Daily Fantasy is Like...(2)

Sifting through a Stack of Resumes...

You need to hire someone and you have a huge stack of applicant resumes because the economy

hasn't been so good lately.  You narrow it down to a handful.  One applicant comes from the right college.  Another comes with stellar recommendations.  And yet another set all sorts of production records at his last place of employment.

You pick one.  You come up with all sorts of reasons and rationalizations, but you pick one.

And your next project comes in late and overbudget.  And your company doesn't meet it's quarterly sales goals.  And the guy at the burger joint can comprehend the idea of "Hold the Mayo."  And there's an error on your mobile bill it takes two hours to resolve on the phone.  And your pharmacist gives you the right number of Lipitor pills, but the wrong dose.  And the news show you watch on TV doesn't fact check it's story.   And you voted for the most qualified candidate.  And... And...

And you weep to yourself quietly because you know that we are a nation built on interpreting and misinterpreting resumes.

And you know, in your heart, that there was a better answer in the pile of resumes that you probably didn't even consider for a minute...

Maybe you should have started Cesar Hernandez over Howie Kendrick...

What Websites do I use (for DFS MLB Baseball)?

You could spend the entire day researching the different reason to purchase different possible lineups.  I find that overthinking is more of a problem for me, so I try to keep it as simple as possible.  So here's an overview of the websites I use in the order I use them daily.

First, the Daily Lineups.

I use Rotowire's Daily Lineups (Link here)

There are plenty of daily lineup sites and I often check two, if I have time (my second choice is Baseball Press).  I like Rotowire because it will alert you to weather conditions with an unavoidable graphic placed between the two teams in the header of each box and the Vegas Over/Unders are listed at the bottom.  It also has side links to "Matchups to Target or Avoid," if I want to know about Batter vs. Pitcher information quickly.

I'll spend 3-5 minutes here tops, but I will refer back frequently as I'm building lineups.



Second, The Pitchers:

I like to start my evaluation of pitchers on MLB.com's Probable Pitcher page (Link Here)

I think it's important to begin to evaluate the pitchers before you look at the prices, to get a good feel for who you think might score well for you today.  We are so socially programmed to rationalize things economically, the neighboring pricetag on a DFS site can't help but influence your decision.  There are also quick links here to the players season stats, last three starts, and performance against the opposing teams batters.  Hopefully, this will be enough for me to move to the DFS site to look at pitchers.  If there aren't two or three I've settled on, I will either not play that day or look for more detail elsewhere, more often than not on Rotogrinder's Starting Pitchers Hub.  I know I have a tendency to overthink pitchers so as awesome as the information you can find on Rotogrinders is, I do try to avoid doing this too much.

I spend no more than a minute or two here, it's just to get a good idea in my head who I might want to field a Pitcher.

Third, Who's hot?

There seems to be a dearth of actual Draft Kings or FanDuel Data available, so I devised my own way to find out who's hot using Yahoo's Fantasy Baseball League website and adjusting the setting to reflect points scored on DFS sites:

I couldn't find a website that gave me the breakdowns of FanDuel or Draft Kings points that was recent and searchable in a way I was comfortable.  As I play most of my year long Fantasy Baseball on Yahoo, I created two points leagues modifying the stats to reflect FanDuel and DraftKings points totals.  This gives me access to hot players by position over a past 7 or 30 day period, while the DFS site only shows the full season.  Furthermore, I can move to "Live" to see who is doing well today, as during normal play you are really only aware of your players and your opponents players on a daily basis.  You do have to be aware of differing positional eligibilities, though. If you want to learn more about this drop me a note (the explanation of this setup is more detailed and would dominate this post).  If you don't want to go through this hassle, the best public site I've found is on RotoGrinders here, but I find it a little unwieldy.

I spend about 5 minutes looking over the players stats page, and often refer back to it should I need.

Fourth, Batter Splits

I said that there is a danger in over thinking things at DFS.  However, when it comes to batters, especially your 6th, 7th, or 8th Slot, one often gets pressed for decent options at prices you can afford.  I tend to look closely at splits (Primarily Righty vs. Lefty, but at times others).  I used two sites for this depending on the need.

Fangraphs Leaders Dashboard (Link Here)
More often than not, when I'm looking at Splits, I already have an idea of what I want in mind. I might know that I want to get hitters in versus a weak lefty like John Danks or that Minnesota hitters hit lefties well, but I don't know much about anyone there but Joe Mauer and Brian Dozier.  I turn to Fangraphs and use the pull downs to narrow to a team and vs. L.  I like this because it gives me this years data, rather than some conglomeration of many years.  I want to see recent history a bit more than general history. The same site can also be used for pitchers or Home/ Road splits or nearly whatever I might need.

