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 for MME
Chris Sale is just $8,400 on FanDuel and $8,600 on DraftKings. He makes for an ELITE cash game option. He also will be a part of my MME pool and SE (single entry) GPP linneup. While he clearly has struggled to start this season, his matchup is delicious and the Tigers have just a 3.2 implied run total (IRT). Sale has actually limited opponents to just a 25% hard hit rate and he has a 69% strike ratio. He was also able to rear back and throw 95 MPH a few times in his last outing. If this is his get right game, then we have an absolute stud priced at an upper middle tier price tag with a monster ceiling.
Brad Peacock and the Astros are -181 favorites and the Twins have just a 3.9 IRT. While there are a few bats on Minnesota that do cause me to hesitate, Brad’s pricing allows me to overcome that. He has limited opposing hitters to just a 26% hard hit rate and a 191 foot batted ball distance with an 87 MPH exit velocity. In 16 IP this season he has 15 K’s. He’s just too cheap for the upside he carries with him any time he takes the mound. His K-rate actually is just 0.5 lower than Chris Sale’s over the last year (12.412 SO/9).
Zack Godley and Joe Musgrove are in the same game so you’ll want to make sure they don’t show up in the same lineup on DraftKings or FantasyDraft. However, they both carry upside at their current price tags and this game has potential to be a 4-3 type of final score. Godley allows just 0.9 HR/9 and Musgrove allows just 0.7 HR/9. I don’t think either offense carries much upside due to the fact that both pitchers keep the ball in the park.
If you want to hedge here a bit, I would roll a 10% stack with the Pirates because Godley does carry a 1.478 WHIP because he has a problem with walking hitters sometimes.
Jack Flaherty is in play on FanDuel only due to his $7,800 price tag over there. He’s an immense bargain and his ownership should be low because he faces that loaded Brewers lineup. Jack has averaged 10.7 SO/9 over the last year and if he manages to grab a quality start + win bonus then we could be looking at GPP winning upside. I will certainly be hedging this investment with Brewers stacks though.
While I don’t do a ton with my MME pool, I do like to put small minimum percentages on each pitcher or at the very least on my favorite few to ensure they get used by the optimizer. I am talking about 5-25% based on how much I truly love them. Outside of that, I allow the optimizer to pump out lineups and exposure based on the most optimal approach via the algorithm.
Single Entry GPP Pitchers
While these pitchers will all be tossed into the player pool for MME, this doesn’t help very much for Single Entry GPP’s and lineups. For those, I am targeting Chris Sale and Brad Peacock on DraftKings due to their upside and price point.
On FanDuel, I am going to roll with Jack Flaherty as the single entry GPP pitcher due to his pricing and bargain. While the Brewers are a dangerous lineup, Flaherty has strikeout potential. He might not get through 6 unscathed, but it doesn’t mean that he can’t return a strong outing. The fear factor will keep his ownership very low.
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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. 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 (as I do, the example provided), I’ll have my highest percentage on the Tier 1 teams).
Chicago White Sox (40-60%)
The opposing pitcher, David Hess, has a massive 2.07 HR/9 rate and a 1.327 WHIP with just 6.3 SO/9 over the last year. The White Sox have a strong 5.3 IRT and I really like a few of their hitters for this game, too.
I would look to target Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Leury Garcia, Yonder Alonso, and Jose Abreu. If rolling out mini-stacks, then I would target Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada first and foremost.
Houston Astros (40-60%)
The Astros are heating up at the plate and multiple hitters are going deep virtually every game as of late. Jake Odorizzi is a good pitcher but the Astros bats are just too good to pass up.
The hot bats I would look to target are Josh Reddick, George Springer, Michael Brantley and to a lesser extent I would want to add in Carlos Correa, Jake Marisnick (if he makes the lineup), and Jose Altuve.
Washington Nationals (40-60%)
The opposing pitcher, Tyler Anderson, has been smashed in his first two starts this season. He has given up 11 ERs, multiple HRs and put over 20 men on base in just 11 innings. The Nats have some dangerous hitters for Coors Field, too.
If using the controlled stacks, I would target Ryan Zimmerman, Victor Robles, Howie Kendrick, Brian Dozier, Adam Eaton, and Juan Soto.
Colorado Rockies (40-60%)
This is my last Tier 1 team and if we roll with 40% minimum on each we will have 160% of our 200% allowed stack exposure filled. It’s not that Jeremy Hellickson hasn’t been pitching well, it’s just that the Rockies bats are really starting to heat up.
I would target all of the lefties that make the Rockies lineup, including Charlie Blackmon, Raimel Tapia, David Dahl, Ryan McMahon, and then sprinkle in Trevor Story and Nolan Arenado (if he plays).
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.
We did this a few times last season when the Tier 1 stacks were so delicious looking at stood out immensely over the rest of the field. Today, we are going to target each of the teams facing the pitchers that are in our player pool with a 5-10% minimum exposure so that we can hedge our investment a little bit.
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?
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!
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