Welcome to the Shark Autopsy Report MLB Edition! Over the course of the remainder of the MLB season this article will deconstruct winning MLB 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.
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$75K MLB Squeeze
The Top 10
The Return of a DFS Legend
For those of you who are new to Daily Fantasy Sports in 2018 and possibly 2017 may not know the name “Saahilsud”, but Saahilsud is revered in the DFS community as one of the best players in the industry. Saahil rose to DFS legendary status dominating the DFS industry for over two years, including supplanting himself as RotoGrinders Tournament Player of the Year in 2016 and finishing 2nd in 2015. He took time off in 2017 and founded DFS strategy and content site RotoQL. Seeing him in the top 5 of Friday Night’s $75K MLB Squeeze, could it mean he’s back, if so things at the top just got a little more crowded. Looking at and deconstructing the lineups of the top DFS players in the world, greatly helps us become better players. Though Saahil didn’t win the tournament, his lineup was low owned and the players in his stacks exploded on Friday night. Below is Saahilsud’s 4th place MLB FanDuel lineup:
Dissecting Pitching
Firstly, Saahil decided to employ Chris Sale as his pitcher against a hot Houston Astros team on the road. Sale’s stats on the road on the 2018 season are Elite! With a 45.8% K-Rate against LHBs and 32.6% K-Rate against RHBs showcases dominance. But looking deeper, I can see that maybe Sale wasn’t in the most opportune spot. On the season, Sale has a low GB% to LHBs of 30% and 38.7% to RHBs. His FB% to RHBs is extremely high at 43.2%. Additionally, Sale’s ISO versus RHBs is high at 0.185. Looking at Sale’s stats over the last 14 days, we see a trend that continues to show that the spot for Sale on Friday night was unfavorable. His K-Rate versus RHBs dropped 5.1 percentage points, his GB% dropped 5.4 percentage points and his FB% increased 2.3 percentage points. On top of Sale’s decline over the last 14 days, the Astros’ bats have woken up! Over the last 14 days, the Astros K-Rate declined 1.9 percentage points, wOBA increased 53 points, ISO increased 21 points, FB% increased 1.7 percentage points, and their WRC+ increased 36.5 points from their 2018 season stats.
Had Saahil faded down from Sale to Stephen Strasburg, he would have taken down the tournament! Strasburg ended the night with 43 FD PTs, and looking at his stats below, the last 14 days matchup stats showcase a highly favorable position that Strasburg was in and he capitalized with 10 Ks over 6.2 IP, and giving up 3 ER.
Putting Hitting Under Scrunity
Saahilsud employed a 4×4 stack of Athletics and Dodgers. The overall lineup’s average ownership percentage was 10.46%. Looking at the top scoring player in Saahil’s lineup, Matt Olson at 57.1 FD PTs, the spot was a dream matchup versus Ian Kennedy. First, we need to look at Kennedy’s stats over the last 14 days. Kennedy’s K-Rate of 19.5%, FB% of 34.4% and HC% of 42.2% do not spell stay away, in fact in showcases that the Athletics were in a great spot. Over the last 14 days versus RHPs on the Road, Olson’s wOBA is 0.816, WRC+ of 439.43, BB% of 33.3% and HC% of 50% are sensational. Dustin Fowler’s stats over the last 14 days versus RHPs on the Road are great, employing a 0.440 wOBA, 182.68 WRC+, 50% FB% and 50% HC%.
On the Dodgers side of Saahil’s 4×4 stack, we can see below that the hitters he utilized in his lineup construction have been performing very well over the last 14 days versus LHPs on the road. I can’t believe he got the Dodgers players he utilized at an average ownership level of 10.17% at Coors Field, just criminal! How great was the spot, well… It was a fabulous spot for these RHBs Saahil employed! At home over the last 14 days against RHBs, Tyler Anderson has been downright awful supporting a 0.384 wOBA, 0.273 ISO, 20% K-Rate, 30.6% GB% (at Coors Field will not cut the mustard!), 51.3% FB% and 36.1% HC%. Looking at Puig and Taylor who combined for 42 FD PTs at 10% ownership for the field, you can see that over the last 14 days against LHPs on the road are in a league of their own! Taylor supported a wOBA of 0.634, ISO of 1.000, 314.39 WRC+, 75% FB% and HC% of 50%, my god he should have been 100% owned, but at 14.3% field ownership is criminal! Tack onto that, over the 14 days on the road versus LHPs, Puig supported a wOBA of 0.811, ISO of 0.800, WRC+ of 434.88, and 75% FB%, WOW is all I can say and at 5.7% field ownership is simply criminal!
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!
You may be saying to yourself or telling yourself, the top DFS players have an unlimited bank roll to Mass Multi Enter (MME) contests and stack every game and that is how they are on top of the leaderboards daily. But I am here to tell you, your thinking couldn’t be more wrong. These players have grown their bankrolls through grinding and employing top level processes to each slate of games no matter the sport. These players employ the same process to every slate win or lose and through massive amounts of time spent researching and understanding the DFS game and sports they play (which is all of them by the way), their mastery of DFS places them in favorable situations daily to grow their bankrolls, as well as change their game plans as the competition gets better. To truly become a daily leaderboard leader in the likes of players similar to Saahilsud, you have to be willing to put in the time and DFS has to be all you think about. One time winners are too and far and in between. But those top level players, the top 10 in this tournament was loitered with them (Saahilsud, Tinderella, and Giantsquid) to name a few, employ tactics, strategies, and processes of breaking down daily slate matchups to put them on favorable plays daily, and this is why they are on top of the RotoGrinders overall DFS players leaderboards (Saahilsud will be back on top in a matter of time, don’t you worry about that).
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, Jaguar Lou’s GPP Jamboree 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!