Rounding the Bases | LineStar’s 2023 MLB DFS Primer & Strategy Guide ⚾

Spring training is on its way out and, with that, a new and exciting MLB season is set to begin! Thursday, March 30th will signify Opening Day 2023 with all 30 teams taking the field. To all my fellow MLB and DFS fanatics, it’s officially time to get back into the swing of things!

Does late-season NBA DFS have you pulling your hair out? Maybe you’re looking to fill a void that NFL DFS has left behind? Is NHL/PGA/UFC/NASCAR DFS just not really your thing? Well, if you haven’t ventured into this territory before, now is a great time to expand your horizons and enter the world of MLB DFS!

Here at LineStar, we are always looking to give subscribers an edge in any capacity possible. As you can tell by the title of this article, the purpose here will be to get you primed for a brand new baseball season while sharing some MLB DFS strategies, tips, and other advice to help you turn your hard-earned cash into, hopefully, much MORE cash. We’ll also touch on some of the new MLB rule changes and how they may impact our DFS strategy this season. Whether you are a new or casual player looking to only throw a couple of bucks on a slate here and there or you’re a grizzled high-rolling DFS veteran who enters 150 lineups into large tournaments every day, it never hurts to shake the mental cobwebs loose and 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 later on – otherwise, you can find it linked in the header of the daily newsletters for a good portion of this season.

Fair warning, this is going to be a long read, but if you feel like you may need the help, or if you’re simply interested in finding out an approach to MLB DFS which may be different from your own, then I urge you to read it through!

Welcome back to baseball, everyone! Let’s crush it this season!

LineStar Daily Ledger Newsletters & YouTube Content

For the 2023 MLB season, I’m thrilled to have the honor of writing the LineStar Daily Ledger newsletters for the fifth consecutive year. LineStar subscribers can expect an MLB newsletter for every main slate, Monday through Friday. These will be delivered to your email inboxes and simultaneously linked atop the projections page on both the app and desktop site. Generally, these will be sent out and posted around 3 pm ET – roughly four hours before the slate starts up.

My main goal with the MLB newsletters will be to provide readers with a reliable daily introduction to every main slate by giving you an easily digestible slate overview. This will include hitting on Vegas spreads and implied team totals, mentioning any potential impactful weather, briefly talking about any major MLB news/trades/injuries and, of course, spotlighting some of the slate’s top pitchers, team stacks, one-off hitters, and value hitters which I find most appealing or intriguing. We’ll also add some fun stuff in as well like my MLB PrizePicks power play of the day and home run calls of the day from myself, Tyler Wiemann, and Shannon Sommerville! Folks who retweet the “Home Run Calls of the Day” will have a chance to win some great prizes! Tyler and Shannon will also be recording two daily YouTube videos, one for DFS and one for player props. These videos will be linked within the newsletter as well but be sure to subscribe to the LineStar YouTube channel for all of the latest content!

If you have potential suggestions on what you’d like to see added or changed about the newsletters, or if you have any other general questions or concerns, feel free to tag me in the LineStar chat or hit me up anytime on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries!

General MLB Strategy

For anyone new to MLB DFS, you must realize that it is arguably the most volatile sport to play in daily leagues. One of the best players in the game could have a dream match-up against a poor starting pitcher in a terrific hitter’s ballpark and end up batting 0-for-4 on the night while some unheralded 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 RBIs against a team’s ace pitcher. Most of baseball’s all-time greats failed 70% of the time when they stepped up to the plate. That’s just how the game works and it’s important not to get discouraged if you go on a bit of a DFS hitter’s slump yourself where you just can’t seem to pick the right hitters/pitchers for several days in a row. Remember the MLB regular season is a 162-game marathon and a total grind -- no MLB DFS player is going to be profitable every day.

With that in mind, maintaining strict bankroll management is absolutely crucial if you’re entering with the mindset of maintaining long-term ROI. I recommend allocating between 5% and 15% (max) of your overall bankroll toward each main slate you’re planning to play. I would also advise leaning toward the lower end of that percentage range for AT LEAST the first couple of weeks of the season. Players can regress both positively and negatively year-to-year for a number of reasons; perhaps they joined a new team and are hitting in a better/worse hitter’s ballpark, maybe they suffered or recovered from a significant injury, or they altered something with their swing mechanics in the off-season, etc. Relying on data and info from previous seasons is really all we have to go off of early on – though we can make some educated assessments from spring training performances as well. It will take, at minimum, two to four weeks' worth of games before we begin to get a general grasp on how a hitter is going to perform in 2023. And this sort of “what kind of player are they this season?” time frame is even longer than that for starting pitchers since they typically only pitch once every five games. I feel much more comfortable in the current season’s data once hitters get about 20 games and 60-80 at-bats in. For pitchers, I’d say four to five starts and 25-30 innings pitched is a reasonable enough sample size that we can begin to trust as well.

