On Fan Duel you simply can't screw with pitching. I won all my games on Fan Duel last night due to my recording my second best career outing on that Platform. I knew I had all my head to heads in the bag moments after the first pitch because all of my opponents in that format decided not to go with Zach Greinke.
You just can't screw with pitching on Fan Duel in cash games (2-player Head to Heads)
Here's a snapshot of the closest matchup I faced last night.
I'm not knocking this guy for trying something, I'm posting this to demonstrate something that needs to be known. The pitching thing is way too important to start the likes of Joe Blanton.
This is an interesting example of taking the opposite course of action: buying a cheap pitcher to facilitate a powerhouse offensive lineup. At first glance, you might think he did it: After all, Kris Bryant of the Cubs outscored Zack Greinke, and Joe Blanton outscored my Third Basemen Miguel Sano. And at this superficial level, I might be tempted to agree. But at closer inspection, it's simply too much risk. My opponent would have to pretty much have everything go right for him. And as you can see Paul Goldschmidt posted a goose egg, while Carlos Gomez and Starlin Castro combined for negative points. My Zach Greinke up against 8 of his 10 players would have had my team only down by one run. That leaves all my hitters to need to score just one more than his top two to win the game for me. And this was the guy who almost pulled it off, the others were beat by more than 20 pts. The other guys had better pitchers than Blanton, but because they spent a little more there, they also had inferior hitters.
What needs to be known is that in the player pool there are at any given time better than 2 dozen batters who have the possibility of scoring 8 points for you for less than half the cost of Joe Blanton. I've seen these types of performances from guys like Chris Young, Darin Ruf, Ryan Raburn, Logan Morrison, Eduardo Escobar, Bryan Holaday, etc. etc. Sure, it will take a bit of luck, but you are better off fielding four batters hoping one or two of them to payoff, then settling for single pitcher who would really have difficulty getting 8 points on his own. I will note that had Blanton won the game, his pitcher would have put up a respectable 9 points, but that is really counting on the win to get the results you wanted. And predicting a win is certainly less than a 50/50 proposition. Going against the grain on pitching really starts you out in a hole that you're unlikely to dig your way out of.
That being said, I applaud my opponent's strategic attempt and congratulate him for an admirably fought game. He probably would have beaten 2/3 of the opponents he would have faced last night. But no one can reasonably predict two home runs out of anybody, no matter how awesome one might think Kris Bryant is, and had he only hit one homer it wouldn't have even been this close.
I've said before that Fan Duel's pitcher is like the powerball on the megamillions lottery; the one stand alone box that must be checked to have a big winning night. It's certainly not worth the risk in a game where if you guess right you get only an 80% return on your money. Tournament play or even larger league play this may be viable, maybe even necessary, but in H2H you're taking on a 3 in 4 chance of pretty much giving your money away.
You just can't screw with pitching on Fan Duel in cash games (2-player Head to Heads)
Here's a snapshot of the closest matchup I faced last night.
This is an interesting example of taking the opposite course of action: buying a cheap pitcher to facilitate a powerhouse offensive lineup. At first glance, you might think he did it: After all, Kris Bryant of the Cubs outscored Zack Greinke, and Joe Blanton outscored my Third Basemen Miguel Sano. And at this superficial level, I might be tempted to agree. But at closer inspection, it's simply too much risk. My opponent would have to pretty much have everything go right for him. And as you can see Paul Goldschmidt posted a goose egg, while Carlos Gomez and Starlin Castro combined for negative points. My Zach Greinke up against 8 of his 10 players would have had my team only down by one run. That leaves all my hitters to need to score just one more than his top two to win the game for me. And this was the guy who almost pulled it off, the others were beat by more than 20 pts. The other guys had better pitchers than Blanton, but because they spent a little more there, they also had inferior hitters.
What needs to be known is that in the player pool there are at any given time better than 2 dozen batters who have the possibility of scoring 8 points for you for less than half the cost of Joe Blanton. I've seen these types of performances from guys like Chris Young, Darin Ruf, Ryan Raburn, Logan Morrison, Eduardo Escobar, Bryan Holaday, etc. etc. Sure, it will take a bit of luck, but you are better off fielding four batters hoping one or two of them to payoff, then settling for single pitcher who would really have difficulty getting 8 points on his own. I will note that had Blanton won the game, his pitcher would have put up a respectable 9 points, but that is really counting on the win to get the results you wanted. And predicting a win is certainly less than a 50/50 proposition. Going against the grain on pitching really starts you out in a hole that you're unlikely to dig your way out of.
That being said, I applaud my opponent's strategic attempt and congratulate him for an admirably fought game. He probably would have beaten 2/3 of the opponents he would have faced last night. But no one can reasonably predict two home runs out of anybody, no matter how awesome one might think Kris Bryant is, and had he only hit one homer it wouldn't have even been this close.
I've said before that Fan Duel's pitcher is like the powerball on the megamillions lottery; the one stand alone box that must be checked to have a big winning night. It's certainly not worth the risk in a game where if you guess right you get only an 80% return on your money. Tournament play or even larger league play this may be viable, maybe even necessary, but in H2H you're taking on a 3 in 4 chance of pretty much giving your money away.
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