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%.