Donuts to Dollars
The modus operandi of the majority of my Daily Fantasy MLB articles, videos, and podcasts is to deliver compelling evidence through analytics, trends, and useful data as to why a player or team is an ideal target to invest in on FanDuel or DraftKings. This article will identify my personal favorite pitchers using the #DonutsToDollars model as well as point out my top teams I am targeting and a few specific stacks. My hope is to give you a playbook that you can loosely follow and hopefully win some loot!
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MLB Pitching Pool for MME
Mike Soroka has pitched great in his first two starts and now faces a Padres team that struggles against right-handed pitching. Mike has limited opposing hitters to a 31% hard hit rate and an 85 MPH average exit velocity with a feeble 158 foot batted ball distance. Those are pretty fantastic numbers. In his 10.2 innings pitched, he has 13 strikeouts and has given up just 1 ER in each start.
Zack Wheeler has held opposing hitters to just a 17% hard hit rate over his last three starts and he has pounded the strike zone on 68% of hit pitches and increased his velocity by 1.1 MPH (96.6 MPH). He has scored 46.00, 31.00, and 64.00 FanDuel points while facing the Braves once and the Phillies twice in those games. He’s absolutely locked in and I thiink there is potential for him to be the highest owned pitcher on the slate against the Cincinnati Reds.
Justin Verlander faces off against the surging Twins bats and currently Vegas is not concerned as Minnesota opened with just a 3.7 IRT. Verlander has a ridiculous 11.952 SO/9 rate and the Twins strike out 22.7% of the time. Something has to give here in this matchup and my money is on Verlander in his current form. He has 8 or more strikeouts in 3 straight starts totaling 27 over the last 21 innings pitched. That has contributed greatly to FanDuel scores of 58.00, 52.00, and 55.00 points. On DraftKings, he has scored 30.15 or more in all three and is an elite bargain at just $10,800.
Patrick Corbin has 39 strikeouts in just 32.2 IP this season and has scored at least 28 FanDuel points in all 5 starts. He has shown off a strong ceiling, too, scoring 40, 55, 57, and 40 in the other four starts. While his opponents have been sub par, the Saint Louis Cardinals are a volatile offense that can go cold in a hurry. Corbin has a very low 0.701 HR/9 rate and a strong 10.744 SO/9 rate to go with that. He has upside at his price point and will likely be overlooked due to his price point sitting between Verlander and Wheeler.
John Means is absolutely in play considering the Orioles let him throw 5 IP last game. He has good stuff and a 10.125 SO/9 over the last year. For all intents and purposes, his price tag should and would be higher if it weren’t his second start and a new spot in the rotation. The White Sox have a 27.1% strikeout rate and are favored in this game, too. Means likely will be lower owned due to being the underdog, making him a fantastic salary saving GPP option for DFS.
Single Entry GPP Pitchers
The Padres have a 4.0 implied run total (IRT) and that is not the lowest, potentially making Mike Soroka a single digit owned pitcher in a very good spot. He potentially is a bit overpriced, too, which should keep his ownership down. In single entry tournaments where people like to play their cash lineups or play very safe lineups, I want to target a pitcher with a bit more volatility or some downside. Last week went amazing, with 4 of the 5 pitchers I nominated in this part of the article finishing as a top 3 overall score. Let’s hope the heater continues.
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Specific Daily Fantasy MLB Stacks and Teams to Target for Stacking
When I select my stacks I like to run through the trending tab, batter matchups tab, top-10 lists for a bunch of different stats, and the top rated players within the Research Station. As I scour through all the data I take notes on who stands out in multiple categories and those guys normally get some type of minimum percentage put on them within the optimizer. This not only gets them selected more when my stacks are used but it uses them as one-offs for my 4-3-1 stacks.
After I have read through the Research Station, I like to give the full-slate MLB breakdown a quick read to see if there is anything that stands out or that I have missed at this point. Then I create my stack ranges for the randomized stack structure so that my personal bias doesn’t ruin all my hard work!
