By: Ryan Humphries | @N1TRO on LineStar | @Ryan_Humphries on Twitter

It hasn’t exactly been a quick or easy journey to this point in time, but we are finally just days away from baseball hitting off its Opening Day to the 2020 MLB season! Remember back in February when the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal was the main talking point heading into the MLB season? It seems as if we live in an entirely different world now than we did just a few months ago but, at the very least, having baseball and other sports returning back into our lives will give plenty of us all a taste of normalcy. With just a 60-game regular season on tap for this year, I’m really looking forward to how the playoff race ultimately shapes up. Playoff races come down to the wire each season and every game counts when there are 162 of ‘em. Every game will REALLY count with over 100 of those being taken away. That single aspect will give a whole new tournament-style atmosphere to the MLB this season and it’ll feel more like a sprint than a marathon. I’m extremely excited for it!

Here at LineStar, we are always looking to give subscribers an edge in any way possible so the purpose of this newsletter will be to share some MLB DFS strategies, tips, and other advice to help you turn your hard earned cash into, hopefully, a lot MORE cash. Whether you are a casual player looking to just throw out a couple bucks on a slate here and there or a grizzled veteran high roller who enters 150 lineups into large tournaments, it never hurts to get a bit of a refresher course for novice and highly experienced DFS players alike. Feel free to bookmark this newsletter to refer back to throughout the season. This is going to be a bit of a long read but if you feel like you may need the help, or if you’re just interested in finding out someone else’s approach to MLB DFS, then I urge you to read it through! Welcome back everyone… let’s get into it!

LineStar Daily Ledger Newsletters

For the 2020 MLB season, I will, once again, be doing the honors of writing the LineStar Daily Ledger newsletters. LineStar subscribers can expect an MLB newsletter for every main slate Monday thru Friday delivered to your inboxes and also linked atop the projections page for that day. Generally these will be posted at around 2 to 3 pm ET. My 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 plays and team stacks which I find most appealing or intriguing. To get an idea of what you can expect, feel free to skim through this random edition of the Daily Ledger from last year. I am weighing the possibility of adding some new minor segments for this season, such as providing a cash game core, posting a home run call of the day, a brief betting section, and perhaps more. However, I don’t intend to make the newsletters too ‘busy’ or convoluted, so for the most part they will presented in the format like the one I previously linked.

If you have potential suggestions or any other general questions or concerns, feel free to tag me in the LineStar chat @N1TRO or hit me up anytime on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries!

General 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 -- on par with the likes of NHL and soccer. The best players in the game can have a dream match-up and wind up batting 0-for-4 while some minor league player who just got called up the night before a game can go 3-for-4 with a home run and a swarm of RBI against a team’s ace pitcher. Some of baseball’s all time greats failed seven times out of ten every time they stepped up to the plate. That’s just how the game works and it’s important not to get discouraged, especially if you hit a bit of a ‘hitter’s slump’ yourself in DFS that lasts several days in a row. The MLB regular season may be shortened to 60 games this season instead of the normal 162 but, with daily slates for over two months, it is going to be a grind nonetheless. No MLB DFS player is going to be profitable every day, so maintaining strict bankroll management is crucial. I recommend trying to allocate between 5% and 15% (max) of your overall bankroll on each slate. I would also advise leaning towards the lower end of that spectrum for AT LEAST the first couple weeks of the season. Skill-wise, players can regress both positively and negatively year-to-year but relying on last season’s data and info is really all we have to go off of early on. It’ll take, at minimum, two to four weeks worth of games to really start getting an idea of how a player is going to perform in 2020.

Remember that baseball is a sport in which you will need to stay vigilant as the slate ‘lock’ time approaches. Similar to the NBA, starting lineups can often be shuffled around and the possibility of an unexpected scratch is always present (or a cheap lead-off hitter could be unexpectedly slotted into the order). 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 a fairly rare occurrence, but just be aware that it does happen. The fact that coronavirus exists will probably heighten these late scratch risks but hopefully those issues are few and far between. 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 and into the evening!

Also, be aware of the MLB DFS scoring system for your preferred site!

