Welcome Army to the inaugural edition of The Analytics’ Corner: By the Numbers MLB Daily Fantasy Breakdown
This article will give you an in-depth analysis of the daily MLB slate, breaking down the day’s slate of games in terms of metrics that will provide you with the insight needed to determine what pitchers and hitters are in great spots to perform well. Given that baseball is one of the highest variance DFS sports, even those players that are in great spots could still get you a 0 in the point column, or worse negative points for pitchers. With this article and the MLB tools offered to you by the DFS Army, you should have everything you need to generate quality lineups on a daily basis.
Within this article, I will also walk you through my thought process of my lineup creation for the prior day’s slate. Being primarily a GPP player, my lineup creation will significantly differ from those that are playing cash games, but will provide you with an understanding of what I was looking for in my core plays for my lineups that day.
Before moving on to breaking down today’s slate of games, I want to mention because it is very important, you need to make sure that you look at the starting lineups for the teams playing on today’s slate so that you don’t start the day with a goose egg in your lineup. Also with the volatility of DFS MLB, you need to stick with the bankroll management concepts that works best for you and limit the amount of your bankroll you put in play during each day’s slate of games. I almost always only have 10 – 15% of bankroll in play during a day’s slate of games and I do not exceed that amount. If you have not had the opportunity to check out some of the bankroll management techniques, namely the ladder system, that the DFS Army has to offer, I strongly encourage you to do so, especially for the MLB season.
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The Nationals welcome the Marlins and newly minted Marlin Edinson Volquez to DC in an early afternoon showdown to take on Stephen Strasburg who is an Elite pitcher. Volquez is coming off of a WBC where he pitched in 2 games and 8 innings pitched surrendering 1 ER and striking out 8 against the likes of the USA and Puerto Rico. This may not be the best spot to stack the Marlins, but MLB is a high variance sport and if you are feeling ballsy, a contrarian stack of 1, 2, 3, 4 Marlin hitters will be low owned. Christian Yelich tore up the World Baseball Classic pitchers and subsequently tore up spring training pitching prior to leaving the Marlins spring training camp to join team USA with 2 HRs. Dee Gordon’s power is suspect, but if Gordon can get on base, he brings superior speed to the base paths but with a two-time gold glover behind the plate in Wieters, Gordon needs to get a great jump on Strasburg to be able to swipe bags in this one. At Gordon’s $4,200 salary on DK, I will pass, but may be a nice value play on FD at $3,200.
The Nationals made some offseason moves bringing in Adam Eaton of the White Sox and Matt Wieters from the Baltimore Orioles in a contentious offseason signing. Over Strasburg career, he has been very good at home posting elite K% of 30.5% and K/9 of 11.09. The Nationals are led by Bryce Harper in the clean-up spot. The Nationals lineup is very dangerous, especially at the 3, 4, 5 lineup spots. The Nationals are led by newlywed Bryce Harper, who by his standards had a down year last season; look for a rebound season this year. A stack of 2, 3, 4, 5 Nats is a highly favorable stack, though it will not be a low owned stack and will cost you $18,400 on DK and $15,000 on FD. D-Murph had an amazing season last season for his inaugural season with the Nats coming over from the Mets. The power numbers of the 3, 4, and 5 Nats hitters against right-handed pitching is very pronounced, especially with Harper sporting an ISO of 0.261 against righties.
The Braves travel to New York to take on the Mets and Noah Syndergaard. This will be tough sledding for the Braves, as Syndergaard is an Elite pitcher that sports a 29.9% K% and a 10.82 K/9 at home. The best spot to take a stab at a Braves hitter is in Freddie Freeman who sports a 0.410 wOBA, 0.293 ISO and 158 WRC+ against right-handed pitching. Outside of Freeman, there’s no one that I would use from the Braves lineup.
This is a very good spot for the Mets hitters. Julio Teheran sports a 20% K% on the road, which is right at league average and below average 6.95 K/9. The Mets absolutely destroy right-handed pitching, namely Granderson (0.349 wOBA, 0.238 ISO, and 121 WRC+), Cespedes (0.352 wOBA, 0.244 ISO, and 123 WRC+), Bruce (0.361 wOBA, 0.283 ISO, and 124 WRC+) and Cabrera (0.342 wOBA, 0.208 ISO, and 117 WRC+). With power numbers like these against righties, the nuts lineup could very likely have these batters. The stack of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for 5 player stacks is a highly viable yet could be a high owned stack. The 2 – 6 lineup stack will cost you $18,400 on DK and $14,700 on FD which is right on par cost wise with the Nationals 4 player stack of Turner, Murphy, Harper and Rendon, but you gain 1 additional player in the Mets stack and that is good value especially if you determine that you will deploy Clayton Kershaw in your Pitcher slot of your lineups, which Kershaw is in a highly favorable spot taking the mound against the Padres.
