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!
MLB Pitching Pool
Justin Verlander – He’s the top dog and his price reflects that for this slate. There isn’t anybody else available that has the ceiling that he does. I think his ownership will stay lower than it should on Monday due to his opponent, the New York Yankees, scoring 15 runs on Sunday and that being fresh in everyone’s minds.
Justin had a 0.919 WHIP and struck out 11.939 hitters while allowing just 1.171 home runs in 2018. He’s a beast and consistent too, evidenced by his 63.2% quality start rate. While the QS isn’t something most DFS players think of when researching, savvy Daily Fantasy players keep it in mind when playing FanDuel (due to the QS bonus points).
His production might be volatile but if he produces you likely have him at 20-25% ownership and he could honestly score 20 more points than any other pitcher. I’ll discuss how to hedge this investment during our stacks section. For MME and GPP targets, I might want to raise my minimum exposure on other pitchers just to get the all important home run hitters jammed into my lineup.
Madison Bumgarner – The San Diego Padres have just a 3.4 implied run total (same as the Yankees by the way) and he’s currently a -125 favorite (less than Verlander who is a -150). The Padres actually can hit left-handed pitchers and they are also a sneaky stack on Monday (more on that later).
Bum is volatile and has been for a few seasons now, but when he is locked into the strike zone he can be an absolute ace. He doesn’t allow many home runs and had a 52% quality start rate last season with a 1.213 WHIP. He just faced the Padres two starts ago to open the season and scored 46.00 FanDuel points against them.
While the industry is touting him today heavily, I think we have a nice opportunity to both target him and use him in our own MME strategy.
Eric Lauer – In the opposite dugout is another volatile option who comes at a discount. Lauer has some upside and just scored 37.00 FanDuel points against the Giants back on opening day, but was roughed up by the Diamondbacks in his second start (who hasn’t been?).
He’s had trouble making bats miss so far this season and has just five strikeouts. However, the Giants have a team wOBA of a .269 and a strikeout rate of 22.4% so far. Lauer might not have the elite upside but that is also baked into his pricing at $7,100. A six inning performance where he earns a quality start and win bonus with a handful of strikeouts is not out of the question.
Kyle Freeland – Targeting a Rockies pitcher at home is always going to allow you to have a pitcher with single-digit ownership. Freeland has been a stud at home over his career and just looking back to his final 7 starts at home in 2018 (August-September), we can see some fantastic performances.
In those games, he scored 43, 46, 49, 38, 49, 38, and 34 points. He’s just $8,500 today and even though he pitches in Colorado for half of his games, he only had a 0.669 HR/9 rate in 2018 and a 57.1% quality start rate. He’s an elite option for a small field GPP or large field MME file.
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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 trend 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-off’s for my 4-3-1 stacks. This is crucial for having success in a GPP.
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 (like I do, example provided), I’ll have my highest percentage on the Tier 1 teams).
Colorado Rockies (40-60%)
They have a massive 5.8 IRT and I’ll certainly have a bunch of game stacks with the Braves as well due to their 5.3 IRT. However, I am targeting the Rockies with a much heavier hand.
I’ll look specifically at the left-handed hitters in their lineup due to Julio Teheran’s poor splits against LHH. This puts Charlie Blackmon, Raimel Tapia, and David Dahl (if he plays) squarely in the mix. I’ll also target the power RHH of the Rockies like Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, and even Mark Reynolds due to his reverse splits (.259 ISO against RHP).
Seattle Mariners (40-60%)
Homer Bailey allowed 1.90 HR/9 in 2018 and the Seattle Mariners hitters are on absolute fire. I love them all, literally. This is the reason why I prefer using the randomized stack structure because it allows the algorithm to mash together the best variations rather than my personal bias getting in the way.
If selecting hitters on your own, look at Dan Vogelbach, Jay bruce, Tim Beckham, and Mitch Haniger first. Then sprinkle in Omar Narvaez, Mallex Smith, and Domingo Santana with a few secondary stacks.
