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Shark Autopsy Report – Analyzing Winning GPP Lineups to Make You a Better Player

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.

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FanDuel’s $10 Single Entry MLB Ace Contest

Top 10

 

Winning Lineup

A little bit about the $10 Single Entry MLB Ace contest, 941 entrants competed for a share of the $8,000 in prizes Tuesday night, with $800 going to the contest’s winner. The lineup above was the winner of the $10 Single Entry MLB Ace contest from Tuesday night. Steven Wright was far from the chalk pitcher in the tournament at 2.7% ownership in the field, the chalk pitcher of the night belonged to Max Scherzer. In fact boochjr (winning lineup) was the only lineup in the top 10 to employ Steven Wright. Of pitchers utilized in the top 10 lineups, Max Scherzer was 80% owned and carried 40.4% ownership for the field. The other pitching outlier in the top 10 was Ross Stripling, who barca4life10 employed in the 2nd place lineup. boochjr’s overall winning lineup accounted for a 17.62% average ownership percentage.

Dissecting Pitching

Wright finished the night with a solid night surrendering 2 Hits, 0 ERs in 7 IPs and struck out 6 over those 6 IPs. Wright was pitching on his home mound in Fenway Park, which carries a Ball Park ranking of 6th overall per DFSArmy’s Research Station. On the season, Wright has been a pretty average at home, especially against RHBs, though he does have great wOBA, GB%, FB% and HC% stats against LHBs. Steven Wright was a bit of an anomaly on Tuesday night’s slate, as only two DFSArmy coaches had included Wright within their articles. I can see why Wright didn’t make more of the articles published on Tuesday, on the season Wright has been fairly average on his home mound, especially against RHBs. On the season against RHBs, Wright supports a 0.318 wOBA, 0.176 ISO, and a 20% K-Rate. He does have great stats against LHBs on the season with a wOBA of 0.138, ISO of 0.000, GB% of 66.7%, FB% of 16.7% and HC% of 16.7%. His last 14 days stats at home showcase that he has been pitching much better, by lowering his wOBA from 0.138 to 0.098 (40 point swing over last 14 days), lower walk rate by 5.7%, and lower HC% rate by 16.7%. Looking at the box-score and looking at Wright’s K-Rate over the last 14 days, he definitely was better than his K-Rate, striking out 6 in 7 IP.

Putting Hitting Under Scrutiny

On Tuesday night, if you didn’t have a combination of Miguel Andujar, J.D. Martinez, and/or Khris Davis in your lineups you were just going to have a losing night! At an ownership of just 8.7%, Andujar was the contrarian play of the three, but his last 14 days stats jump off of the page. Coming into the game on the road versus a RHP over the last 14 days, Andujar was putting up top notch numbers! With a wOBA of 0.409, ISO of 0.600, WRC+ of 161.34, FB% of 50% and a K-Rate 4.1% below his 2018 season numbers hitting on the road versus an RHP. Andujar was facing Marco Estrada on the night, whose drastic splits over the last 14 days were insurmountable. Over the last 14 days on his home mound versus RHBs, Estrada is woeful, supporting a wOBA of 0.492, ISO of 0.333, K-Rate of 0%, GB% of 26.7%, FB% of 60% and a HC% of 46.7%. As compared to Estrada’s last 14 days at home versus LHBs, his wOBA is 169 points higher, ISO is 133 points higher and 23.3% higher GB%. Estrada over the last 14 days has been the epitome of a reverse splits pitcher to target opposing RHBs against that have been performing over the last 14 days! In your daily MLB research, you as a player need to be cognizant of these types of splits, as you can gain a leg up on your competition as a result.

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It’s no secret across the DFS industry that J.D. Martinez is a platoon splits hitter. He mashes LHBs. On Tuesday night he faced an RHB in Artie Lewicki. Over the 2018 season, Artie has had susceptible numbers versus both sides of the plate, even greater susceptibility to the left side of the plate. In the game at Fenway on Tuesday night, most of the ownership was on the LHBs, and with good reason, but it was the RHBs that had the most success versus Lewicki in the game. At field ownership levels of 12.1% and 5.7% respectively, Martinez and Xander Bogaerts performed. Bogaerts homered in the game, though it was off Saupold and not Lewicki. Right off the bat, Martinez dealt Lewicki his 2 ERs with a first inning 2 run blast. As you can see the 2018 season numbers for Martinez are good, but not great, especially in the Power, K-Rate and GB% stats. But, he did bring the Hard Contact of 52.9% to the plate in the first inning with his 2 run blast and notching 1 of 2 hits on the night.

Then there was Khris Davis, who was sensational on Tuesday night versus Matt Moore. Matt Moore over the course of the 2018 season versus LHBs and RHBs has simply been a Gas Can! He can’t strike out anyone, his putrid stats against LHBs are more favorable than against RHBs, but nonetheless, he’s been terrible versus RHBs too. For Davis on the 2018 season, he’s been striking out a ton, but in GPPs me likey the boom bust players that can win us a GPP! So didn’t the rest of the tournament field at 33.9% field ownership. The 33.9% of the field saw the same numbers we see below. Davis saw matchup bumps in wOBA by 32 points, ISO by 24 points, decline in K-Rate by 13.5%, and bump in HC% by 9.6%. Davis capitalized on these matchup bumps!

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 splits 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 your process you tend to produce over the long haul adequate to poorer performance and your bankroll is affected in the same token. Just Keep Grinding!

DFSArmy’s MLB coaches and staff work 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!