A hunter needs his bow, a carpenter needs his hammer and a writer needs his warped brain. Everyone needs the right tools for the right job, and I’m here to share my favorite tools for Daily Fantasy Baseball players.
You might not need or want to use every one of these DFS tools, but I guarantee you’ll find at least a few you didn’t know about that you’ll start using regularly.
RotoWorld.com’s Baseball Headlines
I used to be a big fan of CBSSports.com’s player updates, but then I left the company and don’t like their updates as much. Funny how that works! With that said, RotoWorld definitely stays on top of things, although they don’t always offer up advice. Usually, they just deliver the news and let you decide what’s what.
FantasyRundown.com’s Daily Links to Daily Fantasy Baseball Articles
This guy is a machine, as he scours the Internet morning, noon and night, looking for the top Fantasy articles. Then he posts links to them here, with a quick one-sentence explanation as to why this article is worth a look. The DFS articles are all tagged with a little blue “D” icon in front of the listing.
This is where you can find all of today’s lineups listed, as soon as they are available (usually a couple hours before game time). I have yet to come across another site that gets the MLB team’s lineups quicker than this site.
Top Hitters vs. LHP – Top Hitters vs. RHP (Platoon Splits)
My buddy Doug Anderson does a great job of sorting through the numbers over the past five years to figure out which batters at each position have the biggest differences between left-handed pitchers and right-handed pitchers. He also breaks it down for us according to last year’s numbers. This is great when trying to decide on a hitter to fill out a certain spot in your DFS lineup.
2MugsFF.com’s Daily Fantasy Bankroll Tracker
Part of good bankroll management involves tracking performance on specific Daily Fantasy sites and in various tournament types across multiple sports. You might be much better in 50/50 games in Fantasy Baseball, but you have a better win percentage in Daily Fantasy Football tournaments. Maybe you dominate in FanDuel’s scoring system and lineup requirements, but struggle on DraftKings. Use this free Excel spreadsheet from 2MugsFF.com and you’ll track it all easily. (There’s also a Google Sheets version.)
ESPN’s Daily Fantasy Starting Pitchers Rankings
Todd Zola does a great job of discussing the day’s best pitchers and ranks them from top to bottom. He also explains which ones he considers elite or just solid. Another great way to use this tool is to see who he ranks at the bottom and stack lineups against those pitchers accordingly.
MLBStartingNine.com’s Batter vs. Pitcher Stats
I’m not a big fan of using “Batter vs. Pitcher” stats because of the small sample sizes involved. Hitters don’t face pitchers enough in a given season to create a large enough sample, and matchups from previous seasons are poor indicators because players evolve—for better and worse—over time. So, again, this isn’t for me. But perhaps you’ll find it useful.
Baseball-Reference.com’s Team Defensive Efficiency
[Scroll down to the “Team & League Standard Fielding” section, and click on the column marked “DefEff”]
One important stat a lot of people forget about is Team Defensive Efficiency, which measures how good a defense is behind the pitcher. It determines the percentage of balls in play that are converted into outs. Choosing a pitcher with a good defense behind him could be the difference between four or five Fantasy points, and possibly more. Consider that a booted ball in the outfield could allow a baserunner to score from first, or a bad throw on a double-play could extend an inning.
DailyFantasySportsNetwork.com’s MLB Umpire Stats
This one’s a little more in-depth than I’m used to, but you can see which umpires allow the most walks per game (Andy Fletcher, 8.3 in 9 games) and which ones call the most strikeouts per game (Paul Nauert, 19.8 in five games).
DailyBaseballData.com’s Weather Dashboard
Many sites show weather data, but DBD breaks down precipitation percentages hourly—including before the game and during it. Why is this so important for Daily Fantasy Baseball? Well, if I see the first hour of the game with 30 percent precipitation, but the next two hours with much lower percentages, then I can expect the starting pitchers in that game to be fine even if the start of the game gets delayed a bit. But if the middle of the game is expected to have some precipitation, I might move away from that pitcher because now it’s more likely the game is paused midway, and the pitcher doesn’t come back out to finish what he started. It also shows the “Air Density Index” for each venue, so you can see where balls will fly further.
RotoGrinders Daily Fantasy Podcast
The hosts, Dan Back, Mike Petta and Gabriel Harber, are long-time Daily Fantasy players in several sports, including Daily Fantasy Baseball. Each day, they run through the upcoming contests and share their favorite picks and pans.
SportingCharts.com’s Stolen Bases Allowed Leaders for Pitchers
As I mentioned last week, you need to know which sites value stolen bases a little more than others. This helps when you are looking for cheap platoon options as fillers at the middle infield spots or in the outfield. Last week, I proved that base thieves are worth the most on FanDuel, and the least on DraftDay.
RotoGrinders.com’s Lineup Builder
Choose which Daily Fantasy site you’re playing on, then which sport you are playing. Go through and pick a few players you either definitely want to have in your lineup, or definitely want to avoid having in your lineup, then hit “Generate Lineups.” RG then fills out several different lineups that fit the salary cap accordingly, and you can sort through to see which one you like best!
RotoGrinders.com’s Pitcher K Predictor
These guys do a good job of determining which pitchers are expected to strike out the most batters today, based off that pitcher’s ability and his opposing offense’s strikeout averages. Go to the link above, make sure it’s for today’s date, then click on the “Daily K Predictor” and sort by “K-Proj” on the far right.
Come football season, I’ll also post an article on the top Daily Fantasy Football articles out there.