Tier 1 Stacks
These are the teams I want to stack with my highest exposure. Whether you decide to use the controlled stacks (example below) or the randomized stack exposure (as I do, the example provided), I’ll have my highest percentage on the Tier 1 teams).
Atlanta Braves (40-60%)
I like so many of the bats in this offense and a few of them are heating up in a big way. The opposing pitcher, Nick Margevicius has pitched pretty well this season, however, he has put 17 men on base over his last 9 innings pitched and given up 7 ER and a HR. Hitters might have figured out his delivery this season and his success in his first three starts might have mostly been due to a cold Cardinals offense and facing the Giants twice. Those matchup could make any pitcher look strong in the right scenario.
Oakland Athletics (30-40%)
I think that Eduardo Rodriguez could get decent ownership today due to his fantastic outings in his last three starts. However, some of these A’s own him in BvP and the Athletics roughed him up in Rodriguez’ second start of the season to the tune of 6 ER on 8 hits including a HR in just 3.2 IP. While the outcome will be volatile, the A’s offense has power and is built for GPP’s.
Boston Red Sox (30-40%)
They have let down DFS players for most of the season as a team to stack and now face a talented pitcher in Frankie Montas. While there is credence to using Montas in MME or GPP’s, I think the Boston offense gets to him a bit today due to his pitching to contact nature over the last year of baseball. He has just a 6.606 SO/9 rate and the Red Sox strike out just 21.8% of the time. Let’s hope they finally break out as a team and collectively put up some big scores.
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Tier 2 Stacks
These are the teams I am generally using to hedge my pitcher investment and/or don’t have a clear read on what might happen but understand extreme outcomes are possible.
Baltimore Orioles (20-30%)
The opposing LHP, Manny Banuelos, might actually garner some decent ownership today due to his price point. But I do not think it’s a good investment and want to leverage the field’s ownership of him. He has just a 57% strike ration and has walked 8 hitters in just 14.1 IP. I think the wheels could come off at any moment and the White Sox bullpen has been bad for years if they rough him up early.
Washington Nationals (20-30%)
The Nats have a handful of strong left-handed hitters and can punish Wacha and his slate high 1.31 HR/9 rate. While that isn’t a terrible number over the past year of baseball, he has given up 5 HRs this season in just 21.1 IP, which is just about 2.3 per game. I really love the left-handed hitters in this game.
Any remaining exposure percentage that is leftover I am going to allow the optimizer to fill in at random. Baseball is incredibly volatile and hard to predict. While we can project outcomes, predicting them is inherently a losing battle. Allowing the DS to plug in stacks embraces the random factor that MLB DFS has to offer.
Or if you want to have controlled stacks and select the specific players you want to be used and in what type of stacks then you can used the controlled hitter stack setting. This is just an example and I randomly clicked through quickly and was able to pump out 50 lineups in a flash. I would also make sure the stack percentage was at 100% on each side for a real optimized CSV file.
Domination Station DFS Optimizer for GPP’s and Mass-Multi Entering (MME)
This is how I personally use the DFS Army Domination Station optimizer.
- Cut all pitchers out of my player pool
- Add in the pitchers I want to target one by one
- Identify all teams I want to stack
- If using controlled stacks then create my player pool of hitters
- If using the randomized stacks (which I do) then I begin to create percentages for all my favorite teams to target adding up to 180-200%
- Prepare my 150 entry settings
- 3 uniques
- optimal mode
- DFS Army points
- Make sure allow opposing pitchers is unchecked
- Maximum exposure cap of 60-80% if not feeling confident and 80-100% when clear value or targets
What’s Next?
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Closing
I really hope this helps you get your feet under you at the beginning of this MLB season for Daily Fantasy. Please subscribe to me on the following platforms and I would love to hear from you on Twitter or in our member service in my #Donut-Shop coaching channel!
Fortune favors the bold, go make your own luck!
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