I have been discussing through this article and Slack about a theory on how to approach MME and GPP’s in general. It’s a theory I created to basically diversify your portfolio in a low risk fashion while boosting your potential ROI by having a dart or two hit the top of the standings.
Rather than trying to identify the top pitcher, hitters, or stacks and going with “heavy exposure” on said targets, we are going to set minimum exposures on specific targets and allow the optimizer to flex its muscles and take a non-biased approach as to who and what are the most optimal options.
This hopefully will allow us to have exposure to specific targets that allow us to have a handful of lineups that are “in the hunt” for the top of the standings if some of the top targets bottom out and sink most of your lineups.
Pitchers for FanDuel (throw a minimum of 3-7% exposure to ensure that you have at least 5-10 out of your 150 lineups with each pitcher)
Chris Sale (@TOR 3.3 IRT, -196 Fav) – Going to set him at 20% minimum as he’s CLEARLY the top pitcher of the night and it is not even close. Max exposure will remain at 40% for all players.
Kyle Hendricks (MIL _ IRT, -153 Fav)
Jake Junis (CWS 3.8 IRT, -157 Fav)
Chris Archer (@BAL 3.9 IRT, +111 Dog)
Dylan Bundy (TAM 3.6 IRT, -120 Fav)
Pitchers for DraftKings (throw a minimum of 5-10% exposure to ensure that you have at least 1-2 out of your 20 lineups with each pitcher)
Chase Anderson (@CHC _ IRT, +141 Dog)
Marco Estrada (BOS 4.8 IRT, +180 Dog)
The same pitchers above in the FanDuel section apply here as well. For Estrada and Anderson I’ll have just 5% exposure min/max setting to make sure they both have one lineup each (and not together). I don’t want anymore than that.
Value Hitters for FanDuel (throw a minimum 5-10% exposure setting on a handful of your favorite guys from this category)
Lucas Duda
Ryan Goins
Pedro Alvarez
Craig Gentry
Alex Gordon
Jon Jay
Nicky Delmonico
Jackie Bradley
Carlos Gomez
Whit Merrifield
Salvador Perez
Jorge Soler
Mitch Moreland
Value Hitters for DraftKings (throw a minimum 5-10% exposure setting on a handful of your favorite guys from this category)
Salvador Perez
Lucas Duda
Mike Moustakas
Jorge Soler
Pedro Alvarez
Mitch Moreland
Jon Jay
Ryan Goins
Yolmer Sanchez
Tommy La Stella
Craig Gentry
Sandy Leon
Hernan Perez
Stacks for FanDuel (3-7% each = 5-10 lineups)
Royals – Giolito has given up 20 earned runs in 20 innings, walked 18 batters and given up 18 hits. I legitimately want all the Royals…ALL OF THEM! I’ll throw out multiple combinations of stacks and not worry about spot in the order.
Red Sox – Betts, Benintendi, Ramirez, Martinez
Cubs – Almora, Baez, Bryant, La Stella
Brewers – Cain, Yelich, Braun, Shaw
White Sox – Moncada, Sanchez, Abreu, Davidson
Stacks for DraftKings (5-10% each = 1-2 lineups out of 20)
Royals – Giolito has given up 20 earned runs in 20 innings, walked 18 batters and given up 18 hits. I legitimately want all the Royals…ALL OF THEM! I’ll throw out multiple combinations of stacks and not worry about spot in the order.
Red Sox – Betts, Ramirez, Martinez, Bradley
Red Sox – Ramirez, Martinez, Devers, Bradley
Cubs – Baez, Bryant, La Stella, Schwarber
Rays – Span, Gomez, Wendle, Ramos
The stacks can be slightly different and you can add/subtract players from each team. The concept and strategy should remain the same. If I want 3 or 4 different stacks from the same team then just use different groupings for each stack. Put a smaller exposure setting on for them at 3% or so to make sure you get about 5 teams of each stack. I.E., if I want 4 different Yankees stacks at 3% each I would end up with about 20 lineups being Yankees stacks. That is about the max I would go because you’re really starting to pinch your hedge and diversifying capabilities.
Beyond the stacks, I actually want to try to run the optimizer without ANY restrictions and just allow the optimizer to select players most optimally without any preset stacks.
My hope is that the combination of my tweaking and also allowing the optimizer to have the freedom to still flex its algorithm muscle will be a perfect blend of human touch and computing power. The optimizer routinely will stack together 2 or 3 bats from the same team for each lineup just due to our killer projection and value algorithms.
The only way to continue to perfect an MME approach is to continue to fine tune it. This is a trial and in no way shape or form a “perfect approach”. This process will likely be tweaked and manipulated by the time I finish this and likely will take a week or two before I feel comfortable with the actual delivery of this concept. As always, I will continue to share my findings with you in the hopes that we are able to find an edge over our competition!
Fortune favors the bold. Go make your own luck!
<3 Donuts