​Beginner's Journey into MLB DFS

This is Mangone here with my first fantasy baseball write-up of the season. I'm new to the DFS industry as of October and have had some success in football, basketball and even hockey. I took my first crack at baseball this season and certainly learned a lot over the first week. Some of it I already knew from what I read and heard on podcasts, but looking at the leaderboards really made it more clear to me some approaches I may want to take going forward. Since the industry has exploded this year, Dailyfantasycafe.com thought it would be a great idea to get the perspective from a successful player out to the industry while he's playing a new sport. Why would you want that kind of perspective? Because learning a new sport in daily fantasy can be difficult. Along the way, I can help you with some helpful hints that I am learning as well as discuss lineups, roster construction and how to better your game as I am doing so too. I am primarily a tournament player and have won two tournaments with 1,000-plus entrants. I will continue to do tournaments in baseball, but I am also looking to dive into cash games on a consistent basis to build my bankroll higher this season.

Bankroll Approach

My main approach is to play 8% of my bankroll in cash games and then 2% in tournaments. With this strategy in my first week of baseball DFS, I ended up profiting $52. My bankroll for MLB baseball is currently at $302. I am starting with a smaller approach because it is a new sport to me in DFS and I do not want to do anything stupid. The best way to learn is to get your feet wet and play, and I decided to play about $25 in cash and six dollars in tournaments each slate. So if there is a morning slate and a night, I will essentially play those values twice. I believe that having a system in place to determine the amount that you will play is the best thing to do for not only your bankroll but to keep you in a routine. Routine is very important in DFS, and having that routine will help my game play and help me throughout the research process every day.

Week One: What I Learned

I have no doubt that week one was a great learning experience in baseball DFS. I learned different strategies for both cash and tournaments that I will discuss later as well as different helpful stats like wOBA versus pitchers and many more that I will learn how to utilize to my advantage throughout the year. The most important thing I learned is that it takes a lot of research, and it can pay off if you do so. If you take the time and put the research in, it can really give you a leg up on the field. I mainly put in the time on using weather to my advantage, and I believe it was part of my success for the week. Another daily weather aspect that not many casual DFS players may think about which can give you a leg up is whether or not the wind is blowing a certain direction. If the wind is blowing out, it is to the hitters advantage, and if it is blowing in, it will help the pitchers. This seems like an easy concept, but honestly it is not something I really thought of while watching a baseball game. I would not watch my Mets in the ninth inning of a close ball game and say, "please hit a home run David Wright, this is easy the wind is blowing out. You got this!" Not only can wind help you, but rain delays can hurt you. If a pitcher has to deal with a delay, it can throw off his rhythm and really hurt you. Because of that, I take into account that delays can be your enemy but also your friend. Many people hate delays because they make you uncomfortable, but you're not alone, everyone is worried about the delays! This is something that many DFS players struggle with, in my opinion. If you look into the weather and see what is going on and do your research, you can benefit by rostering players who will be lower owned in your contest. Players will stay away from great value plays just because it might get delayed, and that will drive the ownership percentages down and really help your team.

Cash Game Strategy

There are many different strategies and approaches that I believe I can take when it comes to cash games. People say that you can stack some players, just take your favorite plays and there are a lot of different approaches. After looking at my lineups, though, I noticed that the majority of them centered around successful pitchers. One day last week I spent a lot of time researching players because I didn't like the pitching matchups and players, so I thought I will get the best bats and just hope the pitchers perform. That approach did not go so well. None of my lineups cashed on that day. When it comes to cash games, I realized I need to focus and put the time in on picking the right pitchers because if you do not, it can really burn you. Owning Madison Bumgarner on the night he produced negative points gave me no shot to win, and honestly, I did not put the research in I should have that night. I was talking with my friend while building lineups and said we should select a pitcher from the Padres and Giants game. We decided to go Bumgarner because of his postseason success. This was an amateur move by me. My thought process was that he is the man and his success should carry over to this season, but I let recency bias take over.

