Champion's League Preview: Real Madrid vs. PSG

European soccer is unlike anything we can experience here in the states.  Not only are there are multiple top-notch professional leagues, in five different countries, there are competitions where the best teams across all of Europe compete to be the best. If you are not a daily fantasy soccer expert and are unaware it is called the Champions League and it is glorious.  It is similar to college basketball’s March Madness where teams of all varying sizes get thrown into group stages and battle out till there is just one team left.  We are now entering the round of 16 after more than half of the field has already been eliminated.  There are times in the group stage where we get to see some great matches between two European powerhouses but they are never a sure thing.

Luckily for us, Paris St. Germain, the team that won the Summer transfer season with their signings of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, and German powerhouse Bayern Munich.  Those games didn’t disappoint but there is one matchup in the round of 16 that would have been predicted as a possible final matchup.  Real Madrid, the reigning Champions League champions, are set to square off in a two game series against Paris St. Germain.  There are daily fantasy soccer superstars all over the pitch with the likes of world class talent such as: Cristiano Ronaldo (reginnig Ballon D’Or winner), Neymar, Gareth Bale, Kylian Mbappe, Karim Benzema,Marcelo, Dani Alves, and Edinson Cavani just to name a few.  These two clubs have been two of the hottest in the world and will certainly have plenty of goals to go around.  The reason these two clubs are meeting this early in the competition is because Real Madrid faltered a bit in the Group Stage by loosing and drawing with Tottenham Hotspur. This forced Madrid to the second seed coming out of Group H and allowed them to matched up against PSG who was the top seed for Group B.  These two clubs were both in the top three for Goals Scored and Goal Difference in the group stage, but clearly something has to give.

There will be superstars lined up all over the pitch when these two sides meet up and there is little to differentiate between the two. Both have a prolific attack, playmakers in the midfield, wing backs that love to come up on the attack, and centre backs who can shot down any counters thrown at them.  If you are playing daily fantasy soccer in February when the round of 16 starts, look to stack this game as these two teams play at some of the quickest paces in all of Europe. There should be plenty of opportunities, on both the offensive and defensive end, for these superstars to accrue plenty of fantasy points.

The Ugly Side of MMA

One of the hottest and fastest growing sports in the world right now is MMA and the UFC.  The Ultimate Fighting Championship gives the human race a flashback to our more primitive times where men used to beat each other senesi for fun.  Now, it is for sport with millions of dollars in advertisements, pay per view earnings, and contract bonuses.  This has broughten rise to star fantasy MMA fighters like Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, and George St. Pierre.  These guys put their bodies and physical health on the line every time that bell rings and some of the effects can be crippling for a much longer period of time than a “fighting career”.

Unfortunately, one of these rare instances occurred in Houston in the beginning of November.  At the time there was an event being held by LFA (Legacy Fighting Alliance).  This is the rival to MMA and LFA is mixed martial arts promotion broadcast.  The group came together as a result of a merger between Legacy Fighting Championship and Resurrection Fighting Alliance.  At LFA 26, in Houston, Charlie Hancok fought Charlie Ontiveros during the prelimanary rounds of the card. Neither of the fighters had much appeal nor were household names but once the final bell rang everyone had heard what happened.  Charlie Hancock allegedly collapsed and died during the events of the fight.  From reports, the fighter collapased without a strike landed on him. Instead, experts are saying that he was weary from fatigue and this is what caused his body from funcitoning. Alas, the medical team was well positioned on the scene and was able to rush it quickly and act effectively. These actions allowed from this young man’s life to be saved. Contrary to this, the official statement that was released by LFA’s CEO, Ed Soares, said that Hancock collapsed during the fight after the he experienced a kicking blow to his body.  The spokesman said that after enduring the kick, Hancock collapsed to the ground a few seconds after. This is when the referee signaled to the medical team to act appropriately and they managed to resuscitate him on sight. After further tests at a local hospital, it is believed that Hancock suffered kidney failure and he is now in stable condition.

This is certainly not the kind of press that the MMA is looking for.  They have been thriving in mainstream media by promoting their sport to be an explosive and exhilarating sport, but not one where the athletes severely harm their bodies.  If more of America does an MMA analysis of the game and realize the ill effects the sport has on these men and women; then don’t be surprised to see a dip in popularity and some regulation added to protect the fighters. Sometimes all it takes is a situation that comes out to be too close of a call where a fighter could have gotten seriously hurt. In this specific context, the outcome of these events that night could have been much worse and the shockwaves would have been felt throughout the entire MMA community.