Daily Baseball Data's BvP list (Link Here)

I don't completely discount BvP history and I think it's nice to know as much as you can provided it's quick and easy to use.  Daily Baseball Data's format allows you to see every historical BvP chart in a very streamlined fashion.  I also like that every player has quicklinks to his player page on other sites, should I want to delve into a single player further (do I want to know how Wandy Rodriguez has fared historically vs. Baltimore? just click the yahoo link by his name). And that they allow you to get a look at not just today's matchups, but three days in the future should I want to get an advance jump on tomorrow's lineups.

Depending on how detailed I want to get I could spend between 10 minutes and 10 hours looking at these things.  In the interest of time, I try to limit it to specific questions like exactly how good is Charlie Blackmon at home or does Michael Brantley hit lefties well?

If all goes well, this takes about 8 minutes of my time.  Should I take longer, I begin to think about diminishing returns.

Which puts me basically at the 20 minute mark.  This allows me ten minutes to finalize my roster or rosters and choose my contests and opponents to total a half hour of lineup prepraration.  The more I do it, the better I get at it, and the more info I internalize.  I can often get lineups rostered and contest entered for all three sites I play on in under 20 minutes now. There are other websites I use on occasions for things like more detailed weather or Ballpark factors.  But 99% of the time these five do the trick.

Can't Win Em All

No NASCAR race last week, so I had two weeks to think about my next lineup, and just didn't feel good about it.  Wound up with an awful outing losing 4 of 5 contests on the day (17-4 on the year).

One nice thing about DFS is no matter how awful your day is; there is somebody out there who's having a worse one than you.  Here's the one match I won:

Please note the mocking little flipped car graphic next Casey Mears, Martin Truex, and Carl Edwards names.  The Crash is the the DFS Nascar equivalent of your pitcher tossing out a negative outing.  There really should be a graphic like the flipped car next to your pitcher when he sucks for the night.  Maybe, a silhouette of Bartolo Colon giving you the finger, who knows?

As I bragged a bit when I won, I felt it would be dishonest not to report on my losses.

Michael Pineda Happens

Last night, the story of the night, at least for me, was New York Yankee Pitcher Michael Pineda.  I had him in every lineup I fielded but one, and he had a god awful outing versus the mighty fighting Phillies.  When I play him, this is what I get.  When I don't play him, he's good for 12+ strikeouts and a win in my opponents lineup.

I know he's not top tier, but he might be second level, no worse than third.  And the kind of guy that should give serious consideration of rostering, especially when he's facing a patsy like the Philadelphia Phillies.  I drafted him in every season long league I could draft him in.  I believe he's good.

Yet, you get 11 hits in 3 1/3 innings with 8 earned runs.  What does this tell me?

• A bad outing can happen to virtually anybody.

Ok, maybe not too often with Max Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw.  But no matter how awesome you think a pitcher is and how favorable a matchup is, bad things can happen.  Take no shame in fielding Pineda last night.  It was the right call.  He's good, he strikes batters out, and the Phillies are one of the teams that makes pitchers look good.  Your strategy was sound, it was just an unlucky night.  

• One guy at Pitcher can crush your bankroll.

I got lucky last night and this didn't happen to me because I was lucky enough to field Albert Pujols, Byron Buxton, Jose Bautista, and Dioner Navarro on virtually every one of my rosters.  But I've been sunk before on bad nights by Mat Latos, Chris Sale, and David Price.  When you win at DFS, the tendency is to win incrementally.  A good return might be $30 won with $20 wagered (Net $10 - 50% return).  But when you throw out a terrible lineup fueled by a pitcher with a negative sign in front of a score, you can very easily lose every bet you make.  This is something you should both be aware of, and seriously consider playing a couple of different pitchers in different lineups on a night, if you want to insulate yourself.

• It highlights differences between DFS Sites

It was a curious night for me.  I won $7.20 on Draft Kings, I lost $0.60 on Fan Duel, and I lost $5 on Victiv.  Draft Kings was a good night because my other pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, did well enough to support my team with the good hitting I mentioned before.  On Fan Duel, I won every H2H game and lost my two tournaments, because in all my head to head's we both were rolling with Pineda.  The negative pitcher means your larger competition games (tournaments or 50/50's) are pretty much done.  On Victiv, the shielding of pitchers (I played the Yankees as the site uses Pitching Staffs), means there is considerably more variance in Pitchers fielded by players.  The Kershaw effect, where you feel you need to account for the best pitchers in baseball, regardless of whether you roster them, is mitigated by the shield of names of pitchers on Victiv rosters.