Tournament Strategy

My favorite thing that I learned about tournaments is that it PAYS TO BE CONTRARIAN. I love that. and at times early on in my DFS career, I was too contrarian, but that is a strategy that I have noticed can really shoot you up in a tournament. When doing my tournament strategy, I decided to focus on the pitchers who I want as well as the stacks. When making tournament teams I write down my number one pitching option of the day based on price. For instance, Clayton Kershaw may be the most expensive and “best option" on the board, but based on his price he may not be. On day one, Kershaw looked like the best play, but I believed it was David Price mainly because of the price (no pun intended) as well as the matchup. Price was pitching against a weak Twins team in a pitcher's ballpark. On the other hand, we had Kershaw in a hitter's park in Arizona. Finding my number one pitcher of the day based on price is the first thing I try to do. Second, I try and get a pitcher who has strikeout upside. I learned that on DK strikeouts and innings pitched can really go a long way. I even won a 50/50 taking two pitchers who went against each other. Rather than looking for the win, which is nice and can be valuable, I want a pitcher who can strike opponents out as well as pitch deep into a game. If they can do that, they will most likely come out with the win as well. When looking for this pitcher, I try to get a cheaper one who will not be highly owned as well because my first pitcher will most likely be a higher owned pitcher.

Lineup of the week

I entered this lineup in the three dollar Moonshot on DraftKings posting a total of 157 points. Out of 22,718 players, I placed 163rd winning a total of $30. My main focus on this lineup was to get my one must play pitcher which was Tim Lincecum. Lincecum was pitching in Petco Park, a pitcher's park, against a Padres team he has a great history against. The pitchers on this slate were a weak group so I knew I wanted to target a park who would not have a high volume of runs scored. I took note, too, that the Padres and Giants game went to extra innings the night before which could have caused some fatigue in the Padres hitters giving Linececum an advantage. My next pitcher on the slate was Chase Anderson who pitched against the Dodgers and was a risky pick ,but in a tournament, being contrarian can you give you a leg up on the field. I read up on Anderson and how he'd been pitching well and just decided to take a gamble on a young player. It ended up paying off. I was watching the game and he came out strong but could not last as long as I hoped to pull me up to first place, but it was enough to give me a great finish.

Next are the stacks that I decided to play which were the Marlins and Angels. My main stack was the Miami Marlins 1-through-4 hitters against the Tampa Bay Rays. There were two reasons for taking the Marlins. One was the pitching matchup with a pitcher who normally pitches from the bullpen, and the next was that this stack is “predictable." I have learned that there are stacks that have a higher probability of knowing which hitters 1-through-9 are going to produce. Normally the 1-though-4 hitters on the Marlins are going to score if anyone does, so I decided to take them. A team like the Brewers, who I was stacking early on, was a difficult team to peg. The reason why is that their lineup is loaded with hitters and any of them can produce on a given night. I do not want predict the right team but miss on the stack. The chance of the Marlins 1-though-4 hitters being the right play compared to the 3-though-6 hitters is better than let's say on the Brewers. This predictable lineup idea is something I took from NHL. I would pick a line like the Calgary Flames towards the end of the season because I knew all their scoring was coming from the first line. This is a strategy I have not heard discussed much around the industry, and one that I will be implementing throughout the season. My next pair that I added on this team was a semi stack of Mike Trout and David Freese. They were hitting second and fourth in the lineup, respectively, and I figured they had a great chance to both homer in their matchup. Luckily, I got one from Freese and I was only one batter away from another opportunity in the ninth inning, which if it resulted in a home run, would have shot me up in the top 30! Then I took Posey as a one-off because he can homer in any game and was the best option between my catchers and shortstops to pay up for. All and all I liked my process and thought that had a great chance to win. I even placed 342^nd the next day in the same exact tournament and took a similar approach. I believe that my tournament process above is going to lead me to a tournament win this season, and hopefully you can take this approach too.

Things to improve on this week

The first week of DFS baseball was a blast and I can hardly wait to learn more about it. Luckily, this weekend I am going to be heading to Chicago to learn more about fantasy baseball and just how to improve my game as well as discuss lineups and ideas with other players. It should be an awesome opportunity, and I am looking forward to learning more. Each week I am going to look at one thing that I think I need to improve on and hopefully others will see whether it was helpful to focus on or not. This week I am going to focus on the Weighted On Base Percentage known as wOBA. This stat helps rate the offensive value of players. I am going to read up on how it can benefit daily players better and try and use that as a focal point when building lineups to see how this approach can be helpful while building lineups.

Week 1 Results

Beginning Bankroll: $300

Cash Games Entered: 19

Tourney's Entered: 18

Winnings/Loss: + $52

Ending Bankroll: $352

Not too shabby for the first week of my MLB DFS career! Thanks for reading my article. If you have any questions or want to talk DFS feel free to leave a comment and I'll get right back to you. Hope you enjoy and will be profiting along this journey with me.