Opening Day for Major League Baseball is just around the corner, so we thought it would be a good idea to roll out a newsletter that covers a multitude of things to get everyone prepped for the season! Quickly, I’ll discuss what you can expect from the MLB newsletters, then transition into a couple tips on having a profitable MLB DFS season, what info and statistics you may find to be useful when doing your daily research, and finally I’ll highlight a few of the tools available on LineStar that can help you mold some winning lineups. Feel free to bookmark this to refer back to at any point in the season!

The MLB newsletters will be brought to you this season by myself, Ryan Humphries (@N1TRO on LineStar and @NitroDFS on Twitter) Monday thru Friday. Resident MLB expert Greg Landry (@glandry on LineStar and @GP_Landry on Twitter) will have you covered on the weekends! Our main goal will be to provide you with a reliable daily stepping-stone into every main slate by giving you an easily digestible preview and highlighting some of the most appealing or intriguing plays and team stacks. The specific newsletter format may evolve as the season progresses and we are always open to user feedback, so don’t hesitate to drop us a line either on Twitter or in the LineStar member chat.

MLB Strategy

For anyone new to trying out MLB DFS, you must realize that it is arguably the most volatile sport to play in daily leagues – very much on par with the likes of NHL. The best players in the game can have a dream match-up and wind up batting 0-4 while some minor league player who just got called up can go 3-4 with a home run and a swarm of RBI against a team’s ace pitcher. That’s just how the game works and it’s important not to get discouraged – the MLB regular season is 162 games and it is a grind! Stay diligent! Maintaining strict bankroll management is crucial and I recommend trying to stay between 2% and 5% (max) on your daily bankroll spend.

For me personally, I play mostly cash games (double-ups, triple-ups, 50/50s, head-to-heads) when it comes to MLB. Usually my daily bankroll allotment hovers around “75% : 25%” for “cash : GPPs” and I’m sure the newsletters I write will reflect a heavier cash game influence. I understand this may not be everyone’s preferred approach but I’m more interested in long term ROI by building around the guys in the most optimal spots as opposed to pulling the lever on the “contrarian slot machine” and hoping it hits in the top 0.005%. That’s not to say I don’t look for those high-upside GPP leverage plays but in such a statistically driven sport, I tend to entrust the majority of my money towards what makes the most sense.

This is also a sport where you will need to stay vigilant as the slate ‘lock’ time approaches. Similar to NBA, lineups can often be shuffled around and the possibility of an unexpected scratch is always present. Teams are typically pretty good about announcing lineups well ahead of their scheduled game times, so an unexpected scratch after a specific game locks is pretty rare, but just be aware that it does happen. Both DraftKings and FanDuel feature late swap so you’ll be covered if one of your late game players sits out but again, this requires you to stay on top of things throughout the day or evening!

Weather is also a huge factor in MLB. More scoring can be expected in stadium conditions that feature high altitude (which, as many are aware, is why games at Coors Field are always a popular DFS target), heavy humidity, and hotter air temperatures. Mix any of those conditions with winds blowing towards the outfield and you have a recipe for an ideal game to target. It’s also not unusual for multiple games on a slate to get delayed or even postponed due to heavy lingering rain or other occasional factors. There are several good sources for up-to-date MLB weather info, especially on Twitter, but LineStar also has you covered every day when you check out the MLB Daily Dashboard.

It’s also important to familiarize yourself with MLB DFS scoring and the scoring variations between the two main sites.

Pitching Strategy

Pitching is the most important part of MLB DFS due to pitchers having less variance than hitters and they will always be my top priority. So, what info and statistics do I want to look for when searching for the most ideal pitchers to roster?

> Vegas total and moneyline favorite.

• Pretty straightforward here. If a pitcher is a -200 favorite with <3.5 implied runs projected against their team they should clearly be in a good spot for that night and will often carry 7+ ‘innings pitched’ potential.

> kRate (aka Strikeout Percentage or K%)

• Strikeouts carry huge weight when it comes to DFS scoring for pitchers and you absolutely want guys with high K upside (six at minimum for your expensive pitchers) even if you think it means giving up a few hits/runs.

• I also prefer kRate over K/9 since kRate can indicate a more dominant/efficient pitcher.

For Example:

> Pitcher A: 7 IP, 7 H, 3 BB, 6K

> Pitcher B: 7 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 6K

• Both pitchers in this example have the same K/9 but Pitcher A faced 31 batters (19.4 K%) while Pitcher B only faced 25 batters (24.0 K%). It’s also important to take note of an opposing team’s kRate splits against RHPs/LHPs.

> xFIP (Expected Field Independent Pitching)

• xFIP is a further advanced stat on top of FIP that attempts to predict a more accurate future ERA for a pitcher. Just the standard ERA stat may not always tell the true story of a pitcher's skill. xFIP can help by trying to remove the “luck” and randomness factors that can dramatically alter a pitcher’s ERA. When a pitcher’s xFIP is much different from his ERA (especially early in the season) it can be a good way to find out if someone may be undervalued/overvalued. Example: if a pitcher’s ERA is 3.20 but he has an xFIP of 4.80, he could be getting “lucky” and is probably due to regress – could be considered overvalued.

