DFS has been classified as a game of skill. I question this. "Question" might be a little mild. I have serious doubts, but that's the way I see it. There is little doubt that some people win more than they lose, myself included [I don't make scads of cash, you need to win at a clip significantly better than 50% to keep your head above water].
I've had a renaissance of late, nearly doubling my money in about 10 days. Admittedly, I hit a 5x win
on a $3 tournament and a 4x win on a $5 tournament, which accounts for about 20% of my recent progress.
I've talked about my rethinking my pitching strategy; a process of simplification, but there's more to it than that. I know DFS is called a game of skill, but I've done better because I've focused it on a gambling endeavor.
In a true bet on baseball, the kind that could keep you out of the Hall Of Fame, you focus on the team you think is going to win and lay your money down there. You have your reasons, your process, your analysis, whatever, but boil it down; what you are doing is letting your money say "I think Team A will beat Team B." Simple and elegant. And apparently, not complex enough to be considered a skill.
Which brings me to my core revelation and recently adopted strategy at DFS baseball: I'm letting my money tell whoever I'm facing that, "I think this pitcher or pitchers will be good today."
That's the key: DFS baseball is a game of gambling on Pitchers.
The way I had been going about things is picking the best pitching I could imagine and piece-mealing a team of cheap hitters in the hopes that a few of them would add enough to my totals to give me a winning score. On a team of eight batters in a lineup, six of them would be cost-driven plays. So I would need half of these picks to be productive to have a truly positive night. Getting 3 out of 6 right considering the long odds on cheap players is not one that you can have long term success with, or reasonably expect to repeat with any regularity. Some people are lucky, but no one is that lucky.
I've found it's better to spend your time, energy, and research trying to find a good reason to target one reasonably priced pitcher, so that you can field a batting lineup of good hitters. And just like the $2700 outfielder who scores 7 on Draft Kings with a double and an RBI is good enough. A cheap pitcher can add enough to your lineup with 15 points [basically a Quality Start with a win, or 5K's], provided there's no one you're facing with double these numbers from his Starting Pitcher.
I'd rather put my money on a Chris Tillman or a Zack Godfrey and have one thing to root for, assured in the knowledge that the Rays or the Mariners don't hit that well, than really have to hope that Nick Ahmed, Addison Russell, and Nolan Reimold all have decent games on the same night. You can focus your skill on one thing and improve your odds of getting in right. I've repeatedly said that one should be on the lookout for pricing errors by the DFS site. There is absolutely no reason to expect them to be infallible on the pitching side of the equation.
A by-product of this is significant variations in your day to day scores. There will be more days when I lose badly. Tonight, I have one lineup in real danger of not making it to 30 points; thanks to my money being principally carried on the back of an imploded A.J. Burnett. But it also means that when you hit, your numbers will be higher [I've had more scores over 120 in the past 10 days that ever before, getting three teams beyond the 150 threshold]. What that does is allow the really nice 3x, 4x, 5x or better payoffs in your tournaments, to make up for the more frequent $0 dollar win nights as I'm having tonight.
Some authorities in DFS call this "Tournament Lineup" strategy. I don't see why it doesn't pertain to every lineup you play. I'm not saying play a cheap pitcher because he's cheap; I'm saying play a affordable pitcher because you believe he's going to have one of the better outings of the day's slate. I work on the philosophy most nights of trying to put together the best lineup I can. It's logically impossible to have 2 "best lineups."
I've had a renaissance of late, nearly doubling my money in about 10 days. Admittedly, I hit a 5x win
I've talked about my rethinking my pitching strategy; a process of simplification, but there's more to it than that. I know DFS is called a game of skill, but I've done better because I've focused it on a gambling endeavor.
In a true bet on baseball, the kind that could keep you out of the Hall Of Fame, you focus on the team you think is going to win and lay your money down there. You have your reasons, your process, your analysis, whatever, but boil it down; what you are doing is letting your money say "I think Team A will beat Team B." Simple and elegant. And apparently, not complex enough to be considered a skill.
Which brings me to my core revelation and recently adopted strategy at DFS baseball: I'm letting my money tell whoever I'm facing that, "I think this pitcher or pitchers will be good today."
That's the key: DFS baseball is a game of gambling on Pitchers.
The way I had been going about things is picking the best pitching I could imagine and piece-mealing a team of cheap hitters in the hopes that a few of them would add enough to my totals to give me a winning score. On a team of eight batters in a lineup, six of them would be cost-driven plays. So I would need half of these picks to be productive to have a truly positive night. Getting 3 out of 6 right considering the long odds on cheap players is not one that you can have long term success with, or reasonably expect to repeat with any regularity. Some people are lucky, but no one is that lucky.
I've found it's better to spend your time, energy, and research trying to find a good reason to target one reasonably priced pitcher, so that you can field a batting lineup of good hitters. And just like the $2700 outfielder who scores 7 on Draft Kings with a double and an RBI is good enough. A cheap pitcher can add enough to your lineup with 15 points [basically a Quality Start with a win, or 5K's], provided there's no one you're facing with double these numbers from his Starting Pitcher.
I'd rather put my money on a Chris Tillman or a Zack Godfrey and have one thing to root for, assured in the knowledge that the Rays or the Mariners don't hit that well, than really have to hope that Nick Ahmed, Addison Russell, and Nolan Reimold all have decent games on the same night. You can focus your skill on one thing and improve your odds of getting in right. I've repeatedly said that one should be on the lookout for pricing errors by the DFS site. There is absolutely no reason to expect them to be infallible on the pitching side of the equation.
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| I believe it's important to face our bad decsions |
Some authorities in DFS call this "Tournament Lineup" strategy. I don't see why it doesn't pertain to every lineup you play. I'm not saying play a cheap pitcher because he's cheap; I'm saying play a affordable pitcher because you believe he's going to have one of the better outings of the day's slate. I work on the philosophy most nights of trying to put together the best lineup I can. It's logically impossible to have 2 "best lineups."
Nice one, thank you!
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