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.
San Diego Padres (10-20%)
Hedge investment against Bumgarner in case he implodes at a higher ownership rate. Padres have very few good hitters but they have some guys that can absolute smash lefties. The hitting splits against LHP from Manny Machado (.384 wOBA and .218 ISO), Wil Myers (.374 wOBA and .263 ISO) Hunter Renfroe (.331 wOBA and .230 ISO), Franmil Reyes (.384 wOBA and .200 ISO), and Fernando Tatis Jr. (.563 wOBA and .167 ISO) are the reason I am targeting them with a small amount of exposure.
New York Yankees (10-20%)
I targeted Justin Verlander in our pitching pool and here I am telling you to trot out the Yankees for MME. Well, that is the beauty of rolling out a mass-multi entry strategy. We are inherently able to hedge our investments a little by targeting the opposing team of some of our pitching targets (never in the same lineup though and we have an option for that built into our optimizer).
Los Angeles Dodgers (10-20%)
I like that their IRT is just 4.4 runs because I think that will keep their ownership rates low. While I won’t go overboard here due to the plethora of great stacking options on Monday, I will allocate a small to moderate exposure on the left-handed power hitters in this lineup.
This means that the trio of Max Muncy, Joc Pederson, and Corey Bellinger should all bat in the top half of the order and represent a phenomenal 3-man stack with immense upside. If you want, go ahead and add in the top prospect, Alex Verdugo to your LHH stack if he is in the lineup again on Monday.
Atlanta Braves (10-20%)
Here is my hedge stack against my Kyle Freeland ownership. While I have more confidence in Freeland reaching value, I love the potential of game stacking the Rockies and Braves. I likely wouldn’t aim to include any Braves stacks outside of it being a game stack. If the pricing is too high on all players for the randomized stacking, use the 3-3 stack setting variation.
Oakland Athletics (25-35%)
A strong 5.4 IRT makes them a delectable option on Monday against opposing pitcher, Andrew Cashner. In 2018, Cashner allowed 1.303 HR/9 and the Athletics have tremendous power in this lineup. While their production is volatile, they do seem to take advantage of good matchups.
While I use the randomized stack system I think that if you are going to use the controlled stacks that I would look to target the reverse splits of Matt Chapman, Khris Davis, and the switch hitting Jurikson Profar and Kendrys Morales.
Philadelphia Phillies (25-35%)
Anibal Sanchez is in for a world of hurt against the Phillies. They have so much power and a few very hot hitters right now. Andrew McCutchen, Rhys Hoskins, Bryce Harper, Cesar Hernandez, Odubel Herrera, and Maikel Franco all make my list of hitters I am targeting.
Kansas City Royals (20-40)
Felix Hernandez is not the same pitcher he used to be and the Royals are not only pesky this season but absolutely dangerous at the plate. They have a handful of young hitters who have power and plate discipline.
Whit Merrifield, Adalberto Mondesi, Jorge Soler, and Ryan O’hearn are my top targets. Mondesi and Merrified are two of my favorite targets on the entire slate. I would slap a minimum percentage (10% or so) on them and make sure they are a handful of my one-off’s for my 4-3-1 stacks.
Or if you want to have controlled stacks and select your 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 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?
Are you looking to outsource your time and efforts to nearly 40-staff members to research data and trends, choose targets, and then provide you with their personal player pool? Do you have the time and energy to use an all in one research tool and optimizer while diving deep into data and discussing each slate with other members and coaches?
No matter what camp you are in, we know you’ll enjoy the DFS Army VIP membership so that you can hang out with our community, share information, and chat one on one with our DFS Pro’s (specific staff coaches that play full-time) in our member chat service. If you’re a frequent DFS player, then it’s well worth the investment and trial.
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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!
Twitter me @DFSnDONUTS