• We should do exactly what Michael Pineda does next.

Michael Pineda will dust off his shoes and come out versus his next team with everything he's got.  It may be awesome, or average, or awful, but he'll be on the mound giving all he can regardless.  The night of June 22 will be a forgotten memory.  As DFS players, we need to learn to shake off the home run ball and pitch to the next batter without fear.  Put the bad night behind you and field a new roster like the night before never happened.

FanDuel Reflections

I started with DraftKings, so I have two months and better than 500 contests worth of experience over there.  I feel confident in that I know basically what to do to be, at least, modestly successful.

My experience with FanDuel has been Problematic thus far.

It's not that it's a bad system.  Or a stupid system.  Just a different system.  And I just don't seem to be getting it so far.  My losses thus far are less than 10 dollars.  I win enough Head to Head games to keep myself alive to fight another day.  It's just the differences, when it comes to live matches, are staggering.

I've yet to cash in any tournament.  That's not the end of the world.  But I haven't really finished anywhere near the money.  It's disheartening when you finish 3623rd out of 4200.  Or when you sweep the night on your H2H's winning 26.25 to 24.83, 22.25, 18.75, & 16.50, and you note that your score wouldn't clear the 50% level in a Tournament.

Anyway, after a moment of reflection, I'd like to talk about what I need to improve on at FanDuel going forward.  This should highlight some key differences about playing on that site:

• The Importance of Pitching

I feel I've beat this one like a dead horse.  However, unlike DraftKings, you can get by without the best pitcher of the day (as long as you pick pretty good ones and get hitting support).  But on FanDuel, in Tournaments: if you don't pick the best pitcher of the day, your tournament day is pretty much over right there.  The day's top pitcher generally scores in the vicinity of 25 pts, which would require a 4 HR outing for a batter to catch up to.  And if you pitcher puts up a very respectable 18 points, your batters are going into the match behind by more than a home run.  If a FanDuel tournament is like playing the MegaMillions, then the Pitcher is the Powerball, there's no meaningful money to be had without it.

• Batters start out at -1, Teams start out at -8

A quirky rule in the FanDuel game is the -.25 per at bat rule.  I'm not opposed to it; it's a simple and small penalty for making an out.  However, when it comes to the game it means that functionally you start the game not at Zero but at -8, figuring your 8 batters are going to get 4 plate appearances that day.  It changes the tactic I often use on DraftKings where I look for the batter who is getting the shot at the top of the order.  Not so much on FanDuel.  Sure you want your good hitters to bat as much as possible, but if your filling the last slot on your roster with a less than exceptional hitter, the fewer the At-bats the better.  You'd rather just get a single out of a cheap SS batting eighth than 2nd because the fewer AB's mean higher scores.  Batting position means far less on FanDuel.

• The importance of Home Runs

9 out of 10 of my losses in H2H can be attributed to two things (the remainder is very close games):

1. I picked a bad team
2. Someone rather unexpectedly homers on the other team

Nearly 2/3 of my losses are caused by a player on the opposing team, who isn't known for the long ball, knocking one out of the park.  The 6 point bump on the home run requires that you match it to stay in contention.  It doesn't faze me when it's a Jose Bautista or even a Matt Wieters, but the difference is too often a HR from an Alcides Escobar or a Stephen Drew or a Kevin Pillar.  I'm not saying they are bad MLB players, I'm just saying there are not rostered for their Home Run bat.  A home run is a boon on any fantasy baseball game, but getting a HR from an unexpected source is pivotal on FanDuel.  On DraftKings, you can make up for an opponent's long ball with a good game from a player without a homer.  On FanDuel, you need to be fielding players with HR's explicitly in mind, you can't just settle for a good outing.  You rather take your chances on a Wilmer Flores or a Jung Ho Kang at SS, versus getting a 2 for 5 game out of Elvis Andrus.  You're not simply trying to predict production, you need to consider HR production first and foremost.  One needs to focus on bad pitching and HR friendly venues.  

Max Scherzer throws a No Hitter.

I didn't play any early games today, not because I didn't have time.  Heck, I was in bed sick most of the day.  But because I couldn't find any way to put a lineup together on FanDuel or DraftKings that I felt good about (Ok, I did enter a tournament on Victiv).

