Daily Fantasy Sports
Sharp App
Season Long Fantasy
Free Month
Wall of Champions
Discord

DFS Army MLB Battle Plan Part 1: Getting Started

First off, welcome! We’re about to dive into my brain so I can give you a crash course into the ins and outs of MLB DFS. The first thing I want to say is this. I have a unique way of gathering all my information that I use. I am not a numbers only guy, or a feel only guy. I combine the numbers that I use, to make what you will see as the DFSA Grade for each player. I will go into exactly what that entails a little later, but I use that grade, along with what I know about baseball and watching and re-watching extensive hours to make my decisions about who to target in MLB DFS. This guide is not designed to be something you read once and then never refer to again, my vision is that we can use it at any point through the season whether we’re on a heater or struggling to keep the focus on what in my mind is truly important in MLB DFS.
In this guide, I will give you basically everything I currently use to succeed in MLB DFS. All my resources to pull stats, how I view them, the people around the industry whose opinions I trust outside the DFS Army along with strategy for cash games and tournaments. Along in this will be our own Choppodong’s Ladder system and contest selection and anything else I can think of that will go into it. This is the first article that I have wrote in a long time, and it’s long overdue…so we’re going to take it slow and go through everything over the first week. When we’re finished, you will get to know every one of our MLB contributors and their one tip going into the MLB DFS 2018 Season. So, sit back, grab your coffee and notebook, put the wife and kids to bed, and get ready to have your MLB DFS Game transformed!

Part 1: GETTING STARTED

Knowing the Sites:

We all know by now the two main DFS Sites that we talk about are DraftKings and FanDuel.  We also dive into every once and a while, Fantasy Draft or what we call FD2.  This section is to give you the breakdown of the scoring and roster construction for all these sites, and some basics that you need to know going into them.  Unlike NBA, I will play MLB on all three sites through the season and have no issue playing on all three on the same night.  Since starting lineups are released hours before lock, and both DraftKings and FanDuel allow late swap for their main slate contests, it’s a thousand times easier to manage multiple sites then when playing NBA.  There is another site, that we won’t touch on a ton that offers contests for MLB that I will be testing the waters in this season and that is Play Draft.  I don’t know a ton about it yet, since I didn’t play there last season, but look for something later on after I get the chance to really dive in and get to know how their MLB Product works better.

DraftKings:

DraftKings uses a two-pitcher system along with a multi-positional eligibility that allows you to get creative with your roster construction.  The roster construction is as follows:

P

P

C

1B

2B

3B

SS

OF

OF

OF

You get $50,000 for your salary cap and the minimum salary for players is $2,000.  You can have no more than 5 hitters from any one team when creating your lineup.  We’ll go into strategy for stacking a little later, but this allows you to stack a team almost fully in tournaments.  The scoring is as follows:

Hitters:

Single                                                    +3 Pt

Double                                                 +5 Pts

Triple                                                     +8 Pts

Home Run                                           +10 Pts

Run Batted In                                     +2 Pts

Run                                                        +2 Pts

Base on Balls                                      +2 Pts

Hit By Pitch                                         +2 Pts

Stolen Base                                         +5 Pts

Pitchers:

Innings Pitched                                 +2.25 Pts

Strikeout                                             +2 Pts

Win                                                        +4 Pts

Earned Run Allowed                       -2 Pts

Hit Against                                          -0.6 Pts

Base on Balls Against                      -0.6 Pts

Complete Game                               +2.5 Pts

Complete Game Shutout              +2.5 Pts

No Hitter                                             +5 Pts

One of the things you need to remember about DraftKings for your Starting Pitchers is that they do get negative points for not only Earned Runs Allowed, but also Hits and Walks allowed.  We will go into how to identify these later with the stats that we use, but it’s a big thing to pay attention to.

FanDuel:

FanDuel has changed things up on us again this season as far as roster construction.  They have combined the Catcher and First base spots and added a utility spot for their rosters.  Lineup Construction goes as follows:

P

C/1B

2B

3B

SS

OF

OF

OF

UTIL

The previous roster construction of only allowing up to 4 players from any one team no matter the position is now gone, and you can now have 4 hitters from one team along with that teams Pitcher.  However, you do need to have at least one player from 3 different teams in your lineup for it to be valid.  You get a salary cap of $35,000 with the minimum salary currently $2,000.

The scoring is as follows:

Pitchers:

Earned Runs (ER)              -3

Innings Pitched (IP)         3

Outs (O)                               1

Quality Start (QSTART)   4

Strikeouts (SO)                  3

Wins (W)                             6

Hitters:

Singles (1B)                         3

Doubles (2B)                      6

Triples (3B)                         9

Walks (BB)                          3

Hit by Pitches (HBP)        3

Home Runs (HR)               12

Runs (R)                               3.2

RBI (RBI)                              3.5

Stolen Bases (SB)              6

The biggest difference is that your pitcher doesn’t receive any negative points for anything other then Earned Runs Allowed.  Along with the win which I will explain in a moment. FanDuel also gives your pitchers credit for a quality start.

To qualify for a quality start, your pitcher must start the game, and pitch at least 6 full innings allowing no more than 3 Earned Runs (ER).  To qualify for the Win (W) a starting pitcher must pitch at least 5 full innings and exit the game with his team ahead to qualify.  If that team loses the lead at any point after your pitcher has exited the game, he loses the ability to qualify for the win.  This includes if the game becomes tied after he leaves the game.  So, let’s go into some examples quick.

Clayton Kershaw starts the game for the Dodgers, pitches 5 innings, does not allow an ER, and leaves with the game tied.  The dodgers win the game scoring a run in the bottom of the 5th before another pitcher has entered the game and thrown a pitch.

In this example, Kershaw would get credit for the win, but not the quality start since he did not pitch the required 6 innings even though he did not allow an ER.  There is a twist here, his opponent could have scored an unearned run and won the game and Kershaw would still get the loss.  This is one of the reasons I hate that pitchers get fantasy points for “wins” when the rest of the game is out of their control and a bad bullpen can knock you out of the extra points.  More on that in the strategy part.

Ok, next example.

Carlos Martinez starts the game, pitches 7 innings and allows 2 ER.  He leaves the game in the bottom of the 7th since the Cardinals are the visiting team with a 4-2 lead.  In the bottom of the 8th, the home team scores 2 runs to tie the game.  The Cardinals score 2 in the top of the 9th and end up winning the game 6-4.  Got that?

Here, we have a lot of moving parts.  First, Martinez would get the points for a quality start since he only allowed 2 ER in 7 innings pitched.  However, even though the Cardinals won the game, the bullpen allowed the opposition to tie the game after he left so he no longer qualifies for the win.

Something to keep in mind.  Your pitcher can get the points for a quality start by pitching 6 innings and not allowing more then 3 ER but if he pitches into the 7th and ends up going over that 3 ER threshold, he loses his quality start points.  I will get into how I approach these scenarios from a strategy standpoint a little later.