​Beginner's Journey into MLB DFS- Week 3

This is Mangone here to talk about my third week of the MLB season. In my third week of the season it looks as if I was not so profitable this week. I will discuss more about those lineups and my thought process throughout them. The number one thing that I want to stress in this article, despite my losses, I am not mad about my performance. Yes, losing money sucks and does not lead to DFS success, but I need to trust my thought process. Some weeks things just won't go your way, like David Price getting absolutely shelled against the Yankees. This was not a successful week, which I think will be a great learning experience. I will break it down for you throughout the article so you can either learn from my mistakes or complain along with me!

Bankroll Approach

This past week, let's just say my bankroll decreased because I thought I was going to be very successful in head-to-heads (H2H). I had a poor outing and I think I could have pulled more ROI if I did more 50/50s. I may have gone way too H2H crazy, which caused me to focus less on other cash games and hurt me. Some days, I was going 100% H2H, which if my team struggled like the David Price massacre, then you understand why I lost mightily. I understand everyone struggles with finding a happy medium on their cash games, and playing a new sport has made it difficult for me to peg. I am hoping that this week I can take a step back, get exposure to both 50/50s and H2Hs and just focus on that. I am kind of off the moonshot for now. I understand chasing the big 10k every night is a thrill, but unless I am 100% confident on a stack, then I will enter a single bullet. I noticed that tournaments were becoming a bankroll eater, and I was not as profitable as I thought. Yes, the dream of winning the big cash is really exciting, but I am in the business of profitability, and I hope you all are too. Determining your best contest to attack is key in DFS because that is where you have an “edge" over other opponents. Right now, I am deciding whether H2Hs or 50/50s are my style. I honestly think that I can become a great MLB H2H player because looking back at my contests, I trust my process of picking Price. Yes, I am taking him today against the Twins and you can't talk me out of it! I think that this past week was an anomaly and I will have a profitable week four. Some of the teams that I lost to make no sense. One opponent had the Tigers pitcher and three Cleveland bats! If it wasn't for some crazy games, I would have won with ease. I need to just trust my approach and process. I believe it will be profitable, so I will attack this method and cancel out the tournament chasing.

Week Three: What I Learned

Last week, I discussed learning more about Vegas props and focusing on those throughout my research. I believe it was a helpful method, and I am going to continue to use this approach. On Sunday, Vegas strikeout totals were in favor of Jake Arietta and Francisco Liriano. They became my top two cash game plays and scored a combined of 48.75 points! Here is something about my Vegas strikeout research, I picked Price because I loved his strikeout upside. The total was actually one of the highest listed for the day, but I was so biased towards him I did not realize the under was favored. His strikeout total was 1.5 higher than any other pitcher. I thought nothing of it. I noticed after and made sure to be positive next time. I still trust my process and I understand a lot of us newer players are learning, so trying to learn from those mistakes is key.

Cash Game Strategy

This is going to be my only game type that will be covered this week. The reason why is I want to get better at it. I want to hone in on my skills in this game type. Something I think I am going to do is enter specific 50/50s where some of the DK pros are playing. Now, some of you are thinking that is a losing method and I am crazy, but not to toot my own horn, I am 2-0 all-time against Peter Jennings in H2Hs. Now that my humble brag is over, I believe it is important to look at some of the top players in the industry and compare your team with theirs. Say I enter a 150 person 50/50 and there are five sharp players in the tournament. I can still easily win, and I can compare my teams with some of those created by the brightest minds in MLB DFS. Another cash game strategy to take away from this week is hitting is important. I have heard around the industry that paying for your pitching is important and everyone stresses that. I think on DraftKings because they have made their pricing very difficult, at times you will have to sacrifice a top pitcher in order to get bats that are in good spots. Yes, having two top pitchers is important, but the value of stolen bases and home runs is the kind of upside I want exposure to in all my lineups. Next week, I am actually going to keep track of my pitchers and compare with the top pitchers of the day so I can look at some trends and compare.

Tournament Strategy

Whelp, my tournament strategy was a bust last week mainly because of my pitching choices. I have decided to really scale back on tournaments like I discussed before. I just want to make sure I focus in on my cash game skills. From time to time if I like a stack a lot I will throw it into the moonshot, but I am highly avoiding them because it is just eating my bankroll and I want to do a better job with my cash games. Some nights, I notice if I am focusing on both there is too much going on before lineup lock and my head will be spinning! This will cause me to make poor decisions, so I just want to take care of my cash game approach and hone in on those skills right now. I know how to build a tournament lineup pretty well and this is just something I will do later on in the season.

Lineup of the week

The last two weeks I have looked at some really good lineups that I have made for tournaments. This week, I am going to look a team that failed miserably. The reason why is to understand my thought process to ensure it was still accurate. A lot of times we look at a losing lineup and say it was the wrong team, I believe that to be false. You cannot be 100% right all the time and sometimes you just have a rough outing. If that is the case, do not change your approach and hopefully after reading my lineup you will see despite the poor performance I had the right approach.

This lineup was the one that I researched a lot and actually went against my fandom and took good old CC Sabathia. Despite CC's negative performance, I still put up a nice 78.75. Imagine if I had a decent pitcher, I would have cashed in most 50/50s and H2Hs that I played in. My process on Sabathia was that he had a great strikeout Vegas prop. I wanted to go with Harvey, but I figured since the Yankees are the favorite and Sabathia is significantly cheaper than Harvey, it would allow me to get bigger bats. Looking back, it was not the best decision but who knows if I would have selected the correct bats. Ultimately, I did put up a nice score despite the negative from Sabathia.

Another guy who was in a great spot was J.D Martinez. He has some heavy bats around him which allows him to see some nice pitches. This was just an anomaly that he struggled in this great matchup versus a lefty where he normally thrives. Along with the trend of bats that did not pull their weight was Edwin Encarnacion. Normally, when you take some top tier pitchers if you take an expensive bat it is important that the player pulls their weight. Encarnacion did not do so, dropping a zero on the board. I still think it was a smart pick because his prop bet to hit a home run was a heavy favorite. This has been a source that has been helpful when picking my bats for my lineups every day, and despite the zero, I will continue to roster my big bats based on the help from Vegas along with my other research.

Things to improve on this week

Well, last week we looked at pitching velocity to help me make decisions on my pitching. It was something that was helpful but just didn't pan out. I recommend any new DFSers to use this stat going forward and to focus in on FangGaphs for your research. This stat has been helpful and has improved my game immensely. I said before how I had a negative week and discussed in past articles that I need to find the right matches to play. This is what I am going to focus on this week. I am going to focus on playing contests like 50/50s and H2Hs. I will be focusing less on tournaments to see how much of an improvement that will have on my cash games. Tune in next week and check out the progress, and maybe you will learn from it yourself. I have realized tracking your results daily helps you stay true to your bankroll as well as show you where you are raking in the most cash. Seeing this has helped me determine I should ditch tournaments in MLB DFS for now and tackle cash games!

Week 3 Results

Beginning Bankroll: $352

Cash Games Entered: 53

Tournaments Entered: 24

Winnings/Loss: -150

Ending Bankroll: $214