Now #20 bestseller in the Kindle Store under Fantasy Sports!
Why not collect dividends on the investments we make in the world of sports?
When I officially launched Sporfolio, this was the recurring theme playing in my mind. We pour our hearts and souls into our teams, yet still feel like we need more. So we create fantasy teams. Daily lineups. Pick games. And do whatever we can to get ourselves closer to the action.
Now, the action turns to the baseball diamond.
I am honored – thrilled, proud, and any other adjective you want to apply here – to announce the launch of my first book: Diamond Dividends: Creative Strategies to Profit Through Fantasy Baseball. As the title suggests, it is filled with unique strategies and methods to approach the sport of baseball and profit from your fantasy leagues.
The fantasy baseball gameplans found inside Diamond Dividends can be used on today’s players and in future years. Specifically for drafts in 2017, there are lists of ‘sleepers,’ ‘busts,’ prospects, and hitters to target in today’s evolving game. The paperback version even includes tables of the projected top 500 fantasy baseball players and their statistics. As an added bonus, both versions – paperback and eBook – come with an optional extended free-trial to Sporfolio.
View on Amazon: Diamond Dividends: Creative Strategies to Profit Through Fantasy Baseball
Book features:
- Available in both paperback and Kindle eBook
- ‘Sleepers’ and ‘busts’ for 2017 – Felix Hernandez and Justin Turner are one of each, respectively
- Player stocks to watch as early as March – Chris Archer and Ryon Healy, albeit for separate reasons
- Direct advice for drafting or assembling a team in 2017 – Place a premium on elite pitching and batting average
- Full season final standings predictions – Texas regresses while another American League West team rises
- Daily fantasy baseball advice – Saving salary cap space while maximizing points
- Fantasy baseball’s future stars – Including deep keeper league targets
- Paperback version includes optional one-month free trial at Sporfolio – if desired, instructions for redemption can be found in Appendix II of the book
- eBook version includes optional one-week free trial at Sporfolio – if desired, instructions for redemption can be found in Appendix II of the eBook
- eBook version is FREE for all members of Sporfolio
- Since the eBook is free for Sporfolio’s members, purchasing the paperback version will also allow you to redeem the eBook version at no additional cost during the free trial period
- If you are pressed for time with upcoming drafts and keeper decisions but still want the paperback version, email us at contact@sporfolio.com and we will get the eBook version in your hands while you wait for delivery
Thank you so much for your continued support! If you want a preview of the book, scroll down to read the first few pages.
– Mario
Chapter 1 – Every New Beginning Comes From…
Some cross between a scream and an unintelligible set of words from the English language left my mouth. A yelp, perhaps. And I left the ground.
Scenarios of all sorts had been running through my mind. Different options. Potential outcomes. None of which involved Rajai Davis – with 55 career regular season home runs spanning eleven years – sending a pitch thrown by Aroldis Chapman over the fence.
The scream-yelp was one of elation. Amazement. Everything that I – and anyone who would read a book about baseball – love about America’s pastime had just unfolded on the most dramatic stage imaginable.
I wanted to cry. My vision blurred. Out of the corner of my wet eyes, I noticed a smile fill my wife’s face. She had seen me distraught over the previous few weeks as the NFL season – something that had provided nothing but joy and success for me both personally and professionally – began to fail me. This was, in the realm of sports, the first time she had seen me emit pure joy in far too long.
Quickly, she had realized that my outburst was in direct opposition of what-had-become ‘The Story of 2016.’ That is, the Chicago Cubs were about to break their century-long World Series drought, and I was actively rooting against it. Passionately, as my actions would confirm.
Without following the sport of baseball, she knew the importance of the moment. It was impossible to escape the storyline for anyone within earshot of a news outlet. Not necessarily one that focuses on sports. She pressed me for a reason, curious as to how her husband – a baseball romantic – was hoping for a fan base to continue its suffering.
That’s exactly why I wanted the Cubs to lose. The baseball romantic inside of me wants the story. I craved it. I needed more. I didn’t particularly care if it were Chicago, Cleveland, or any other city with something more on the line than a piece of hardware. I was born and raised believing that magic exists in sports. I believed in the curse.