The 2 Minute Drill- Fantay Heaven for QBs

During the last minutes of the second and fourth quarters of the game, there is a two-minute warning that signals the end of the quarter. This is where it gets really intense. At this time, the team with the ball are going to try to gain as much yards as possible, while the opposing team will try to negate that strategy. Both teams not only will have the most players on the field are desperate to make an impact within these last two minutes, whether it is to break a tie, push back the rival team, or make enough yards to increase the chance of a successful field goal. There will be a very apparent fantasy football strategy of use of the Wide Receivers in the plays that will happen during this time.

Since the team with the ball has to make some distance to the get a Touchdown, the plays will consist of the Quarterback making passing plays to either Tight End or Wide REceivers, this would lead to the Wide Receivers and Tight Ends getting more passing receptions, receiving yards, and hopefully touchdowns. With such limited time on the clock, offenses tend to turn to a no huddle type of play calling which maximizes the number of plays they can get off given the little amount of time left on the clock. This makes for fantasy football haven!

The fantasy football strategy behind this is that every offensive player will get a huge bump in usage regardless of their positions due to the fact they will be calling many more plays in the short amount of time left.  Although, there is no way to warrant a direct fantasy pick based on two-minute drills, they often come up in games and often lead to big chunks of fantasy points coming off the board.  Defenses will be more inclined to play deep zone coverage, allowing your Quarterback to make easy shorter completions and have your Receivers rack up the Yards After Catch.  In fantasy football, it is better to get multiple shorter completions due to receptions being so highly valued on DraftKings.

The White Sox Will Be Contenders by 2020

Stop me if you have heard this before: “Watch out for that young team from Chicago, they really have a shot this year”.  We all know how flat out dominant the Cubbies were last year en route to a curse-breaking World Series title that did good for the whole city of Chicago and much of the MLB in general. But, in a couple of years the North siders could have some competition due to the resurgence of their crosstown foes in the White Sox.

If you are a daily fantasy baseball player, you could be scratching your head thinking, “I hardly know anyone on the Sox right now and you're telling me they are going to become contenders after they got rid of their best players over the last two years!?” The answer to that is a resounding YESSS!

To get an idea of how this is possible, you would need to take a look at the transactions that Sox have done over the last two seasons.  Realizing they weren’t quite there to make a serious run at a playoff spot but still having guys that could garner some value to the right contending clubs, the White Sox have strategically gotten rid of their core players slowly but surely.  The big names that were moved include: Chris Sale, Adam Eaton, Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier, David Robertson and a handful of serviceable other players.  What was their net return? Well for a CY Young caliber pitcher (Chris Sale), the Sox got baseball’s number one prospect plus a handful of other developmental players from the Red Sox. In total, the White Sox have far and wide the best farm system in the league.  As of right now, they have six of the top thirty prospects in the MLB and ten of the top one hundred.  They got two of them from the Red Sox, three from the Nationals, and two more from the Cubs after sending the Jose Quintana to their cross-town rival, and one more from the Yankees after shipping the ToddFather to the bronx.  And all of a sudden, a franchise that seemingly has been irrelevant since their miraculous World Series victory in 2005, now have the most hope of almost any franchise in the entire league.

By no means does this mean you should be targeting any of these guys when doing your fantasy baseball analysis because these guys are about three years away from fully get acclimating to what the big leagues is all about.  Instead, this an ode to the Sox for fully committing to a rebuild and acknowledgment for how bright the future looks both the North and South side of Chicago. How cool would it be to see an all Chicago World Series in late October?

The Unsung Hero - The Caddy

There are few sports that allows one individual to flourish completely on their own.  For football, you have a fifty two man roster and a coaching and training staff nearly half of that. Go to other extreme in tennis where sure you have a swing coach and some trainer; but once you step on the court it is just you and your opponent little or no outside help.  Luckily for PGA strategy, golfers have their trusty and wise caddy at their disposal for the duration of the tournament.

