So, you’re ready to become a millionaire playing Daily Fantasy sports?
Unfortunately, the number of people who have become millionaires playing DFS might not be enough to cover all nine positions on a baseball diamond. Still, there’s no reason why you can’t earn hundreds or thousands while developing your skills.
We’ll get into some of the intricacies of DFS over the next few weeks, but I’d like to kick things off with some basic lineup-building tips and start with what’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned about DFS:
Think of players like stocks – not brand names.
While it might make you feel all warm and fuzzy to look at a DFS roster that has Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton and Clayton Kershaw on it, a star-heavy lineup doesn’t guarantee you’ll win anything. DFS is a one-day sport and even Mike Trout goes 0-for-5 sometimes. While more predictive sports like DFS hoops rarely sees a bench player like Channing Frye outscore a star like Russell Westbrook, there are quite a few days in DFS baseball where you’ll see a platoon guy like Daniel Nava outscore a star like Paul Goldschmidt.
Keeping in mind that you have to build a roster that fits under a salary cap, you want to make sure you’re maximizing each dollar spent. As an example, let’s say Nava costs $3,000 of DFS salary while Goldschmidt is $6,000. While Goldschmidt might outscore Nava, you’re not getting full value out of him unless he doubles Nava’s score. I’ve found that it’s best to forget about what your perception of a player is and instead focus on his matchup and potential to maximize his return on the day you’re playing him.
Other things to keep in mind when building lineups
1. Pay For Pitching: This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule (there’s always more than one way to skin a cat in fantasy sports) and it goes against what most people do in season-long play. But while points aren’t guaranteed in DFS, pitching is probably the most “guaranteed” you’re going to get. Sure, you’ll have a day where Joe Kelly might end up as the highest-scoring pitcher while Felix Hernandez gets blown up. But for the most part, paying up for a pitcher gives you a nice solid floor to build on as they’re a tad more predictive than those pesky hitters.
2. Know Your Scoring: Different sites have different scoring systems, so make sure you’re taking that into account when choosing a lineup. Some sites deduct points from hitters for striking out while others don’t. Some give pitchers more points for chalking up a win than others. If you’re not taking scoring nuances into account, you might as well just go buy a lottery ticket.
3. Trust the sportsbooks: Oddsmakers spend more time researching matchups than you ever have, so make use of that. While the sportsbooks occasionally make (small) mistakes, the market is typically quick to correct them. You’ll want to target games with high over/unders (anything over 7), especially when rostering multiple hitters from the same lineup. And moneyline odds are always helpful when choosing a starting pitcher as you can see which pitchers are in the best position to pick up a win. You’ll hear the term “stacking” a lot in DFS (more on that later), but games with high over/unders are the ones you’ll want to stack.
4. Streaks: While a short-term streak isn’t predictive of future performance, it can be a nice piece to the roster-building puzzle. Baseball is played by humans (breaking news!) and sometimes those human players fall into hot or cold streaks. There will be times, for instance, when a pitcher flatly admits to the media that he’s lost control of his curveball; or a hitter concedes a lack of confidence at the plate. Again, this isn’t predictive, but I find it helps to target players on a hot streak while avoiding those guys who haven’t stood on first base in three weeks.
5. Hit Refresh On Lineup Sites: Today’s “everyday” players play almost every day, which means you can’t assume anything. Check lineup sites and Twitter accounts to make sure your entire DFS roster is playing on a given day. Lineups are typically posted within a few hours of first pitch, so there’s no excuse for starting a benched player if he unexpectedly sits. The other benefit here is that you can take advantage of cheap bench players when they get a rare start.
6. Ballpark Factors: This one is pretty simple (and there are plenty of sites out there to help). Some parks help pitchers. Some help hitters. I find it helpful to print out that list and make sure I’m using that information to help inform my roster selections.
7. Wind! Water!: While that might sound like the intro to Captain Planet (because it is), you’ll also want to make sure you’re paying attention to potential rainouts and windy days. There are plenty of sites out there that provide this information and I’d generally advise avoiding players whose games run the risk of a rainout, while you’ll want to target/avoid players where a really strong wind is blowing out/in.
8. Statistical Research: This one needs a few subsections (and again, these are just pieces to a puzzle and none should be used on their own). Baseball is easily the most statistically-driven sport out there and it’s easy to get lost in all the great data we have available. Here are a few things to look at in addition to the ones I’ve already mentioned:
- A. Lefty/Right Splits: Pretty straightforward — lefties typically hit righties better, while righties often hit lefties better. By figuring out which players have these extreme splits, you’ll be able to make better decisions on who to roster.
- B. Batter vs. Pitcher (BvP): This is probably the most polarizing topic in DFS. Some people swear by it while others dismiss it entirely. I sort of land in the middle. Some hitters hit certain pitchers better than they hit others. I will almost always dismiss small samples (if Hitter X goes 2-for-3 against Pitcher Y, this doesn’t tell me much). But if I see a hitter is 2-for-40 against a certain pitcher or, conversely, 15-for-29 with 5 home runs … now I’m paying attention. You can also flip this and try to find pitchers that own (or are owned by) certain hitters and target/avoid them accordingly.
- C. “Advanced” Stats: I used quotes because I don’t think these are all that advanced, but they’re still more advanced than something like BvP. Some stats aren’t predictive—such as wOBA and wRC+—but could help point you in the right direction. By taking these stats and marrying them up with lefty/righty splits, you’re helping to advance your statistical research without spending 10 hours a day poring through numbers.
* * *
Looking ahead: I’ll delve deeper into some of the above topics over the next few weeks. In the next article of this series, I’ll take a look at contest selection and the different strategies that you can use to be successful.
Nick Raducanu is the founder of ProjectRoto.com and is a contributor to Rotoworld and the New York Times. Follow him on Twitter.