Going contrarian might be the last thing you would expect me to write about, but that doesn’t mean I don’t utilize the concept. And, it certainly doesn’t mean I can’t explain it to you.
Sure, I’m known in the dfsarmy.com as “The ChalkEater” because I am a cash gamer at heart and truly believe there is safety in numbers. However, I’ve been known to get a little off the rails when it makes sense. I’m not near as predictable as you would think. Let’s break this Daily Fantasy Sports lineup tip down.
Defining Contrarian
If playing the chalk is generally accepted as choosing the most popular players on a slate, contrarian is doing just the opposite: Choosing the overlooked players. Note I didn’t say “unpopular players.” I said “overlooked.” There’s a difference. We will touch on it later, but there is a huge difference in being contrarian and being outright stupid. No matter how much we want to be different, we still need the play to make logical sense.
Proof Contrarianism Works
Let’s walk through a gambler’s principle based on math. If I dropped nine white golf balls in a bag and then tossed in a green one, I’d have ten balls in that bag, right? What if I asked you to guess the color you will pull out before you stick your hand in the bag? If you are right, I’ll pay you $100. Which color would you pick? White, right? And, you definitely should. Hell, you have a nine in ten chance of winning, or 90%. Those are great odds!
But, what if I told you there were also another nine people guessing, too, and all those guessing correctly would split the $100? Would that change your mind? Depending on what the others are doing, or thinking, it probably should.
If you knew every other person was going to guess white, you should guess green every single time you get the chance. Why? By guessing green all by your lonesome, you get to keep the full Benjamin to yourself. Sure, you’ll only be correct 10% of the time, but you will win the full $100 when you are right. That means each pull earns you $10.
Now, if you go along with the herd and guess white, you and nine other people have to split that $100 ten ways. On the surface, this seems to produce the same $10 per pull, but there’s a catch. What about that 10% of the time the green ball gets pulled? You all get nothing. White will only be correct 90% of the time. That really means you only average $9 per pull…..a loss of $1 for each pull. You are simply using math to determine the smarter route. Guessing green doesn’t pay off nearly as often, but when it does, it pays better.
Contrarian in DFS
Let’s use baseball as an example since the MLB season is upon us. Baseball uses a common practice called “stacking” to score points in bunches (more on that concept in our Hard Nine Series). The first step in going contrarian is finding the herd. Where are the popular plays/stacks for the night? This won’t be hard because most people are very superficial in their research when it comes to DFS. The highly owned stacks will likely be heavy Vegas favorites, teams with high run projections from Vegas, in hitters’ ballparks, be the 2-5 hitters, getting great results lately, facing a terrible pitcher, and probably playing in Colorado or Arizona. Another way to find these stacks is to read various articles around the web and see which names are on all the lists. The more popular the site, the higher owned the players/stacks usually.
Now that we know who everyone will be playing, let’s look at finding the contrarian plays or overlooked stacks. There are a few ways to find them smartly.
Using Different Players
Since most focus on the middle of the order, we might focus on the top of the order (1-2-3), the bottom (6-7-8) or both (called a “wrap stack” like 8-9-1-2 in the AL). These stacks allow you to take the highly rated offense but differentiate yourself a little within the same offense everyone else will be on that night. You can also take pieces of offenses with “mini-stacks.” Perhaps there are three popular offenses tonight. Maybe you take (2-3, 5-6, and 1-2) from the three. There are a lot of ways to use stacks uniquely in MLB DFS.
Stack against a good or even great pitcher. Look, pitchers have bad days, too. Statistically, even the best fail nearly 20% of the time. When a good pitcher implodes, it sure is nice to be the only player gutsy enough to have the 3-4-5 hitters going against him. While I might not do this often on larger slates, it’s definitely a viable strategy on the shorter ones.
Using Different Pitchers
I know we have been talking about bats, but why not be chalky with your bats and go contrarian with your pitcher? Ace pitchers go through slumps. When they do, their ownership falls off. Use this and bet on the rebound. Ace pitchers sometimes “figure it out” without warning. This is just another way to use most of your lineup in a safe way but get away from the masses smartly. That’s all contrarian is.
On two-pitcher sites, most people go with one stud and one value pitcher. Why not look at two value pitchers in great spots? Maybe two studs? Perhaps not the top pitcher on a large slate, but maybe the 3rd and 5th priced pitchers. The options are endless when you start identifying the chalk to intentionally look for spots no one will think about.
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Deeper Contrarian Strategy
Be logical with your contrarian gameplan, not stupid. Stacking a bad offense against an ace pitcher is contrarian for sure. But, it’s also dumb as hell. Sure, no one in the world will be on that idea. But, that’s for good reason. It has very little chance of panning out for you. Let’s keep the focus to players/stacks/pitchers the world is simply overlooking due to “better options” instead of being contrarian just to be alone in a tournament. When constantly looking for the overlooked matchups, sometimes you find yourself being contrarian without trying. This happens to me constantly. I just looked a little deeper into the numbers than the average DFS player did. Often times, that is enough to separate you right there.
Keep it to one contrarian play/stack per lineup. Going back to the golf ball example, going with a contrarian stack is like picking the green ball with a 10% shot at coming through for you. If you try and pick another long shot play, it’s like trying to pick a second green ball (assuming one existed). A 10% chance is one thing. A 10% chance combined with another 10% chance is a 1% chance of hitting both. Very few rewards will justify that kind of risk. If you want to take multiple contrarian shots, do it in different lineups altogether. Enter 5 lineups in a tourney and make 5 different contrarian lineups. Don’t try and cram all 5 contrarian options in the same lineup. I exaggerate, but it’s obvious this would be overkill.
Short slates work best. Those in the DFS Army hear me say this all the time. “Short slates are where you go contrarian.” When we only have 6 teams to choose from, it’s easy to know who people will use as their pitcher. With only 6 teams, we might only have 1 or 2 good offensive options. On large slates, we often have 5 or 6 or more. For your contrarian lineup to work out, you need these chalky offenses to falter. Your odds of having 1 or 2 good offenses falter are exponentially better than having all 5 or 6 good offenses falter in the same night.
Contrarian Elsewhere
If you think in terms of chalk vs contrarian, you quickly realize every sport has options. These principles are useful in literally every DFS sport.
NFL has matchups where Antonio Brown is in a great spot, but Julio Jones is not. However, Julio is still Julio. PGA has Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas. Both might be great plays, but one will be favored over the other since most people can’t fit both. NHL has a common situation where players tend to focus on the top two scoring lines. The contrarian isn’t afraid to take the best game of the night and stack the third scoring line instead.
You get better as a DFS player when you reach this next level thinking and start picking and choosing your spots accordingly. Hopefully, this article turned on a little light bulb for you going forward.