Welcome to the Shark Autopsy Report 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.
FanDuel’s $1.5M WFBC Qualifier Contest
Draftkings and FanDuel’s WFBC Qualifiers are the “Quan” of what every DFS player chases during the course of a season for each major DFS sport! The qualifiers are extremely difficult to win, and rightfully so, with first place winner going to sunny San Diego to compete for the chance to be named Draftkings or FanDuel’s World Fantasy Champion and $300K top prize!
Friday night’s Q was won by McJester, who is a DFS Legend, having qualified a multitude of times for Live Final Events and won the RotoGrinders TPOY (Tournament Player of the Year) in 2014. He is the 45th overall ranked player in DFS by RotoGrinders!
Top 10
McJester’s Winning Lineup
On a night where HRs were a plenty, McJester played a very low owned Seattle stack of Ryon Healy, Dee Gordon, Nelson Cruz and Mitch Haniger at an average ownership of 4.33%. McJester leveraged several low owned plays that moved his winning lineup up the leaderboard and eventual Q win with Arenado’s HR, Story’s double and run scored in bottom of 8th inning, and Gray’s dynamic performance on the hill, which provided his lineup’s overall average ownership of 14.38%.
Dissecting Pitching
DFSArmy coaches loved Jon Gray on Friday night, as did Vegas with an opening line of -205 and a closing line of -220. Below is a what DFSArmy coach @ChoppoDong #DFS #MLB Friday’s article had Gray’s K-Score and DFSA graded at, as well as his write-up of Gray:
On the season at home, Gray has had great K-Rate and GB% success. But also has given up his fair share of hard contact and fly balls to LHBs in particular. Gray’s 2018 season wOBA stats to both sides of the plate is concerning as is the power BB-Rate that he gives up to LHBs. But, the Marlins came to town, and they have been a basement dweller of a hitting team on the season. As Chop said in his article snippet above, “the Marlins don’t scare me”, and they didn’t scare 28.7% of the field either including McJester. Over the last 14 days on the road versus RHPs, the Marlins have been significantly better than on the season, ranking in the top 10 in the league in wOBA, ISO, WRC+, and SLG. Even though the Marlins have been better over the last 14 days, I agree with Chop and the Marlins were susceptible to digress to their season averages, and they did striking out 12 times. Gray was simply dynamic getting 57 FD PTs of his 64 FD PTs on the night coming from his 7 IP and 12 Ks. Gray got the QS and the Win for additional 10 FD PTs on the night; he did give up an ER on a HR to Derek Dietrich in the 3rd inning.
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!
Putting Hitting Under Scrutiny
On Friday night, the fireworks were a plenty with HRs everywhere and the overall point totals showcased this with winning tournament scores far exceeding 200 FD PTs. Two hitters (Nelson Cruz and JD Martinez) really destroyed the baseball on Friday night scoring over 60 FD PTs, and if you didn’t have one or both of them in your lineups, you probably didn’t enter the top 10 in your contests. McJester employed one on the two mashers in his winning lineup, Nelson Cruz as part of his Seattle stack, and if you were on the Seattle stack like McJester than you saw massive dividends on Friday night. Coming into Friday night’s game against Boston’s Steven Wright, Nelson Cruz was on a tear with wOBA of 0.614, ISO of 0.600, WRC+ of 305.59, a low 14.3% K-Rate, and HC% of 75%. Ryon Healy on the season is having a great season with a 0.397 wOBA, 0.208 ISO, 155.34 WRC+, and a low K-Rate of 11.5%. He was a nice salary saving option on Friday night adding 6.44x value to McJester’s lineup with a Solo shot in the game. Mitch Haniger has been having a good year as well with a 0.347 wOBA, 121.24 WRC+, low K-Rate of 19% and great HC% of 37.9%. Haniger’s success on Friday night came on the back of his 2 singles, 2 walks, an RBI and a run scored.
Adding to the massive 113.7 FD PTs scored from McJester’s Seattle stack, was 40.4 FD PTs scored from his 2 man stack of Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story. Until the bottom of the 8th inning, Story had 0 FD PTs and McJester was trailing 2nd place finishers mdomz and jhjh2. During the bottom of 8th inning, Story doubled and scored a run netting him 9.2 FD PTs on the night and subsequently pushed McJester into the eventual contest winning lead! But how did these hitters and another hitter (Mitch Moreland who added 28.1 FD PTs to McJester’s lineup) look heading into Friday night’s slate? Well, over the last 14 days at Home vs. LHP, Nolan Arenado has been nothing less than sensational supporting a wOBA of 0.569, ISO of 0.800, WRC+ of 266.98, low K-Rate of 14.3%, FB% of 40% and HC% of 80%. Arenado versus a LHP on any given night is a main stay in your Rockies stacks let alone as a one off, and McJester played this perfectly employing Arenado who hit an HR, got 2 RBI, hit 2 singles and scored a run. Story and Arenado were massively owned by the field in the tournament, and to take down the tournament your lineup needed some contrarian plays. McJester got that with his Seattle stack but also got it with Mitch Moreland who on the season has been great, supporting a wOBA of 0.360, ISO of 0.160, WRC+ of 129.95, BB% of 13.8% and HC% of 52.9%. Moreland had a great hitting night, even though he didn’t hit a homer, he did hit a triple two singles and had 3 runs scored and got an RBI in the game. It’s plays like these lower owned contrarian plays, added with players in great spots at high ownership who perform moves your lineups up the leaderboards and in McJester’s case wins the Q!
MLB can be a very frustrating sport in DFS with the extremes in variance, a hitter might be in a prime spot with amazing platoon splits or reverse splits against a gas can pitcher with woeful platoon or reverse splits and go 0’fer. Even the best in the sport go 0’fer on most nights, it’s the way of the sport. But, you need to be able to determine your process and keep the process consistent daily. When you veer away from that process you tend to produce, over the long haul, inadequate to poor performances and your bankroll is affected in the same token. Just Keep Grinding and working on your process and good things will come!
DFSArmy’s MLB coaches and staff works diligently each day on helping improve their members process, and in the same breathe refining their own processes to each daily slate. The DFS landscape is every changing and being a part of a great DFS community helps you to better manage your DFS game and become a better player!
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, ThunderDan’s Dr. StrangeChalk, ThunderDan’s Weekend Covering All The Bases, Jaguar Lou’s GPP Jamboree and the Donut Shop by DFSnDonuts), utilize the DFSArmy’s evolutionary taking the industry by storm Domination Station Optimizer and we will help you become a better DFS Player!