Donuts to Dollars
The GPP/MME playbook is more or less a foundation to build upon for your Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) tournament strategy and mass-multi entry (MME) adventures. The following approach is how I am going to MME the main slate on FanDuel and DraftKings. Hit me up on Twitter @DFSnDONUTS and you can also find me on YouTube | Twitch | iTunes with supplemental commentary and teaching.
MLB DFS Pitching Pool Strategy for MME
Anibal Sanchez is facing a hot offense and he’s not a very good pitcher. So why in the world is he in my player pool? Two reasons, actually. The first is that he is dirt cheap for MME purposes and has had some decent games this year. The second, and more important, is that he has great success against this Braves roster. In 142 plate appearances against him, the Braves current roster has just a 0.232 xwOBA and 0.158 xBA with a 23.9% strikeout rate. While this is not good, we certainly will hedge this with a fair amount of Braves stacks today.
Michael Foltynewicz looks like a shell of the 2018 version that we saw. He has not pitched well this season but he has decent numbers against these Nationals that currently are rostered. In 154 plate appearances, they strike out 20.1% of the time and have just a 0.298 xwOBA and 0.241 xBA. His FIP is a healthy 3.49, too, so there is a lot to like here if we base it off his history against them. However, due to his current for this season and the propensity for the Nationals to smoke the ball some days, we will hedge with some Nats stacks. MME at its finest.
Hyun-Jin Ryu gets to face the same team that just was ruined by my “single entry pitcher of the day”, Walker Buehler. Last night he racked up 16 K’s in a complete game. Ryu now has the chance to duplicate that. While I highly doubt that against the Rockies, he’s worthy of rostering. However, I am going to match my exposure with Ryu in Rockies stacks (another hedge!) because they OWN him over his career. In 95 PA, they have a 0.499 xwOBA and 0.371 xBA with just a 14.7% strikeout rate!!!! WOW…
Lance Lynn has been in my MME Playbook on 10 occasions this season. He is finally getting the respect he deserves by the pricing algo on FanDuel and DraftKings. I actually LOVE his FD 9.5k price tag still. He owns the White Sox current roster, he has tremendous upside on both sites and he’s my top pitcher to target on the main slate.
Single Entry GPP Pitchers
Lance Lynn is a massive favorite and the Rangers are implied to score 6.5 runs. While they let down last night with a 6.3 IRT, I think their matchup tonight is even better. This means that Lynn will be pitching with a lead and has the potential for the quality start and win bonus. Love this spot and his FanDuel price tag. On DraftKings, I would still roll with him as my SP1 for satellites and single entries. SP2 is a very tough choice and I currently have no desire to play single entries tonight – thus, I am MME’ing only on DK.
Tier 1 MLB Stacks for FanDuel and DraftKings
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). Daily fantasy sports are not just about being contrarian. A key strategy is to also have contrarian exposure to your plays.
New York Yankees 40-60%
While Wade Miley is having himself a phenomenal season by his own standards, he is a lefty going against DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, Gary Sanchez, Edwin Encarnacion, and Gleyber Torres in the top 7 in the order. All of them smash lefties and all have significant upside.
Texas Rangers 40-60%
I think they are likely the chalk stack because their price tags are still super easy to roll 4 deep on FanDuel and 5 deep on DraftKings. I don’t really care either, Odrisamer Despaigne doesn’t belong in the Majors right now and the Rangers should absolutely tee off on him.
Tier 2 MLB Stacks for FanDuel and DraftKings
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. My strategy is to have the volatile stacks paired with the Tier 1 stacks that have a higher success rate.
Los Angeles Dodgers 20-40%
While they don’t have the highest IRT they are one of the best teams in the league against RHP. They actually are top-5 in many of the main stats (ISO etc…) and have a projected 5 lefties in the top 6 in the order (Pederson, Verdugo, Bellinger, Muncy, Beaty). I think they will be lower owned stack wise than some of the other options I am listing next, too.
Washington Nationals 20-40%
We are hedging our Folty exposure with the Nationals who have 3 powerful lefties in the top 5 (Eaton, Soto, Adams) and Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon who are hot and likely hitting 1st and 3rd. With the power splits and xwOBA splits against right-handed pitching, speed on the basepaths, and hot bats, I love their upside here. I think they are potential slate breakers.
Atlanta Braves 20-40%
The Braves are super scary to target and it all begins with Acuna Jr. and Freeman. If they get cooking at the top of the order this team can extend rallies or quite awhile with Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies at the bottom of the order. They have a great dispersion of very good hitters up and down this lineup. They aren’t top heavy in the order which is why we see the Braves seemingly bat around the order once or twice per week.
San Francisco Giants 15-30%
Zack Godley is a shell of himself and has no control this season. The Giants went off in a big way on Friday with 11 runs and I would not be shocked to see it happen again. It’s going to be near 100 degrees again and the bats should be alive.
Arizona Diamondbacks 15-30%
Tyler Beede IS NOT GOOD. While his game log suggests he has upside he is way too volatile to use. On top of that, the Dbacks have some great LHH at the top of the order with Dyson, Marte, Peralta, and Escobar in the top 5 of the lineup. Beede is in trouble here.
This is my personal strategy to use the DFS Army Domination Station optimizer for MLB MME
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Cut all pitchers out of my player pool that I know I 100% DO NOT WANT
- Add in all the pitchers I am okay with the optimizer using my playbook and uncheck all the other pitchers.
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Identify all teams I want to stack
- If using controlled stacks then create my player pool of hitters for MME
- If using the randomized stacks (which I do) then I begin to create percentages for all my favorite teams to target adding up to 160-180%
- Leave 20-40% stack exposure to allow the optimizer to fill in some random optimized stacks according to your pitcher pool to have some unbiased lineups
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Prepare my 150 entry settings
- 3 uniques
- tournament mode
- DFS Army points
- Make sure allow opposing pitchers is unchecked
- Maximum exposure cap of 60% is how I roll with it. The higher the exposure cap the more “all-in” you will be on a player or two. Sometimes when I feel great about my pitching pool or stacking tiers I will run it at 80-100%.
- Set random stack setting to 4-3 for FanDuel and 5-2 for DraftKings and CHECK “PRIORITIZE LINEUPS”
- Run the optimizer
- Look at the batters used in the stacks. Did I create 100 Houston lineups and only get 5 George Springers? Okay, use the like/love/adore buttons or boost his projection until I get more of him. Did I get 50 out of 50 Boston stacks with Jackie Bradley and no J.D. Martinez? Boost Martinez and potentially use the dislike buttons on Bradley until he’s a bit lower and Martinez is involved.
- You have to tinker a bit to get the higher upside guys sometimes ^^^
- Re-run the optimizer until you get what you’re looking for
- Go watch Netflix until the games are over and your daily fantasy sports entries are final
- Make a plate of chips and salsa, too
I slapped this video together during the kiddos’ nap time to show you the ease of use with the DFS Army optimizer. I hope it helps seeing it on video in conjunction with the article
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