Cash Game Strategy

I’ll preface this by saying that there is no certified, cookie cutter method to playing DFS -- especially when it comes to baseball. Not everyone is going to agree with all aspects of my approach, and that is 100% fine! I’m simply going to highlight the methods and processes that nearly nine years of DFS experience have led me to utilizing. Side note: did anyone else play on DraftStreet.com back in the day???

For any given MLB slate, I lean towards allocating more money into cash games (double-ups, triple-ups, head-to-heads, 50/50s) than GPPs (guaranteed prize pools aka tournaments). In general, my daily bankroll spend will have around 60% invested into cash games, 40% in GPPs. While snagging that massive five or six figure payday is always a goal, the odds of it actually happening are slim. I’m more interested in long term ROI by building around the players 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 isn’t to say I don’t look for those high-upside GPP leverage plays but in such a statistically driven sport, I tend to prefer putting the majority of my money toward what makes the most sense, and my newsletters will often reflect that. But, to reiterate, I will still target GPP-centric plays to highlight in the newsletters.

A common strategy for cash games in any sport is to focus on just one lineup to enter into contests. I am no different in that regard when it comes to baseball. In a 100-player 50/50 contest, since 1st place gets paid out the same amount as 50th place, I never worry about potential ownership. It’s perfectly fine to have your cash lineup filled with chalky (highly owned) players, as most of the more obvious pitchers and hitters will be for any particular slate. Also if a player is, say, 40% owned in a double-up and puts up a dud performance, you are essentially protected from falling too far down in the standings -- so sometimes high ownership turns out to be a good thing. Playing a guy who was a considerably riskier option will obviously burn you much more in cash contests if he duds and is <5% owned. I will get more into ‘stacking’ in a moment, but when it comes to constructing your cash lineup for slates with a fair amount of games (at least six or seven) you should typically use mostly one-off hitters who are in excellent match-ups, preferably with a spot higher up in the batting order (1 thru 5). At most (in cash games) I would only stack two, maybe three players tops, who are on the same team.

A quick tip related to cash lineup construction: ALWAYS put your cash lineup into some sort of GPP just in case it ends up being full of the nut plays! Even if it’s just a $0.25 entry or something. It happens all the time where I’ll see someone say something like “I would’ve won $25,000 if I played my cash lineup with my tournament entries.” If you target the safest guys in your cash lineup, it would make sense that, eventually, it absolutely goes off, right? And many times players who you think are going to be chalk end up being <10% owned in GPPs. Just do it!

GPP Strategy: Team Stacking & Contest Selection

Team stacking is the most powerful approach you can take when building your GPP lineups. For those that may be unaware of what “stacking” entails, it is simply drafting two to five players who are on the same team and bat directly by, or near, one another in the lineup. Most people gravitate towards stacking guys towards the top of the order (1 thru 5) but you can really set yourself apart by including players who are further back in the order by going with something like batters 3-7 in a five man stack. An intriguing and often overlooked method is to create “wraparound stacks” such as playing the 8, 9, 1, 2, 3 batters, for example, but I’d usually lean towards reserving that for smaller slates. Utilizing the stacking approach in tournaments is often done using multiple teams. For instance, on DraftKings, a 4-4 stack would be four players stacked together from two separate teams but you can also make 5-3 stacks, 4-2-1 stacks, 3-3-2 stacks, and so on. It’s also alright if you want to skip over a specific batter, especially if you’re only trying to stack righties or lefties to take advantage of positive splits against LHPs or RHPs.

When determining what teams you want to stack, particularly if you’re including players towards the bottom of the order, it can sometimes be to your advantage to target road teams. This is because road teams are guaranteed to bat in the ninth inning no matter what. Obviously if the home team is winning after the top of the ninth inning, the game is over and players who were due up miss out on that extra at-bat. One extra at-bat can make all the difference, especially if you have multiple guys stacked who would have benefited from playing in the final inning.

Now, is stacking a MUST for GPPs? Absolutely not. Plenty of MLB DFS tournaments are won with lineups that have a bunch of one-off bats and maybe one or two mini two-man stacks. But if a baseball team goes off for 10+ runs on any given day, you can bet multiple pieces of that lineup will be found in GPP winning lineups.

This bit applies to all MLB DFS formats, but weather is also a huge factor in baseball and can help in predicting potential high or low scoring games. 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 (think Globe Life Park in Arlington). Mix any of those conditions with winds blowing towards the outfield and you have a recipe for an ideal game to target hitters in. It’s also not unusual for games to get delayed or even postponed due to heavy lingering rain or nearby lightning. 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.

