Welcome to the Shark Autopsy MLB Edition! Over the course of the remainder of the MLB season this article will deconstruct winning FanDuel lineups of contests where the dark waters of GPP contests are ripe with sharks. Navigating these waters where the sharks smell blood in the water is not easy, but the DFSArmy have you covered, providing you with the essential daily tools to help our VIPs turn into sharks! The article will be released twice weekly, with each day’s article looking at either single entry or multi-entry GPP contests. Each contest requires a different lineup construction.
Follow me on Twitter and if you are a VIP I will see you in the MLB channels. I enjoy seeing and hearing from all of the VIPs when things go well. If you aren’t a VIP member, there’s an easy way to get a free month to test the Army out. The Army has all of the content, tools, second-to-none Domination Station Optimizer, and the most accessible MLB staff and coaches in the industry to guide you in your journey of becoming a better DFS player.
$25 Single Entry MLB Pickoff Contest
A little bit about the $25 Single Entry MLB Pickoff contest, 705 entrants competed for a share of the $15,000 in prizes Monday night, with $1,500 going to the winner. The lineup above was the winner of the $25 Single Entry MLB Pickoff contest from Monday night. Jose Berrios was the chalk pitcher in the tournament at 31.3% ownership in the field, in fact 9 out of the top 10 finishers had Berrios as their selected pitcher for the night. Gdz2289’s overall winning lineup accounted for a 21.56% average ownership percentage.
Dissecting Pitching
What made Berrios such a great play, when the DFSArmy’s DFSA grade was 47.01, provided the following pitchers graded better (DFSA grade in parenthesis): Walker Buehler (99.87), Masahiro Tanaka (94.28), Robbie Erlin (81.19), Zack Greinke (80.02), Miles Mikolas (61.70), Gio Gonzalez (56.55), Chase Anderson (53.75) and Mike Foltynewicz (49.03)?
First off, Berrios was pitching in his home park where his splits at home are sensationally better than on the road in the 2018 season. Below is a graphic that showcases the variance of the Berrios home/away splits for the 2018 season:
The stats that are of significance here is the wOBA splits versus RHB’s on the road vs. at home. Berrios’ wOBA vs. RHBs at home is 146 points lower than on the road and 22.1% higher K% vs. RHBs at home than on the road. When you measure out the matchup for Berrios, the matchup stats paint a picture that worked in Berrios favor with a wOBA of .247, ISO of .111, and K% of 29.5%.
Putting Hitting Under Scrutiny
If you didn’t happen to roll out Berrios last night in your lineups, all was not lost for you. In fact, if you rolled out Miles Mikolas and if you stacked the right combination of Nationals and Yankees last night your night ended quite well. Mikolas finished the night with 64 points, which was 9 points greater than Berrios and Mikolas was only owned at 3.3% in the $25 Single Entry MLB Pickoff contest from Monday night.
Gdz2289’s really nailed those hitters that went off last night, employing a 4×4 stack of Yankees and Cardinals. Utilizing a 4×4 stack is risky, especially in a GPP with 705 entrants but sometimes outside the norm thinking can payoff and it did for gdz2289 last night. Starting with Gleyber Torres, the top contrarian play at 2nd Base at 4.3% ownership (scored 43.9 FD Pts.). All of the ownership in the $25 Single Entry MLB Pickoff contest was on Brian Dozier at 28.1% ownership (scored 9.2 FD Pts.) and Jonathan Schoop at 22.8% ownership (scored 3 FD Pts.). Both Dozier and Schoop had favorable matchups. Gdz2289’s Yankees stack of Neil Walker, Gleyber Torres, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton facing Colon netted him 109.7 FD Pts!
Looking at the stats of the NYY vs. TEX game to project that NYY could explode off of Colon for 10 runs including HRs from Torres (2), Walker (1) and Judge (1), we can conclude how this happened:
If you looked only at the overall 2018 Away vs. RHP stats for these four hitters, you would not have been on these guys last night. In fact, you may have been repulsed to play them. Look at Neil Walker for example, for 2018 Away vs. RHP stats he supports a wOBA of .210, ISO of .089, OBP of .220 and WRC+ of 25.80. Those stats do not say play me. But a different story plays out when you look at these hitters last 14 days stats. Neil Walker’s wOBA is 202 points higher, ISO is 411 points higher, WRC+ is 136.96 points higher, and has a FB% that is 10% higher over the last 14 days. But you may be thinking, why did gdz2289 utilize Aaron Judge in this stack when his last 14 days numbers aren’t sensational? You need to look closely at the power stats of Aaron Judge and you will see why he was utilized as the riskiest of the four man NYY stack to conclude that Judge was in a favorable spot vs. Colon. Over the last 14 days, Judge supported an ISO of .333 and Hard Contact % of 66.7%. Looking at the matchup with Colon, we see that Judge’s matchup stats are even more telling with a wOBA of .311, ISO of .349, FB% of 28.1% and Hard Contact % of 53.9%. These are quality stats for this matchup to include him within the stack. Additionally, Judge was considered by the DFSArmy as the top overall rated hitter on the night with a DFSA grade of 98.48!
Did you know snake drafts are gaining MLB popularity, too? If you enjoy the drafting process more, give PlayDraft a try and follow UW81’s posts and channel. Those games can be incredibly soft and if you dedicate time to your craft, I might be dissecting your strategies over there soon, too. Join PlayDraft today!
To put a bow on this for you and conclude this installment of the Shark Autopsy Report, there are so many statistics in MLB that it can be overwhelming as a DFS player. Know that you don’t need every single statistic there is to determine whether or not a player is a good play. Determine which stats within the Research Station provide you with the best information to make optimal decisions, read the DFSArmy coach’s MLB articles (Dong Detector, CeeGee’s Stacks, Chop’s Chin Music, Painting the Black with MDell, Walsh’s Wingmen and the Donut Shop), utilize the DFSArmy’s evolutionary taking the industry by storm Domination Station Optimizer and we will help you become a better DFS Player!
