Having tackled the basics of daily fantasy sports, how to identify the best teams to target and the factors you should consider in selecting the hitters and pitcher(s) that will make up your daily fantasy baseball lineup so far in this series, it's time to put that knowledge to use in creating a plan of attack. Every night of MLB DFS will be slightly different, as the number of games and the teams/players playing them change, so any plan you develop needs flexibility.
In the first part of the series, I talked about the different DFS contest types you could enter, namely "cash games" in which 50 percent of the field wins about double the entry fee, and "GPP" tournaments in which a much smaller portion of the field wins and the top prize can be huge. There are contests that fall somewhere in the middle of these extremes, too, but this general distinction is useful in terms of game selection and bankroll management.
Much is made about the difference between building a DFS lineup for cash games and building one for tournaments. The premise is that cash games are easier to win because you need to beat only half of the field (or a single head-to-head opponent), so you can employ an optimality strategy. GPPs are much harder to win, and require you to take into account what your opponents might be doing, as well as a few other factors we'll get to in a game theory-based strategy.
Optimal lineup strategy
Using the processes I've discussed in part 2 and part 3 of this series to narrow down the teams, pitchers and hitters I'd like to use on any given day, I begin developing what I consider an optimal lineup. Optimality theory is essentially the output of a cost benefit analysis. I'm using the players that have the most positive factors in their favor and the fewest negative factors. Positive factors for hitters include a good offense, good OPS, wOBA and/or ISO versus the left-handed or right-handed pitcher they're facing, a position high in the batting order, facing a bad pitcher, a favorable ballpark for hitters and a reasonable salary. The goal is to construct an entire roster of the players that have the highest probability of succeeding.
Sometimes, compromises must be made. When determining who these optimal players are every night, I'm doing it blind to their salaries on any DFS sites. Of course, I generally know who's priced where, but I'm not making any cuts or exclusions based on salary at first. Often, however, the best plays are the most expensive players at their respective positions. When you can't afford the best player at every position, the place to compromise is where you can save the most salary while losing the least amount of positive impact. The factors I'll let go of, in order, are: ballpark, opposing pitcher quality, good offense, batting stats and batting order. Usually, it's not necessary to sacrifice every positive attribute to make it work.
Game theory-based lineup strategy
One of the most overlooked truths in daily fantasy sports is that it's a game you play against other people. You're not trying to score the most possible points, as optimality would seem to suggest; you're just trying to outscore one or more opponents. Clearly, scoring the most points accomplishes both goals, but sometimes it pays to specifically plan around what you think other competitors will do. At its core, DFS game theory encourages a unique strategy, often one that incorporates more risk, for use in large-field GPP tournaments. With proper research, it's fairly straightforward to arrive at a lineup composed of optimal plays. It stands to reason that a lot of DFS players will put in the requisite time and effort necessary to build an optimal lineup, leading to certain players being owned by a high percentage of your opponents.
If the optimal player, owned by you and 52 percent of the other lineups in your big-prize contest, goes 2-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs, that's great, but it's not going to advance you in the contest standings. Everyone's score will rise by the same amount and you won't get ahead. For these big-field contests, it makes sense to seek out players that are slightly, or dramatically, off the radar. If everyone is likely to be on Albert Pujols playing in Coors Field at first base, consider Chris Davis instead. If Pujols has a bad night and Davis hits one out, you'll come out way ahead of the field.
I studied a fair number of tournament lineups in daily fantasy baseball last season and learned a couple of things from the season's biggest DFS winners. First, you don't have to pivot off the super obvious player at every position, you just have to diversify somewhere. Winning lineups regularly have a player (sometimes more than one) that is 20-30 percent owned. Second, you don't have to fade (meaning intentionally not play) someone like Giancarlo Stanton for someone like Seth Smith or Mark Trumbo; it's not necessarily about saving money, it's about being different than the majority. Sometimes the super-popular optimal player will be a bargain and you'll want to pay up to get a unique edge at that position. Third, no matter how obvious a play seems, he's never in as many lineups as you'll predict. Fourth and finally, baseball is the sport perhaps least suitable to emphasizing this cash-versus-GPP strategy distinction. It carries so much inherent variability that even when you methodically pick out the players in the best positions to score fantasy points, there's no guarantee they'll follow through for you, or that others will arrive at the same conclusions as you.
Single versus multi-entry GPP tournament strategy
It's always worth playing your optimal cash game lineup, your best effort at maximizing fantasy points, in a GPP tournament. Most of the larger GPPs are multi-entry, meaning you can create multiple unique lineups to compete. There are different philosophies and heated debates on this topic that are beyond the scope of this series, but I do think there are a couple of points to emphasize with multi-entry strategy.
Stacking several players from the same high-powered offense facing a weak pitcher is a good way to multiply your fantasy points with hits, RBIs and runs feeding off each other. Since you have to use players from multiple teams and there is a limit on the number of players you can stack from the same team, one way to go in multi-entry play is to use a core stack that you really like and believe in, and alter the surrounding cast. If you have a core of 4-5 hitters from one team in all of your entries, you can diversify your lineups systematically by getting exposure to different starting pitchers and different individual players who have appealing factors in their favor.
For example, you could build a solid Blue Jays stack for power, incorporate either Dee Gordon or Jose Altuve for speed, and split your lineups between David Price and Corey Kluber at SP. On another night, you might have several players that stand out to you as "must-plays" who are all on different teams. Use those guys as your core, and substitute different mini-stacks in your multiple entries. The idea is to not just create random lineups, but to really enhance your success if that core comes through. If your core scores a ton of fantasy points, all the lineups that have it will be in a good position to cash. Of course, the opposite situation happens, too; if the core is terrible, then all your lineups are finishing out of the money. Such is the risk of multi-entry GPP play.
Positional scarcity strategy
Positional scarcity is a phrase you hear a lot in DFS. It refers to the perception, or the reality, of there not being a deep player pool at a certain position. In baseball, it's most often catcher and middle infield that appear thin or unappealing. I say perceived because there is in fact the same number of shortstops in play as first or third basemen, it's just that corner infielders and outfielders provide the power stats we're looking for in DFS more than their teammates, so it always seems like there are more good choices at those positions. Scarcity arises for various reasons: a small slate of games where there literally aren't very many players taking the field, a lot of aces taking the mound, players resting, slumping, weather and salary.
There are two ways to handle positional scarcity. The first is to pay up for the top option at the position. If second base is a barren wasteland of backups, decent players facing Clayton Kershaw and David Price, and Robinson Cano for 9 percent of your salary cap in a decent matchup, it may make sense to pay the steep price for the higher probability of getting a couple hits from Cano at the position. This strategy assumes you're able to find solid value and potential production for less salary elsewhere in your lineup.
The second approach is to completely "punt" the position that's most scarce. You'll roster the cheapest second baseman in a starting lineup, prioritizing his low salary over things like his pitcher matchup or place in the batting order. The rationale for this strategy is that if the whole position looks bad -- no options are likely to get you a ton of fantasy points -- you don't want to waste your salary cap there at all. Spend more at positions with better potential. It's much easier to find three good/elite outfielders to spend on in a short slate of baseball games. This is the approach I'll take most often and how I ended up using Joe Panik so much last year.
Next week, we'll put it all together and work through building an opening day lineup emphasizing the team factors, player characteristics and general strategies outlined so far. I'll highlight the tough decision points, review the main philosophies I use to navigate them, attempt to build an optimal lineup and discuss small tweaks to make the lineup more of a tournament contender.