Now being a caddy is by no means a glamorous or easy job.  For the PGA tour, caddies are required to carry the golfer's bag for the entirety of the course.  Lugging a golfer’s clubs for four and a half hours through the humidity at Augusta and you would find yourself questioning what you got yourself into in the first place.  At the end of the day, the caddy isn’t going to win the trophy or get the big check.  Instead, they are the sturdy rock their golfers and friends look to lean on when selecting the proper club on a tween chip shot on the 17th hole in the final round.

The Draftkings PGA fantasy value of a caddy’s impact on a golfer’s game can not be quantified. Instead, their value lies deep in the bond and their motivation for the player to utilize the competitive advantage.  At the end of the day, a better golfer’s talent will prevail over a witty caddy.  Without the use of a caddy, golf wouldn’t be the same.  These men are commodities to the game as they enhance almost every aspect in fantasy analysis.  While they are not able to stand up there and accept the large check at the end of the weekend, they still end up in the victory clubhouse.

An Effective Statistic: Defensive Rating

No one ever likes their fantasy players to match up against the Spurs. They have such a good defensive team under Gregg Popovich and always do not perform well against their defensive stars. However, most players go insane in their stats when playing against bad defensive teams, such as the young Lakers team. From a fantasy standpoint, it is always good to look out who to pick up based on the teams they are playing against.

The Spurs and Lakers are on the opposite sides of the spectrum and are well known for how good or bad they are defensively, but how about the other teams? How would a fantasy team owner know if it a good idea to pick up someone playing against the Orlando Magic? Well, using the DRtg (Defensive Rating), fantasy owners will have an easier time determining which players to pick up playing against which team. This statistic has become an absolutely key tool for any type of fantasy basketball research because it summarizes so much info that we never could have garnered beforehand.

The DRtg calculates the points allowed per 100 possessions, developed by Dean Oliver. Fantasy players when drafting on any format, whether on daily fantasy leagues for DraftKings of FanDuel, or in other forms of fantasy, such as weekly categories or fantasy points, have an easy tool to figure out who could potentially go off on each game. Looking at these small statistics could give each fantasy owner a calculated guess on which player may be hot rather than randomly picking up players blindly.

This does not guarantee players to automatically do well, but based on their DRtg, these players have an increased probability of being able to take advantage offensively, which increases their fantasy value as opposed to playing against teams like the Spurs or the newly built New Orleans Pelicans with the new acquisition of Demarcus Cousins. The point is to use this tool to help score easy NBA fantasy points on waiver wire pickups by simply looking at the opposing team DRtg and judging if they will perform well or not.

How to get started with Fantasy Sports - FanDuel MLB Daily Fantasy

As the 2016 Major League Baseball season is currently ongoing and heating up in the months leading up to the playoffs, more and more players are getting their MLB daily fantasy fixes from a variety of sources. These include websites such as DraftKings and FanDuel. For fans of the latter, we’ve got another beginner’s guide for you right here.

FanDuel’s daily fantasy baseball, as many can attest to, is simpler in nature than that of DraftKings. One key difference is that it comes with only one minus statistic, instead of more than one. There are also less stats to deal with, which makes this a more ideal site to visit for daily fantasy newbies. As usual, you will need to live in certain parts of the world if you want to make money by playing daily fantasy MLB, you’ll have to pay the same entrance fees to join leagues in hopes of winning the prize money, and you’ll get to choose the same positions for your daily lineup, but aside from those similarities, the mechanics, particularly the scoring, is different.

Let’s first take a look at the stats accumulated by hitters. Home runs will still get you the most points – it’s 12 points per homer driven in by one of your players. After that, it’s nine points for a triple, six points for a double, and three points for a single. While DraftKings scores runs scored and runs batted in as equal, it’s also different over at FanDuel, as the site gives you 3.2 points per run and 3.5 points per RBI. Stolen bases are worth six points apiece, while getting hit by a pitcher is worth three points each time this happens.

There are only four pitching stats tallied, and you don’t need to worry if you’ve got a wild-throwing pitcher who nonetheless strikes out a lot of batters. Winning games, still, is most important, as that will get you 12 points if you chose a winning pitcher. A strikeout is worth three points each, and so is an inning pitched; you want starting pitchers who throw strikes, and definitely not relievers, with that in mind. There is one minus stat you still need to watch out for, and that’s earned runs – you lose three points per earned run allowed by your pitchers.

We hope this guide was helpful to you, and we hope you keep scouring fantasy expert blogs for more MLB daily fantasy tips in the future.