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
Carlos Carrasco faces a team with a 23.3% SO/AB rate and a .295 wOBA. Carrasco has an 11.668 SO/9 rate and has upside for days. He’s currently a -223 favorite and the Marlins have a weak and feeble 3.0 implied run total (IRT). While Carlos has been priced up due to the spot he’s in and his talent, he’s a fantastic MME target due to the 13 game slate that should provide us with plenty of value and affordable stacks. *While you have to be playing the all day slate or the smaller slates to grab shares of him, he’s in play if you do.*
Jose Quintana has been absolutely electric in his last couple of starts, tossing 14 IP while striking out 18 batters and scoring 52.00 and 64.00 FanDuel points. He has induced a 55% ground ball rate in both of those starts and an average exit velocity of just 88 MPH. The Los Angeles Dodgers are always scary to target but that should keep Jose Quintana’s ownership down a little bit.
Kenta Maeda has been chugging along this season, scoring 39, 30, 16, and 42 FanDuel points in each of his four starts. He has 20 K’s through 23.2 IP and has put just 30 batters on base. Outside of a giving up three solo home runs in his first game of the year, Maeda has allowed just one humdinger over his last 17 IP. The Cubs have some powerful bats in their lineup but they haven’t been swinging them well this season, at least not to the standard some expected. Maeda has a higher floor than most on this slate and an outside shot at the quality start and win.
Zack Wheeler faces the loaded Phillies lineup and his ownership should be quite low. I like Wheeler simply due to the lack of HRs he’s allowed (0.75 HR/9). He has is throwing the ball hard right now (97 MPH, a full 1.7 MPH higher than last season) and has limited opposing hitters to a 24% hard hit rate. He just faced the Phillies in his last start as well, tossing 7 innings and scoring 31 FanDuel point in a losing effort due to the lack of run support. He’s going to be very low owned and belong in our MME pool.
Erik Swanson faces the Padres and is a right handed pitcher. That pretty much puts him into play immediately. The Padres have stunk against RHP for a few years now and Swanson looked sharp in his first spot start against the Indians on April 17th. Erik went 6 IP and struck out 5 batters while scoring 34.00 FanDuel points in a 1-0 loss. With some run support, he could have secured the win bonus. He’s a cheaper arm across the industry and allows the optimizer to jam in some heavy hitting stacks.
Jeff Samardzija is striking out people at a pretty good rate this season, as he has racked up 20 K’s in just 21.2 IP. Considering that his K-rate sits at just 6.75 over the last year, regression is bound to occur in the near future. I am just not sure if that regression will happen against the Toronto Blue Jays. Jeff is cheap, has a bit of upside due to his current form, but his production is hard to predict on a start by start basis. We can project for him but he’s a volatile pitcher. I will hedge my investment here with a small percentage of Blue Jays stacks.
Zach Davies has been decent this season and faces off with a hot Cardinals team. His ownership should be extremely low. He’s held opposing hitters to just a 31% hard hit rate over his last three starts and has scored 13.85, 14.55, 24.95, and 11.65 DraftKings points this season in his four starts. He is also just $6,400 on FanDuel and I think this slate will be won by hitters not pitchers. The Cardinals might also be higher owned today which means we can leverage that ownership by rolling out Davies.
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 Jose Quintana. He’s my Jack Flaherty call from Monday’s main slate. Lower owned, high upside, and likely a volatile outcome in either direction. This is what makes him my favorite single entry GPP option on FanDuel at just $8,300.
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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).
Houston Astros (40-60%)
Michael Pineda has a 1.94 HR/9 rate which is the second highest on the slate. The Astros are starting to absolutely smash the ball. The entire lineup is in play and I think the randomized stack function is clutch for a team like this.
However, if you need specific hitters I would roll with George Springer, Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, Josh Reddick, Michael Brantley, Alex Bregman, and any lefties that get put in the lineup like Tony Kemp.
Tampa Bay Rays (40-60%)
It’s a massive 13 game slate but Tampa faces Homer Bailey, who has not really been shelled like we have expected him to be this season. On a 13 game slate, chalk rarely turns into mega-chalk. I think that and the fact that Bailey has not been deplorable could lead to a normal, or potentially a lower ownership rate on the Rays bats.
I suggest that you target Avisail Garcia, Kevin Kiermaier, Tommy Pham, Yandy Diaz, Bradnon Lowe, and potentially someone super low owned like Joe Wendle.
Washington Nationals (30-40%)
The opposing pitcher, Jeff Hoffman, had a terrible experience in the majors last season, pitching just 8.2 innings and putting 22 men on base and giving up 9 ER. He has flashed a bit in the minors here and there and had some great starts back in 2017 as well. However, his first start of the season and the Nationals are swinging their bats well.
I like Juan Soto, Adam Eaton, Matt Adams, Brian Dozier, Howie Kendrick, Ryan Zimmerman, and Victor Robles.
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.
Colorado Rockies (20-30%)
Patrick Corbin is not a bad pitcher, in fact, he’s quite talented. However, this is Coors Field and the Rockies hitters are waking up in a big way right now. Arenado, Trevor Story, Ian Desmond, Mark Reynolds, and Charlie Blackmon are the batters I would specifically target.
Saint Louis Cardinals (20-30%)
They are hot right now and Davies can be roughed up. This is a great hedge stacks, or conversely – Davis is the hedge pitching option for our Cardinals stacks. The entire lineup is in play. Literally, the random stack function was made for a team like this that has many volatile bats with massive ceilings and low floors.
However, for you controlled stack people, roll with Matt Carpenter, Dexter Fowler, Paul Goldschmidt Marcell Ozuna, Jose Martinez, Paul Dejong, and Yadier Molina.
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!
Twitter me @DFSnDONUTS