The Pirates travel to Fenway to take on a potent Red Sox team that said goodbye to Big Poppy at the conclusion of last season. The Pirates take on Rick Porcello who has average to above average K% of 22% and 7.74 K/9 rate at home. Porcello doesn’t walk many batters as he has a very good BB% of 3.26% at home. Porcello doesn’t give up a lot of hard contact to righties and only is suspect to hard contact with lefties. I could see utilizing Polanco in this spot, but his upside is limited by the lineup around him. Fenway is not an easy park for lefties to go yard to right field; actually, it’s one of the most difficult parks to hit HRs for lefties.
The Red Sox are a team that you could definitely consider stacking against Cole, though Cole is a pitcher with solid strikeout potential to hitters from both side of the plate. Cole’s K% against lefties is high at 25% over his career on the road, which is concerning, but has a ripe wOBA of 0.331 against lefties on the road, BB% below average at 7.03% and LD% of 28.57% against lefties on the road. Much like that of the lefties for the Pirates, the Red Sox lefties upside is limited due to the difficulty lefties face hitting homeruns to right field. The field may be apt to the ball park factors in this contest for lefties, but the Red Sox are in a good spot for a stack.
The Rockies travel to the hitter-friendly Miller Park to take on the Brew Crew. Guerra a righty is an average pitcher at best and with the hitter-friendly Miller Park to lefties, a full platoon of Blackmon and Gonzo is definitely in play here. Guerra’s hard contact % versus lefties at home is a staggering 42.12%. Sign me up. I will be looking to take advantage of the field here with this game and stack up Blackmon and Gonzo with Arenado and Story.
This is a situation for a full fade of the Brewers hitters. There are better spots to find value hitters and hitting teams to target than to target the Brewers in this slate of games.
The Encarnacion-less (Encarnacion moved on to Cleveland during the offseason) Blue Jays travel to Baltimore to take on the Orioles and the hitter friendly park of Camden Yards. Oh this is the gem where power hitters will be a plenty. A lot of the field will be on this game, as the Blue Jays and Orioles are loaded with power, on the Blue Jays side especially Tulo, Donaldson (who may win the AL batting title this year), and Bautista. This game is tricky as Gausman is typically a reverse splits pitcher, giving up a HR/FB rate of 13.46% to righties at home over the course of his career. The quest for utilizing Blue Jay hitters is to find those hitters whos K% is low, namely Donaldson and Bautista.
Marco “high fly-ball percentage” Estrada will take the mound against a potent power hitting Orioles lineup led by Manny Machado, Chris Davis, Mark Trumbo, and Adam Jones. These Orioles will be highly owned on this slate for good reason. To be successful in MLB GPPs you need HRs almost throughout your lineup. Well, with Estrada giving up a FB% of 50.41% to lefties and 51.26% to righties, toppled with an average K% of 20.11% to lefties and above average K% of 23.70% to righties, this is a primo spot for Orioles hitters. Stack em’ up especially in cash games. You could be slightly contrarian in GPPs and stack 3 – 6 in lineup versus 2 – 5, or 4 – 7 in lineup.
Detroit travels to the windy city to take on the White Sox and Jose Quintana. Quintana is a HR/FB suppressing pitcher, which means that when he’s on the mound he allows a lot of fly-balls but rarely do those fly-balls leave the yard. With that said, I do like some of the options here, especially those that strike out very little. Miggy is an amazing hitter, whom has one of the lowest K%s of any hitter in MLB who has lethal power to opposing pitchers. Victor Martinez is another amazing hitter, whom has an amazingly low K% over his career versus lefties of 11.4%. Ian Kinsler is another viable option to target on this slate with his 10.3% K% versus lefties over his career and a 46.3% FB%.
This is a situation for a full fade of the White Sox hitters. There are better spots to find value hitters and hitting teams to target than to target the White Sox in this slate of games.
This is a fade situation for me, the Royals are a middling hitting lineup, and yes Hosmer had a GREAT WBC, but Ervin Santana always seems to depress hitters fantasy points productions. During the 2016 season, he only gave up more than 3 runs on 5 occasions over 30 starts or 16% of the time he gave up 3 or more runs. That’s really good. BUT…. If you had to take a hitter from the Royals, Hosmer is your guy, too bad there weren’t better options from a hitting perspective around him.