I couldn't put together a lineup I liked primarily because of Max Scherzer.

And then Max Scherzer goes out and throws a No Hitter.

There was little doubt in my mind that Max Scherzer had the most talent of any of today's pitchers.  But the price was so High ($12,600 on DraftKings; $11,500 on FanDuel), that I could not put together a lineup I felt could put up the necessary additional points from my hitters without more luck than I normally have or could reasonably hope for.  And he was playing a decent opponent in the Pittsburgh Pirates.

So then I tried to make lineups without Max Scherzer, and there were a few I liked   I liked the price on Justin Turner, Adam Lind, Randall Grichuk to name a couple.  But this would mean that the teams I was competing against would have Scherzer, while I'm fielding John Lackey and/or Trevor May (On Victiv I played the NY Mets/Noah Syndergaard)  When the top tier Pitchers are toeing the rubber, you have to understand they are out there in DFS waiting to crush you if you don't play them.  Either pay up or be prepared for the worst.  I chickened out.

Now, no one is ever going to predict a no hitter, but today if you didn't have Scherzer, your day was pretty much done.  I'll show you a list of the top 5 pitchers from the day's games (not counting the 10pm games) here.

Top 5 Pitchers on Draft Kings

  Top 5 Pitchers on FanDuel

You kind of expected the dramatic separation on Draft Kings with the 10 point bonus for a no hitter that site gives (5 for the No-No, 2.5 for the Shutout, 2.5 for the complete game).  However, the dropoff from #1 Pitcher to #2 Pitcher was nearly two home runs on each side. I could have gotten lucky and faced someone who started Corey Kluber over Scherzer to save a little money, but I didn't want to risk it.  [Interestingly, Jon Lester pole vaults ahead of Jesse Hahn into the number two slot on Draft Kings despite Hahn's Win and extra inning pitched, solely because of the doubling of the reward for K's on Draftkings].

There are many things to try to avoid in Daily Fantasy Baseball, which I call "Landmines."  The principle one is the stud pitcher floating out there somewhere waiting to kill you.  Whenever Clayton Kershaw or Scherzer or Chris Sale is taking the mound you need to be aware of this fact, especially when you make the decision not to roster them.  If someone had the balls to start Chad Bettis against me, I would simply tip my cap to my opponent and hand over my money.  If someone beat me with Max Scherzer today that would be on me.

The moral of the story is:

Beware the "Landmines" that exist in DFS: If a stud pitcher is playing today, he must be accounted for in your daily lineup and wagering calculations, whether you roster him or not.

And there's no taking away from what Max Scherzer did today.  If Jose Tabata didn't figure out a way to get hit by a pitch, we could have been looking at a perfect game.  And Scherzer's Game Score of 100 puts him in elite territory marking one of the top 9-inning outings in pitching history, putting him up there with the likes of Clayton Kershaw and historical players like Nolan Ryan, Walter Johnson, and, of course, Kerry Wood (remember I'm a Cubs Fan).  I was glad I got to enjoy the game rather than be frustrated by it.  Sometimes sitting it out is good for you.

Tournaments are sucker bets

I don't like tournaments because the raw odds of winning better than 3x your money, generally doesn't merit the risk.  A typical tournament gives you about a 1 in 10 chance of winning 3x (or better) your money, with only a 2 in 10 chance of breaking even. Whereas, in a Triple up, you start out with a 1 in 3 chance of tripling your money and/or winning anything, however, I would be remiss:

-If I didn't admit that tournaments are an important part of DFS.

-If I didn't admit that I played them once in a while.
-If I didn't admit that pretty much all DFS bets are sucker bets.

Anyway, I played one last night, and won, And won 5x the entry fee.  I don't know if I'm just posting this to brag; I hope I'm not.  Considering the reflective nature of my project here, I want to examine the match to see if there is anything to be learned:

My Roster is on the left and the overall winner is on the right.  It was a limited late night slate, and the only game I played last night on Draft Kings. Three things that probably ought to have been obvious become, well, more obvious.

• Pitching is the key to victory

As in all games, the pitching choices pretty much set your tone for the night.  In tournaments, even more so.  But it's more about getting a good performance from an underpriced pitcher.  The reason I played in the tournament at all is because I really thought Rubby De La Rosa was the best play of the night.  I thought he has decent stuff and was facing a weak hitting team in San Diego in the wonderfully spacious PetCo Park.  He was the guy I built my roster around and didn't feel comfortable enough to take that kind of stand looking at only an 80% return in a H2H.  I was right and wrong, as it appears that Roenis Elias did have a better night.  But the principle is sound: to compete in tournament, you need a value pitcher to do well.

