makes an appearance in the top-3 out of the gate. Eight picks of “A” or better is a solid start to the 2017 season.
Week in Review
Monday (April 3rd)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 6.0 (T-11th)
Hitters – 3.54 (10th)
A+ – Clayton Kershaw, Noah Syndergaard, Danny Duffy, Yasmani Grandal, Mark Reynolds, Cesar Hernandez, Corey Seager, Mike Moustakas, Miguel Sano, Justin Turner, Andrew Benintendi, Bryce Harper
F – Only 9 of the 41 total selections finished in the failing category.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1A) DailyOverlay – Value Index (Score: 10.00) scored a singular “A+” with his Kershaw pick
#1B) DK Playbook (Score: 10.00) did the same with Noah Syndergaard.
#1C) Sportsline (Score: 10.00) utilized Kershaw to score their “A+” grade.
#1D) Rotoballer (Score: 10.00) probably should have been slotted at 1A since they actually made two selections. Rotoballer scored two “A+” grades with Syndergaard and Ervin Santana. The were the only expert site to play Santana.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) Daily Overlay – Value Index (Score: 6.17) topped the leaderboard on the hitter side, too. Stephen scored an “A+” with three of his six picks.
#2) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 6.13) hit an “A+” on 50% of their picks, as well. FTA scored four “A+” grades.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Freddie Galvis (DailyFantasySportsRankings)
A+ – Joc Pederson (Daily Overlay – On the Hill)
A+ – Lucas Duda (FantasyPros)
A+ – Mark Trumbo (FantasyLabs)
A+ – Ervin Santana (Rotoballer)
A+ – Edinson Volquez (FanSided)
A+ – Xander Bogaerts (FanSided)
Tuesday (April 4th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 3.67 (9th)
Hitters – 1.54 (13th)
A+ – Jake Arrieta, Lance McCullers, Carlos Santana, Brandon Crawford, Trevor Story, Ryan Braun
F – Twenty-six of the 48 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1) Rotoballer (Score: 10.00) nailed two more perfect grades on Tuesday with Arrieta and McCullers.
#2A) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 7.50) scored an “A+” and an “A” with Arrieta and Carlos Carrasco.
#2B) Sportsline (Score: 7.50) made identical picks to DailyFantasyNerd with Arriet and Carrasco
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 3.50) topped the scoreboard with his stacks on Tuesday. Brad is providing hitter stacks based off pitchers to target against.
#2) RotoGrinders 6-Pack (Score: 3.17) found the 2-slot with two of his six picks scoring an “A” or better.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Rajai Davis (DailyRoto)
A+ – Jake Lamb (Scout)
A+ – Travis Shaw (DK Playbook)
A+ – Ryon Healy (FantasyPros)
A+ – Ronald Torreyes (FantasyPros)
Wednesday (April 5th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 2.57 (13th)
Hitters – 2.59 (9th)
A+ – Chris Sale, JT Realmuto, Eric Thames, Brandon Belt, Travis Shaw, George Springer, AJ Pollock, Jay Bruce
F – 23 of the 44 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 4.50) scored the top spot on Wednesday with an “A+”, an “A”, a “B” and a failing grade.
#2) Scout (Score: 4.25) took down 2nd with half of their four picks scoring an “A” or better.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) Scout (Score: 3.95) finished off a really nice day by topping the expert group on the hitter side. Eight of their 20 picks scored “A” or better including six “A+” grades.
#2) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 3.82) stacked up a solid score on Wednesday with four of his 11 selections scoring an “A” or better.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Brandon Finnegan (DailyRoto)
A+ – Dylan Bundy (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Jonathan Villar (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – JA Happ (Scout)
A+ – Sandy Leon (Scout)
A+ – Elvis Andrus (Scout)
Thursday (April 6th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 4.17 (11th)
HItters – 2.27 (9th)
A+ – Marcus Stroman, Matt Harvey, Kendrys Morales, Jake Lamb, David Peralta
F – Fifteen of the 28 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1A) DK Playbook (Score: 10.00) scored two “A+” grades with Marcus Stroman and Matt Harvey.
#1B) FantasyGuruElite (Score: 10.00) also used Stroman and Harvey for a perfect score.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) Daily Overlay – Value Index (Score: 10.00) took down a perfect score with Jake Lamb and David Peralta.
#2) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 5.33) rounded out the clean DO sweep for the day with six of his nine picks scoring “B” or better including four “A+” grades. He was the lone expert to deploy Matt Kemp.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Matt Kemp (Daily Overlay – On the Hill)
Friday (April 7th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 3.00 (T-6th)
Hitters – 1.68 (15th)
A+ – Mike Leake, Rougned Odor, Matt Joyce, Nomar Mazara
F – 24 of the 44 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1) DailyFantasySportsRankings (Score: 5.00) makes an appearance on the daily top-2. An “A+” and an “F” brings a 5.0 score. Most days, 5.0 won’t sniff the top-2. They were the only site to include Carlos Gomez in their picks.
#2) FantasyGuruElite (Score: 4.60) finds the daily leaderboard as three of their five picks scored an “A” or better.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) Daily Overlay – Value Index (Score: 4.33) tops the list as half of his six selections scored an “A” or better.
#2) DailyFantasySportsRankings (Score: 3.33) put together a solid Friday as five of their 12 picks scored an “A” or better.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Carlos Gomez (DailyFantasySportsRankings)
A+ – Amir Garrett (DailyRoto)
A+ – Jason Vargas (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Christian Yelich (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Salvador Perez (Scout)
A+ – Josh Donaldson (Rotowire)
Saturday (April 8th)
This was one of those weeks where we provided a Saturday Consensus. Brad posted a Consensus after compiling selections from 16 experts on both the pitcher and hitter side.
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 2.00 (T-7th)
Hitters – 1.51 (9th)
A+ – Addison Russell, Kris Bryant
F – Nineteen of the 41 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1) FantasyPros (Score: 5.33) found the leaderboard for the first time of the opening week with an “A+”, an “A” and a “D” on Saturday.
#2]) FanSided (Score: 3.83) had the same story as his only pick was Syndergaard.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) DailyFantasySportsRankings (Score: 2.90) topped the list with three of their 10 picks scoring an “A” or better.
#2) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 2.50) found the top-2 with four selections scoring “A” or better.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Nolan Arenado (DailyRoto)
A+ – Jhoulys Chacin (FantasyPros)
