Today's featured shit

Spending some time in the race and sports books this weekend has taught me that fantasy baseball is completely unrelated to baseball handicapping. Either that or it’s just really unlucky to go 1-6 in one-run games.
Baseball handicapping is actually more about the other bettors than it is about the actual players. Players get hurt all the time. Upsets occur. You can easily put too much emphasis on stats. Of course, you should put some on them, but just to help pick a side. The real effort is in pounding the pavement (or the Internet for those of you scoring at home, literally).
After you’ve picked the teams you want to bet, you have to find the posted lines of as many books as possible so you can make some comparisons. Obviously, you’re looking for the best available odds. And sometimes you can get an overlay. It almost happened with the Dodgers and Angels yesterday. I found the Angels at -135 at one book and the Dodgers at +135 across the street. That was as close as it got, though, because a ton of money came in on the Angels, and they moved to -144. But these scenarios do occur. Books want to stay balanced, so even if it creates an overlay opportunity for you, they don’t care. They’re just happy that you’re there to help them balance their books.
I had the Angels last night, in fact. John Lackey is a good fantasy pitcher and a good real-life pitcher. He didn’t look so hot last night, but I haven’t given up on him yet. Same story with Paul Maholm. The Rockies are just a hot team right now. He’ll be fine.
Interleague play is supposed to favor the pitcher, because a lot of the matchups are happening for the first time, but Freddy Sanchez has been having a grand old time of it so far. He’s available in a surprising number of leagues. And if he isn’t, Yuniesky Betancourt might have broken out of a slump with his three-hit game yesterday. You could do worse in the middle infield.
Another three-hit guy from yesterday was Josh Bard. If catching is scarce in your league, you might want to give this guy a look. Brian Schneider, the guy Bard replaced, in essence, hit a home run yesterday and is another desperate catcher. (A desperate catcher is someone you add to your team because you’re desperate for a catcher. He should be better than the rest of the crap out there, but you still wouldn’t need him unless you didn’t draft well at the position.)