• Great Players are a part of any victorious lineup.

I've been so focused on value lately that I've been ignoring how good the Paul Goldschmidt's and Mike Trout's of the world have been.  Most of my recent losses have come from the other guy getting good games from predictably good players.  The purpose of shopping for value players is to be able to roster a superstar or two.  A team of value players will perform pretty much like what you'd expect them to, maybe a little above expectations, but rarely well above them.

• A Great Night from a Hitter can offset a great night from a pitcher.

In the picture above, 5 players (Steven Vogt, Ben Zobrist, Justin Turner, Albert Pujols, and Buster Posey) scored as good as a good pitcher for half the price.  4 of them scored 30+ points.  This means you can make up for inferior pitching with a hitter.  However, the idea of predicting a 20 point night out of a hitter is far more difficult that predicting a similar outing from a pitcher. Guessing Corey Kluber strikes out 8 over 6 innings is easier to be right about than hoping to get a Grand Slam out of Giancarlo Stanton. The high cost of pitchers stems from their predictability, more than than from their production.

• Superstars can let you down

In the battle, Mike Trout only scored 11.  Yasiel Puig and Carlos Correa did nothing.  Not to mention the unpictured outings by James Shields and Sonny Gray in other games.  It's still a bit of a crapshoot, and getting a big name stud hitter doesn't guarantee a big name stud outcome.  Grabbing these players is important because of the potentiality of an awesome night.  The odds of Stanton carrying your team are much better than Andre Either and light years greater than getting that sort of production out of Brock Holt or Cameron Maybin.

Or maybe I'm just bragging about winning last night. If a life unexamined is not worth living, I say, a DFS contest unexamined is not worth playing.  This type of exercise focuses my mind for the next foray, I hope you find a little value in it.

What's in a Name?

One thing on Fan Duel I'm not crazy about is the inability to cap the number of similar opponents in your challenges, as you can on Draft Kings.  Every time I throw out a handful of Head to Head Challenges, one or two guys come in a suck all of them up. And I get pissed off because I want the variance.  I figure I'll win some, lose some, and hopefully come out ahead for the night, if I get all separate opponents.

However, I've swept all the guys (or gals) who have taken up multiple challenge slots (it's only 10-0, but it's a noticeable trend).  So it's hard to stay mad, but it makes me think about the psychology of the game.

You should choose your on-screen moniker wisely.

There are a lot of folks lurking around, trying to find games they think they can win.  And if you have the sort of name that triggers warm and fuzzy feelings, you're going to get a lot of less experienced folks taking up your challenges.  I chose it thinking I wanted the least threatening concept I could think of.  When someone sees this particular name, they can't help, but think "I can beat that guy, right?"  Who in the world would be scared of Fluffy_Bunnies?

Anyway, here are some strategies for picking monikers based on psychology I've noticed:

• Play on peoples prejudices

Think about what kind of people someone might think might not know much about sports and emulate that.  What stereotype comes to mind?  Women.  Choose a name that makes people think you are a girl.  I wasted a fair about of cash playing someone early on on DraftKings attacking monikers Lisabrokenatesheart and CouponQueen because I assumed they were girls.  Whether or not they were, they both were pretty decent at this game of ours.  So I might suggest that you throw "Mrs" in front of your name or maybe reference a Taylor Swift song in your handle.

• Try to be Non-Descript

A lot of people have stumbled across this blog because of my spotlighting top players like Peter Jennings (CSURam88) and Max DaLury.  Another person I spotlighted is David Epstein, who uses the moniker BW5126.  No one remembers him.  That's the beauty of it.  This guy has won hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if you saw a challenge from that that name you would, play him, probably lose, and forget that you lost to him.  Even MaxDalury is really basic (he said it wasn't even his real name, but I have my doubts about this claim).

• Use Misdirection

One of the things people look for are people playing the wrong sport.  If I had a choice in a baseball game, I would choose to play the guy with a moniker from another sport.  A person would surely pick a MJordan23 or a ShotgunSteve over a RedSoxnation, figuring the baseball guy knows baseball, while the others are playing their secondary or tertiary sports.   

• Don't be combative

Don't choose name that make me want to play you.  Ok, me playing you isn't that awful, but don't you think the big dogs would want to play Bankrollme or Yougonnalose down a notch.  It's the opposite of being nondescript, you are actually asking for trouble.

Who should I play today?

I got an email Sunday from a fellow asking me who I recommend to play tomorrow.

