One of the most highly contested topics for baseball daily fantasy is the importance incorporating batter vs pitcher (BvP) stats when projecting the outcome of a game and making your lineups. The DFSDoctors are united in the stance that focusing on individual BvP is a fool’s errand, if for no other reason than the sample size available for any specific batter vs pitcher matchup is far too small to draw any definite conclusions.
We prefer to focus on how all batters with similar characteristics fair against all pitchers with similar characteristics when projecting, which we then apply to specific batter vs pitcher matchups.
We further strengthen our numbers by incorporating each fields park factors, which have a large effect on how each batter will perform vs a given pitcher.
MLB Stacking Strategy
A major error that many novice DFS players make is trying to select the best player for each position in their lineup according to statistics projecting what a player will finish with at year end. While the likes of Mike Trout, Josh Donaldson and Giancarlo Stanton may produce MVP caliber seasons year in and year out, they most definitely do not produce MVP caliber fantasy points day in and day out.
A far more effective method of accruing high fantasy point totals is to employ an MLB stacking strategy when building your contest entries. Such a strategy entails filling your lineup with multiple batters from each team in order to play off the point scoring correlation that occurs when runs are scored. Playing the same players from the same team will allow you to receive multiple fantasy points whenever a run is scored with a man on base.
We recommend employing a 2-2-2-2 stack for cash games, and either a 5-2-1 or 4-3-1 stack for guaranteed, or GPP, tournaments. Our MLB Strategy section has further tips on how to employ this winning method.
Baseball DFS Picks
Because of the pricing structure on all fantasy sites, you’ll need to employ further strategy to be able to properly exploit and execute a large stack without settling for a less than optimal pitcher. Therefore, you must study each lineup that is released before finalizing your contest entries.
Day in and day out you will see players priced at $2000-$3000 occupying positions in the top half of a batting lineup. This is where you will find your baseball DFS value picks that will allow you to complete a high ceiling entry.
As you must use 3 teams when constructing any lineup, use these affordable priced options to fill 2 or 3 spaces on your team. This will free up the money needed to load up on the expensive options. Find any breaking lineup information by checking our MLB Beat Writer pages or following one of our twitter lists which sort beat reporters by team.
Vegas MLB Odds
Once we’ve run our simulation for each game, we compare the output to the betting market to ensure that our numbers are not out of whack with the general consensus. The Vegas MLB Odds operate in such a way that a daily fantasy player can decipher the information provided when building a lineup or checking the accuracy of your projections.
While we believe our projections are of the utmost quality, we’re not so ignorant as to think that we are the smartest guys in the room. Extremely talented professional gamblers have spent years building, and protecting, the models which they use to project the true odds on a baseball game. If the betting market is wrong, you can rest assured these gamblers will bet large money until the line has shifted to where they think there is no edge. This is why the baseball lines are valuable, using the collective intelligence of a free market gives a fair insight in to each team’s chances of winning, and the total amount of runs to be scored in the game.
Daily fantasy players can use this insight to determine which players are priced fairly, which are overvalued, and which are undervalued.