Danny Duffy is coming into this game coming off some good pitching performances in the WBC. But he is a high fly ball, high hard contact pitcher who has a strong K-rate. This is where you need to look at the Twin’s hitters K%s and be highly selective to those with LOW K%s. The guy that comes to mind in this game is Brian Dozier. In 800 Plate Appearances over his career against lefties, Dozier has an 18.3% K%, a FB% of 46.10% and a hard contact % of 31.60%, remember when I said that Duffy is a high fly ball, high hard contact pitcher who has a strong K-rate, well this a great spot for Dozier.
This is a game featuring Meh’ to the expression “Really this is all you have to bring to the mound for opening day” pitching. Hellickson and Feldman are below average in pretty much every statistical category for measuring a pitcher. So, what does this mean for utilization? Well, these two pitchers are unusable in the Pitcher slot of your lineups, but…. are very good pitchers to target hitters against. In this contest for the Phillies, I want to target power righties, especially in the hitter-friendly confines of Great American Ball Park. Who fits the bill? Maikel Franco and Tommy Joseph.
Much like targeting the righty power Phillies hitters versus Feldman, targeting the lefty power Reds hitters against Hellickson is the name of the game. Joey Votto fits the bill nicely in this spot, I also don’t mind Billy Hamilton, who if he gets on base can swipe bags left and right and SBs can generate some serious points production for you in terms of fantasy points.
Okay, Okay, Okay, this is where you look to see who the Padres are facing on the mound… Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock, did you guess right, Clayton Kershaw. Now this is where I say, FADE EVERY PADRE HITTER!
This is an All-In spot for Clayton Kershaw, THE most dominant pitcher in all of MLB. We talk about it all the time at DFS Army, Keep It Simple! Don’t overthink this one, plug and play Kershaw especially in your cash game lineups. In GPPs, I wouldn’t disagree with you if you faded Kershaw, but he’s in a great spot facing a rebuilding Padre lineup that has a high K%. Pick your spots wisely. From a hitter’s perspective, facing Chacin it’s all about the left-handed hitters. In this contest, I will be targeting Seager, Gonzalez, Grandal, and Joc Pederson.
That is all for this slate of games, Good Luck Army and enjoy Opening Day! I look forward to seeing some #Winning-Lineups on Tuesday!
In this section, I will look back at the DraftKings lineups that I created night before and showcase my top scoring GPP and cash lineups here. I will provide notes on my pitchers and hitters selections and the thinking behind those players that were utilized for the slate of games. I will then compare my lineups to the top scoring lineups within the contests I entered to see where I went wrong or right in my player selections.
About the Author
Like most players in the DFS industry, I started playing fantasy sports playing season long football and baseball leagues. I have been playing fantasy sports for about 15 years now. But, I thirsted for more action as a fantasy sports player outside of the season long leagues I was in, and during the 2012-2013 NFL season I deposited money at FanDuel and Draftkings and started playing. It was rough going starting out, and wasn’t until I found @FFootballGeek blog during the 2012-2013 NFL season where my DFS game grew. One of the great things I learned from Geek back during the 2012-2013 season was the 80/20 rule and I employ the common rule daily. I am a GPP player, because I discovered early on that is my game and have embraced it. I have degrees in mathematics and statistics, as well as an advanced degree in Accounting. Outside of my love and dedication for DFS and numbers, I am very passionate developer of sophisticated systems within Excel.
Some of you may have seen my winnings on the DFS Army’s Wall of Fame or via @FFootballGeek twitter feed. This past NFL season, I won a qualifier to the Draftkings King of the Beach Semi-Finals, where I competed against 180 qualifying players and the top 50 qualified to go the Bahamas to compete for a cool $100K first place prize. I came 3 points shy of qualifying and took home $4,000 in winnings from that Semi-Final tourney. During the NFL Wildcard Playoffs round I placed 29th out of 86,000 plus entrants in the Draftkings Milly Maker, as well as 99th out of 392,000 plus entrants in the Draftkings $1M Play-Action GPP tourney. Most recently, I took 1st place in the Draftkings World Baseball Classic (WBC) $27 entry $2K Closer GPP tourney. My ROI for this past NFL season was an astounding 3,233%, and my ROI has grown since. Below are some screen shots of my winnings that you may also find on the DFS Army’s Wall of Fame and @FFootballGeek twitter feed.