One final thing I want to talk about here, which also applies to all contests but mostly GPPs, is contest selection. Don’t feel obligated to get sucked into those huge tournaments with six figure payouts and 150-max entries allowed. If you’re someone who likes to stick to one lineup, or perhaps a bit more, then take advantage of contests like single entry tournaments or 3-entry max. The disadvantage you are at if you have far less than 150 lineups entered into a 150-max contest is very significant. Many people also don’t expand their contest selection horizons and miss out on certain ones like quintuple-ups, 10x multipliers, and winner-take-alls.

So, taking much of what I’ve talked about so far, here is a general example of what my personal contest selection would look like if I wanted to play $50 on DraftKings:

Cash Games ($30 total):

$25 SE (single entry) Double-Up

$5 Triple-Up

GPPs ($20 total):

$5 to max enter a $0.25 GPP (20 lineups)

$9 in a three-entry max $3 GPP (Three lineups)

$3 in a three-entry max $1 winner-take-all - $100 to 1st (Three lineups)

$3 in three $1 quintuple-ups

Again, this is just an example of what I would do. If you have different ideas on what contests you think you should enter, I am not going to argue! At the end of the day, play how you want while being aware that DFS is simply inherently risky.

Key Statistics & Other Info to Focus On

The sport of baseball, while simple at its core, has dozens and dozens of statistical categories that get recorded. At the end of the day, there is a vast amount of randomness to this game which will never be possible to foresee, but stats and other info can certainly assist in providing a semblance of a predictive edge. In this section, I’ll hit on what information I believe to be of the most help when building a player pool for MLB lineups.

LineStar does an excellent job at showing you pretty much all of the most important baseball stats that you could ask for but if they included every one of them, things would get pretty cluttered and possibly overwhelming. If you really want to get down and dirty with other numbers and data or look at how a player is doing in a very specific time frame or something like that, a free resource I recommend using is FanGraphs. Pairing the vast amount of data provided there with LineStar essentially gives you pretty much everything you could ever need for MLB DFS research in my opinion.

Pitching ⚾

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. Your lineup can still land inside the cash line with a bad performance from two or three batters but if your pitcher(s) get shelled, the chances of still cashing drop drastically. So, what info and statistics do I want to look for when searching for the most ideal pitchers to roster?

Vegas Totals & Moneyline Favorites

Pretty straightforward here. If a pitcher is a -200 favorite with <3.5 implied runs projected against his team, then they should clearly be in a good spot for that night.

kRate (aka Strikeout Percentage or K%)

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

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

For Example:

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

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

Both pitchers have the same K/9 but Pitcher A faced 31 batters (19.4% kRate) while Pitcher B only faced 25 batters (24% kRate). 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 and could be considered overvalued and risky.

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 while focusing on strikeouts, walks and homeruns, 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.

WHIP (Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched)

A pitcher’s fundamental role is to limit runs which is most obviously done by preventing base runners. As such, knowing the average number of walks and hits per inning a guy gives up is quite useful. Since the WHIP stat weighs a walk the same as a home run, it definitely isn’t a ‘catch-all’ kind of metric but it is a solid starting point when researching various pitchers on any given slate.

An average pitcher’s WHIP will be somewhere around 1.30. A 1.00 WHIP (or lower) could be considered elite while a 1.60+ WHIP is awful.

Batting 💥

As I alluded to above, no matter how high of a price you pay for any given hitter, there is always a reasonable chance they will go 0-for-4 and give you a fat goose egg on the night. That’s just baseball for ya and an aspect of MLB DFS that you’ll have to live with. But that is also why selecting the more ideal pitchers, usually by paying up, can be the most predictable path to fantasy points and thus more important in the long run, as opposed to taking a chance on several high-dollar hitters. Of course, that isn’t to say you always need to play expensive ace pitchers and settle for a bunch of cheap bats. Many times paying up for several big bats in killer match-ups is perfectly fine as long as you aren’t sacrificing too much at pitcher. But here is some other info and stats that I look into for not only finding candidates for team stacks but for one-off hitters to build around as well:

Note: It may be obvious, but you can use all the stats and info that I mentioned with pitching above to find bad or struggling pitchers to play hitters against. The same is true for the stats and info below when targeting pitchers versus individual batters and teams who lack in the following metrics…

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 strong 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. This is my go-to statistic I pay attention to when looking for cash-safe hitters.