• League average xFIP will usually be around 3.80. Anything below 3.20 could be considered excellent while anything around or above 4.30 would be considered poor.

> SIERA (Skill-Interactive ERA)

• As much as xFIP attempts to be a “catch all” statistic by predicting a pitcher's true skill by focusing on strikeouts, walks and home runs, SIERA further expands on pitcher skill prediction by factoring in balls in play. It attempts to explain why certain pitchers are more (or less) successful at limiting hits and preventing runs and has been proven to be very predictive of essentially every meaningful pitching statistic.

• League average SIERA will usually be around 3.90. Anything below 3.25 could be considered excellent while anything around or above 4.50 would be considered poor.

Team Stacking & How to Find Other Optimal Hitters

As I alluded to above, no matter how high of a price you pay for any given hitter, there is always a reasonable chance he will go 0-4 and give you a fat goose egg on the night. That’s just baseball DFS for ya. It’s also why selecting the more ideal pitchers, usually by paying up, can be more predictable and thus more important in the long run rather than taking a chance on several high dollar hitters.

Of course I’m not saying you always need to play ace pitchers and settle for a bunch of cheap bats. Sometimes paying up for some big bats in killer match-ups is just fine as long as you aren’t sacrificing too much on the mound – it’s always slate dependent. There’s also “team stacking." Stacking two to four, or even five players that are close to one another in their respective batting order is, of course, a very popular tactic in MLB DFS and is a good way to catch a bunch of production should a certain part of a team’s order get hot. Finding a pitcher who may be struggling and/or is generally in a tough spot is obviously the first way to find ideal teams to stack. But here is some other info and statistics that I look into for not only stacks but “one-off” hitters as well:

> Vegas implied run total.

• Again, this is pretty straightforward. Any team projected to score 5+ runs by the bookies would seem to make for a preferred team to stack up for offense.

> wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average)

• wOBA is one of the best “catch all” offensive statistics. Where batting average weighs all hits the same, wOBA weighs each aspect of hitting (singles, doubles, triples, home runs) proportionally to their actual run value and better illustrates a player’s overall offensive contribution.

> BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play)

• BABIP measures how often a ball in play goes for a hit. A ball is considered “in play” when a plate appearance ends in something other than a home run, sacrificed bunt, strikeout, walk, hit batter, or catcher’s interference. Around 30% of all balls in play fall for hits. Three factors influence BABIP: defense, luck, and skill level. To keep it short, BABIP helps determine if a player is getting unlucky/lucky or if he is falling victim to, or taking advantage of, strong/poor defense. A player’s seasonal BABIP can also be useful to compare to their career BABIP.

• Example: If a player has a career BABIP of .330 over the last three seasons but starts off this season with a .270 BABIP, then it is very likely that this player is either getting unlucky or facing tough defenses and he should be due to progress back towards that .330 average.

• The league average BABIP will stick around .300. The elite hitters will sport .350 or better while the worst hitters in the MLB will be around a .260 average.

> ISO (Isolated Power)

• ISO is a metric that gives you an idea of a hitter’s raw power and how often they hit for extra bases. It can be very useful particularly when building GPP lineups where you want players with major home run upside.

For Example:

> Player A: 10 ABs, 4 Singles, 0 HR

> Player B: 10 ABs, 0 Singles, 1 HR

• Player A has a .400 batting average and .400 slugging percentage but an ISO of .000. Player B has a .100 batting average and .400 slugging percentage but an ISO of .300. If you’re looking for major DFS scoring upside, Player B may be who you’d like to target for GPPs while Player A profiles as more of a safer cash game play.

In summary, there are dozens of different metrics and statistical categories in baseball and even more ways to use them in various DFS strategies – it’s easy for everything to seem overwhelming. Don’t let it bog you down too much, especially if you are new to the sport. At the end of the day, baseball relies heavily on luck and randomness, so no single approach is guaranteed to print out money. We just have to utilize whatever tools and information are at our disposal in an attempt to gain a theoretical edge on the field.

Speaking of utilizing tools, LineStar has plenty of them to help you out this season so don’t let ‘em go to waste!

The Daily Matchup feature is a fantastic way to visualize players that appear to be in the best/worst spots and every column is sortable. Also, you can quickly rotate between specific slates, pitchers, batters and their designated positions.

You can also see how your players are stacking up on every slate with LineStar’s nifty Live Scoring page!

Of course, the Lineup Builder & Optimizer (located on the “Projections” page on desktop) can be handy when you’re struggling to fill out a specific lineup. It is especially helpful when playing in MME (Massive Multi-Entry) tournaments and you want to quickly create a large amount of lineups instantly. There are several base models to choose from and plenty of other advanced sorting tools to help you fine tune your preferences.

These are just a few tools there to help you this season! LineStar is constantly evolving for the better and always open to your feedback. Simply DM @LineStarApp on Twitter or tag @LineStar in the chat!

Here’s to a profitable baseball season to everyone out there. Batter up!