Twitter had always been a fantastic mechanism for connecting with people across all walks of life – celebrities engaging with fans, athletes publicly conversing with one another, etc. – but it took on another lifeform on a Wednesday night in early November. Twitter became the stadium in which we sat while observing one of the greatest sporting events in history.
Hyperbole didn’t stand a chance against Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
Everyone was a fan of something. Everyone was an expert. Everyone had an opinion. Most importantly, everyone was watching and everyone was talking exclusively about baseball.
Electricity carried over into Thursday. The majority of random baseball fans were “just happy to see the Cubs finally win” – it should not be surprising that this irked me to no end, but my anger subsided when I saw a woman dressed head-to-toe in Cubs gear and assumed that she hadn’t bought the apparel overnight.
Those who had watched more than ten innings of baseball in 2016 were baffled by the managerial decisions of Joe Madden over the previous few days. And then there were the lifelong fans of this beautiful sport still trying to wrap their collective heads around what we just witnessed. It was easy for the media to tell people that history was being made. It was another to watch it unfold step-by-step. It is what led to an email from a diehard baseball fan, great friend, and one of the best sports minds I know. Aptly, the subject was: Curse Breaker Theories.
I needed something. An answer. An explanation. A catalyst as to why it finally happened. I know and acknowledge that this Cubs team is better than any that the franchise has fielded in the last century. That never mattered before. Why did it matter now?
It took a moment of complete silence for it to hit me. A time in which only ambient sound from my surroundings filtered through my ears. Not a driving rainstorm, but not a distraction, either. Just a break in the action. A pause. A chance to reset.
The Chicago Cubs had the same benefit. They received the same breaking point. The ability to reset a game before its conclusion. The rain delay – short as it may have ended up – stopped the momentum moving against the Cubs and gave Chicago the chance to regain it. Luck? Perhaps.
Divine intervention? For some, baseball is a religion.
I was content. I found my answer. My peace. My acceptance of how the last great curse in baseball was broken. I needed to reflect in order to accept this and move forward. Finally, I could.
Now, a different question filled my mind:
What could Major League Baseball possibly do for an encore?
Chapter 2 – Premarket Trading
I used to force myself to wait. Despite bursting with excitement for a new baseball season enveloping me as quickly as the last football season ended, I still created some self-imposed cutoff point. I would simply not allow myself to begin preparations for baseball season until I could decompress from recent NFL action. Usually, I would wait for my seasonal allergies to kick in. Then, I would know I was ready.
I stopped this silly routine. I live for this stuff. Baseball is in my blood and there is an unquenchable thirst to ‘solve’ it. Certainly, delaying gratification had its perks, but so did instant gratification. As soon as I let myself rekindle a relationship that had taken a hiatus lasting nearly four months, I felt the immediate connection.
My spreadsheets took only a fraction of the time to update. My projections from last year needed only slight tweaking – with the exception of home runs, which were given a full overhaul – and the content began to flow.
A combination of unparalleled momentum gained from 2016 and sheer excitement for whatever 2017 will bring powered me forward. Perhaps this new Major League Baseball season can’t compete with the last one. But it can undoubtedly continue enhancing our experience as analysts, prognosticators and, most importantly, fans.
Every year, we are tasked with deciphering just how valuable preseason games are for projecting future success. There have been studies – specifically, focusing on pitchers – but they are often limited to measurable attributes. Certainly, position battles have merit, as they directly impact an eventual starting lineup, but we don’t need to follow the games as much as the news, in this regard.
Ultimately, almost everything that is derived from preseason statistics fails to track the one element that matters most: perceived value.
Even if everyone in a fantasy league unilaterally decides to discount the events of late February and March, there is bound to be one owner who goes rogue. This is where the danger lies. The ‘sleeper’ we target may produce a killer Spring Training and, for no reason other than an outstanding set of statistics in exhibition games, we may no longer be able to afford said player. This threatens to negate the hard work we already put into our preparation.
Sometimes, a player’s rising value will be unavoidable. Savvy fantasy owners will have already been tracking this athlete and need nothing more than to see him on an actual baseball field before buying in. We can accept this as long as we are aware of the player’s starting point.