An average wOBA is around .320. Elite hitters will sport a wOBA of .400+ while the worst hitters will have a wOBA of .290 or lower.

ISO (Isolated Power)

ISO is a pretty straightforward stat as well. It 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.

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.

Some of the most elite power hitters will have an ISO of .250 or above. An average ISO will be around .140 and a poor ISO would be 0.100 or lower.

Splits vs. RHPs/LHPs

It is pretty well known that for the vast majority of players, right-handed batters tend to struggle more against right-handed pitchers and, of course, the same is true for LHBs vs. LHPs. There are several factors for why these splits exist, which I won’t really get too deep into, but a major reason is because hitters tend to read pitches better when they are breaking towards them on the inside of the plate, rather than away. There are some exceptions in which the opposite is true. Those players are referred to as “reverse splits hitters/pitchers.” Whether they exhibit reverse-splits or traditional split tendencies, it can be very useful to look into a player’s righty/lefty splits to see if they have a potential advantageous match-up versus the opposing starting pitcher. It’s also worth mentioning that switch hitters almost always hit noticeably better from one side of the plate over the other. When team stacking, I will often stack one side of the plate if the amount of a split advantage appears high enough to make it seem worth it. The main caveat here is the fact that a pitcher could get pulled early and a batter could end up with unfavorable bullpen match-ups for much of the game. However, if he is a determining factor as to why the starting pitcher got yanked, then you probably won’t feel compelled to complain too much.

wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus)

wRC+ is a terrific stat that shows just how impactful a player is for his respective team and very accurately indicates their overall offensive value. Similar to wOBA, wRC+ attempts to better credit a hitter for more valuable hits (doubles, triples, and home runs) but what sets this metric apart is that it takes into account park factors and the current scoring climate in baseball at any given time. This stat is scaled each year so that a wRC+ of 100 is precisely league average. Every point above or below that is one percentage point better or worse than league average. The most elite hitters will hold a wRC+ of 160 or better and the worst hitters will have a wRC+ of 60 or below. And, again, a 100 wRC+ is exactly average.

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 when compared 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 after the first two weeks, then it is very likely that this player is either getting unlucky or they’re facing tough defenses and 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 .260.

Bullpen Strength

This is an often overlooked aspect in MLB DFS. When considering batters and their pitching match-up, most people really only weigh the quality of the opposing starter. These days, a starting pitcher can typically be estimated to pitch 5 or 6 innings but that still leaves about a third of innings to be handled by relievers. If a particular bullpen is struggling then that is a potential one or two at-bats that a hitter will have against below average or simply outright bad pitching. If the initial starter gets shellacked early, then the majority of the game could be against the bullpen. This can be where low-owned stacks really thrive if they can manage to go off early.

LineStar MLB Tools

Hopefully I didn't put too many people to sleep with all of the statistical yadda yadda. In summary, there are just so many 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 volatility, 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 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) GPP tournaments and you want to quickly create a large amount of lineups instantaneously. There are several base models to choose from and plenty of other advanced sorting tools to help you fine tune your preferences. Simply configure your preferences, generate lineups, and export them to your preferred DFS site. It may take some experimentation on your part, but eventually you can come across a system that works more specifically for you!

Check out ownership projections which updates once a slate goes live!

And of course on the main Projections Page you will have full access to player projections, historical player fantasy performances, positive & negative trends, the ability to sort through things like "most loved" players as voted on by LineStar users, detailed advanced statistical sorters, community chat, recent MLB news, and much, much more!

These are just some of the tools LineStar provides for your arsenal. Be sure to familiarize yourself with everything you have here at your disposal! LineStar is constantly evolving for the better and always open to your feedback and other inquiries. Simply DM @LineStarApp on Twitter or tag @LineStar in the chat!

🔊 The LineStar DFS On Deck Podcast is back! Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Here’s to a profitable baseball season to everyone out there! Thanks for reading. I hope everyone is staying safe out there in the world. Now let's play some ball!