I felt the urge to write something snarky, like there's dozens of sites that out there that will do that sort of thing, mostly poorly.  But I thought better of it.  It's what people have been taught to expect from Daily Fantasy Advice.  Why not?  It's more fun to talk about whether you think Joey Gallo can rip up Carlos Frias or whether Miguel Cabrera will crush Jon Moscot (who the hell is Jon Moscot?).

But it's relatively unimportant in my mind.  Maybe unimportant is the wrong word.  How about meaningless?  No one can accurately predict what will happen in a particular baseball game.  I'm not saying that's bad, it's what makes baseball my favorite sport.  There are no known outcomes, and nearly no "won" games, as in most other sports with time clocks.   And since many sites are so dependent on the Home Run for scoring, I would have to actually be confident in my capability to predict who will hit a Home Run on a particular day.  I can't do that, and anyone who tells you they have a handle on it are lying (take solace, they're not just lying to you, but also to themselves).  If someone could do it regularly, they would just gamble their way to prosperity.  It's something I noticed while working as a stockbroker: the good ones used the job to facilitate trading their own accounts, and the really good ones retired early.  I don't want to be the sort of advice giver that is all mouth and no money.  And DFS is all about the money.

Additionally, because of the special relationship DFS has between production and value, I find it impossible to field my personal lineup (for good or bad) more than about an hour before the games start.  I need to know the daily lineups to make a good decision about my roster.  Baseball lineups are far more fluid than other sports.  And a small change in one lineup can send ripples through your DFS lineup.   For example, let's say your looking at a relatively weak position like Shortstop, and you decide that the only SS you feel any certainty will have a positive night at the plate is Brandon Crawford, but for some crazy reason he costs $4,600.  But then lineups come out at Detroit is giving Andrew Romine the start batting ninth versus the incredibly weak lefty John Danks for only $2500.  Switching from Crawford to Romine at SS allows you to go from Kendrys Morales to Paul Goldschmidt at 1B.  And please note: this is an oversimplification of the process, a savings of $2000 might impact 3 or 4 different roster decisions that day. All decisions in DFS impact other decisions via the Salary Cost mechanism.  That's the beauty of the puzzle and the beauty of the game.

 I understand why sites do this: it's more interesting that hearing about these convoluted scenarios.  Real daily fantasy advice would be like hearing about a two team, eight player trade in season long fantasy baseball. You would have to know all the particulars like knowing that the guy has Mike Moustakas on his bench making the losing of Mat Carpenter not as big of a deal.  It would be boring as hell.  If you are looking for advice, I understand that CBS Sports and ESPN run a nightly DFS baseball programs somewhere in the 6PM EST area. At least it covers the basic problem: it is chronologically done at the proper time.

Anyway, I might consider specific advice somewhere down the line, primarily for other sports where there are far fewer game time decisions.  Or possibly for Starting Pitchers, since that is usually known well ahead of time and so very important, once I figure it out better (I'm not there yet, but I feel I'm getting closer every day).

My preference will always be to talk about the sport conceptually, rather than dwelling on the mercurial particulars.  The hope is you might learn from my experience and mistakes, and when I'm dead wrong, you would give me your thoughtful criticism to help me onto the right path.  Most Daily Advice will tell you how to field a roster, my goal is to help you understand the game.

All this being said, I do appreciate the emails and the positive feedback on this little excursion of mine.

DFS Outcomes

When you start out playing DFS, you probably have a fairly simplistic view of what can happen in any given contest.  It most likely looks something like this:

You Win

You Lose

This is myopic.  It is too simplistic.  What can happen on a given night is much more complex than this.  And it is pretty much dependent on the quality of the lineups rostered.  You can pick a good team or a bad team, and your opponent can do the same.  Understanding this gives you a better picture of what might actually occur:

		Opponent’s Team
		Good Score	Bad Score
Your Team	Good Score	50/50	You Win
	Bad Score	You Lose	50/50

  

But even this is a little too simplistic.  The times when you or your opponent truly field a gem or put up a lineup of stinkers isn't going to happen most of the time.  Most of the time, the teams are going to be something in the middle (Note: the 50/50 designation means that it can go either way, rather than you have a 50% chance of winning these matches).  So this needs additional refinement to take into account the highly likely possibility that you field a team somewhere between good and bad.  If we add in the average concept, the picture becomes a little bit clearer:

		Opponent’s Team
		Great Score	Average Score	Bad Score
Your Team	Great Score	50/50	You Win	You Win
	Average Score	You Lose	50/50	You Win
	Bad Score	You Lose	You Lose	50/50

The problem with this chart is that it gives the impression that each outcome has equal chance to occur and that is very incorrect.  I went through 2 months of my games to try to figure out the probability of each occurrence*.  I must admit, I just looked at raw scores, and the averages can shift dramatically on any given night.  On a low scoring night 92 points might be above average, on a high scoring night the same score might be well below average.  I rounded the numbers to allow for the inexactness of the data set:

Game outcome	Probability	Odds of Occurring*
Great Score	Unlikely	12%
Average Score	Likely	64%
Bad Score	Somewhat Likely	24%

Basically, an average score is going to be fielded about 2 in 3 games, by you and your opponent.  A truly great game occurs about half as many times as a true stinker, and this seems to reflect the idea that almost any batter, no matter how awesome he may be, can take a zero for the night.  And any pitcher can have an off night, even Clayton Kershaw.

So the next thing to do is to superimpose the last chart onto the one before, in order to get a feeling for what are the likely outcomes of a single match on any DFS Site (again, please forgive rounding errors):

		Opponent’s Team
		Great Score	Average Score	Bad Score
Your Team	Great Score	14.4%	7.7%	2.9%
	Average Score	7.7%	40.1%	15.4%
	Bad Score	2.9%	15.4%	5.8%

This is a really fancy way to say that about 1 in 4 games you will win easily and 1 in 4 games you'll lose by a similar margin.  2 out of 4 games are going to be close, many of them nail biters. I put this up for three reasons: (1) to help you stop thinking about DFS as a two outcome game, (2) to be here as a starting point for my further extrapolations later, and (3) to let you know that even if you are losing money, and losing as many as a third of your games, you probably aren't awful at this.  You've just drawn a tough block of opponents or got an unlucky draw in the games that aren't decided by poor or great lineup selection.

The two-thirds of outcomes that are in play every night are mostly decided by a a single at bat.  Now, it might be a two RBI double or a solo homerun, but the lion's share of games in DFS baseball are decided by a single plate appearance.  And you can see just how lucky you must be to stay above the breakeven winning percentage of 55%. 

NASCAR vs MLB

There was a race today in Michigan.  Something called the Quicken Loans 400.  Draft Kings held a series of contest on their DFS sites around this event.  If you've been following this webpage, you'll know 3 things:

• I don't know anything about NASCAR
• I don't even like NASCAR
• I always win at DFS NASCAR

Over the last three weeks, I've entered 10 DFS NASCAR events, and I've won 10 NASCAR events.  I upped the ante this week and joined 6 events, and improved to 16-0.

How can I be so good at a sport I don't know and don't care about and so average at Baseball that I know and love?  What is so different?

The Lessons of NASCAR:

I first must acknowledge that it might simply be dumb luck, otherwise I fall into the traps that so many other "experts" fall into, buying into my own superiority.

There are really only four things that I can see that are different about my attacking NASCAR vs my strategy at Baseball:

• I have absolutely zero personal biases.

I'm a Cubs Fan, and I want Addison Russell and Kris Bryant to be awesome.  I probably think that Jake Arrieta is a better pitcher than he actually is.  As a byproduct, I despise the Mets, and rarely every play them.  Because I love baseball, I hate the Yankees and the Red Sox because it is logically impossible to love both.  I hate DH rule.  I need to learn to let go of these biases.  This is very, very difficult as those biases are 40 years in the making.  But, I must learn to play the best player period.

• I look only at the simple numbers in NASCAR

With baseball, I play hunches.  I look at matchups.  I check out right/lefty matchups.  I do all sorts of things to try to figure the game out.  But since this is essentially a game of chance, a roll of the dice, every logical move I make is probably walking me further away from the most optimal lineup.  What matters is the numbers vs. price: Nothing else.  In baseball, I must learn to refrain from overthinking the issue.  The only two stats that really make a difference are Salary Cost and Points Scored.

• The DFS sport is new, so everybody is learning

I'm not five years behind everybody else in NASCAR.  Everybody is on the same footing.  I started playing DFS because I know I can recognize patterns in numbers much quicker than most of the world.  The problem is people like me are drawn to the numbers puzzle, which is DFS.  The people I play aren't "most of the world."  And I gave them a substantial head start, meaning in baseball, I will probably always be playing from behind.  There is nothing I can do to change this fact, but I must come to an understanding that it is matter of fact.

• Draft Kings is not screwing with the game, yet

Because there is only one race a week, and the newness of the event, Draft Kings does very little tinkering with its NASCAR offerings.  In baseball, they screw with things every day:  significant salary change, random position eligibilities, and often removing players from the playable database.  They know how to make it hard to win at baseball.  They haven't figured it out yet in NASCAR.  Or maybe they are going to leave it alone for a bit to attract new players.  Either way, I'm grateful for this.  Every 4 or 5 days in baseball, I feel I have to relearn significant parts of the game.  I need to run with this unmatched consistency in this DFS offering, and enjoy it while it lasts.

The First Step in Choosing Hitters.

Daily Fantasy would be easy if you could just pick the best players.  But it would also be less fun as too many teams would just opt for Mike Trout and Giancarlo Stanton everyday.   So they use what's known as salary cap pricing to force players to make more difficult decisions. Sure, it's not really fantasy baseball, but it's much more fun and challenging than just having the great players cancel each other out.

The First thing you need to know is that it is impossible to field a decent lineup without an understanding of player value.  If you don't pick a few underpriced players, you are not going to just find it difficult to field a competitive lineup, but it is often impossible to field any lineup.

I put this chart together to illustrate the basic concepts you need to understand value:

DFS Site	Draft Kings	Fan Duel
Salary Cap	$50,000	$35,000
Number of Players	10 (2 Pitchers)	9 (1 Pitcher)
Typical Pitcher Cost*	$20,000	$10,000
Remaining Salary	$30,000	$25,000
Average remaining per hitter	$3,750	$3,125
Hitters at Average Cost.	Seth Smith, Nori Aoki	Avisail Garcia, Cameron Maybin
Top Hitter Cost	$5,900 (Bryce Harper)**	$5,600 (Paul Goldschmidt)**
Minimum Hitter Cost	$2,000	$2,200
Minimum Cost Hitters	Rafael Ynoa, Cameron Rupp	Junior Lake, Paulo Orlando

*Pitcher cost can vary day by day, but getting good pitching is so important, you will find yourself paying about this number or more on most days.  On occasion, there will be good pitchers below this value, allowing more funds for hitters.

**Top cost player for 6/14/2015.  Changes daily, but rough approximation for any given day.

On both sites, you need to use remaining funds after pitchers to field 8 hitters.  As both sites round player cost to the nearest hundred, I listed a player at the round number just below and just above the average, who I'll admit to having played and produced something.  

You really can't make a good lineup with 8 league average cost players [On FanDuel, because of the smaller range of pricing, fielding a decent "average team is more likely].  An average team may be great from time to time given the arbitrary nature of baseball scoring, but it's certainly not something you are going to have enough faith to put too much money on.  You're going to want to field some better, higher-cost hitters, which means you are going to have to play some guys who aren't as good as even Cameron Maybin or Nori Aoki.  In fact, if you want to field the top hitter, you are going to have to grab two or three below average value plays to get the likes of Goldschmidt, Trout, Stanton, or Harper on your team. 

In order to be competitive, however, you're going to need production from your whole team.  Or, at minimum, the possibility of production from all eight of your hitters.  I hear "experts" say things like "I almost always field Ryan Raburn versus a weak lefty." or "with the injury to Zack Cozart, you might want to take a good long look at Eugenio Suarez."  The names bandied about are no where close to household names, but they are the keys to a successful DFS lineup, simply because they are cheap.  This is at the core of my advice:

After selecting your pitcher (or pitchers), the second step is to fill out the bulk of your roster with cheap players.

When you build your roster, start from the cheapest player and work your way up.  Someone recommended to do it from the "All Players" [Fan Duel] or "All Hitters" [Draft Kings] tab, as it gives you a better sense of the relative player values.  You should typically field 6 of your 8 hitters from these cheap seats.  Of course, you'll replace as many as half of them as you get a sense of your remaining funds later, but this is the place to start.  Typically, I like to choose every position except 1 OF slot and I often skip 1B, as the best values tend to come from OF and C.  When I look at starting lineups, I don't get excited because Jose Reyes or Corey Dickerson are coming off the Disabled List, what is exciting is Jose Lobaton, Jordan Pacheco, or Carlos Corporan getting the start at Catcher versus a weaker pitcher or someone like Corey Spangenberg or Chris Coghlan being listed at their teams leadoff hitter that day.  We all want to play some high calibre players everyday, a thorough understanding of batters who can be productive for less than $3,000 [$2700 on FanDuel], allow you to play those guys. 

A part of that bears repeating:

A thorough understanding of batters who can be productive at cheap salaries is critical for DFS success.