Remember that baseball is a sport in which you will need to stay vigilant as the slate lock time approaches. Similar to the NBA, MLB starting lineups can often be shuffled around, and the possibility of an unexpected last-minute scratch is always present. Value can also open up in this situation if a talented cheap hitter is unexpectedly bumped up into the heart of the order or at the lead-off spot. Most MLB 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 very rare occurrence, but just be aware that it does happen. Both DraftKings and FanDuel provide a late swap feature, so you’ll be covered if one of your late-game players ends up sitting out (if it is announced in time), but again, this requires you to stay on top of things throughout the day and into the evening!

Also, as a general rule of thumb, be aware of the MLB DFS scoring system for your preferred site!

MLB Rule Changes & What Affect They May Have on DFS

The MLB is implementing some major rule changes in this upcoming season that will have a noticeable impact on the game. The most notable changes include a pitch clock, defensive shift restrictions, larger bases, and a limit on pick-off attempts. Without getting into any sort of lengthy discussion, let’s give a quick run-through of the major changes and how they may affect things from a DFS perspective -- ranked from most impactful to least.

1. Larger Bases & Pick-Off Limits

The 90 feet between bases becomes just a bit shorter in 2023. The sizes of the first, second, and third bases will increase from 15 inches square to 18 inches square. This will reduce the distance between first and second base (and second and third base) by 4.5 inches. That may not seem like a big difference at first, but when you consider how many “bang bang” plays happen at first base or on throw-out attempts at second base, the larger bases are going to have a significant impact. On top of this, pitchers will be limited to two pick-off attempts per plate appearance without facing a penalty. If a pitcher attempts an unsuccessful third pick-off attempt, the pitcher will be penalized with a balk. The increase in base sizes and limits on pick-off attempts will work hand-in-hand in leading to a major increase in stolen base attempts. That will put an additional DFS premium on speedy players who are more likely to be aggressive on the base paths and rack up more stolen bases this season. The increase in stolen bases has been extremely evident in MLB spring training games this year (see tweet below).

2. Defensive Shift Restrictions

Beginning this season, there must be two infielders positioned on each side of second base and all four infielders must have their feet on the infield. While this doesn’t eliminate shifts altogether, you will no longer see a third baseman playing defense in short right field. Offensively, left-handed batters will no longer lose out on some potential base hits when they smack a hard-hit grounder through the right side of the infield. It’s a welcomed change for left-handed hitters across the league and we’ll definitely see some lefty batting averages go on the rise compared to previous seasons.

3. Pitch Clock

The new pitch clock may be considered the biggest change in baseball but, among the new rules, it should have the lowest impact for DFS purposes. The main intention behind the new pitch clock is to speed up the game. And, based on the spring training games, it has helped decrease the average MLB game duration by about 25 minutes. There are some further details to the new pitch clock rules, some of which also include the batter and the catcher, but the main gist is that pitchers will have 20 seconds to deliver their pitches when runners are on base, and 15 seconds when the bases are empty. Most players will be able to make this adjustment without many hiccups, but there will no doubt be a few crazy pitch clock moments that impact close games at some point during this season. Stay tuned!

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 a dozen years of DFS trials and tribulation have led me to utilize.

For any given MLB slate, I lean towards allocating more money into cash games (double-ups, triple-ups, head-to-heads, 50/50s) as opposed to GPPs (guaranteed prize pools aka tournaments). For most slates, my daily bankroll spend will have around 60-70% invested into cash games, and 30-40% into GPPs and other non-cash game contests. However, occasionally, I will go all out in ‘tournament mode’ and throw 100% of my daily expenditure into GPPs if a particular slate has more of a GPP feel to it. 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 one of my lineups hits in the top 0.005%. This isn’t to say that I don’t chase after 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 the Daily Ledger newsletters will often reflect that. But, to reiterate, I will still target plenty of contrarian GPP-centric plays to highlight throughout the newsletters.

A common strategy for cash game formats in any sport is to focus on building one specific cash game lineup to enter into cash contests. I am no different in that regard when it comes to baseball. In something like a 100-player 50/50 contest, since 1st place gets paid out the same amount of money as 50th place, I never worry about potential ownership in my cash lineup. It’s perfectly fine to have your cash lineup filled with the more obvious and chalky (highly owned) players. Also if a player is, say, 50% owned in a double-up and posts 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 that feature a fair amount of games (at least six or seven) you should typically run mostly one-off hitters or mini-stacks (two or three batters on the same team) who are in excellent match-ups, preferably with a spot higher up in the batting order (1 thru 5). I will personally seldom have four or five hitters on the same team in my cash lineup build.

Quick advice related to cash lineups: ALWAYS throw that lineup into some sort of GPP just in case it ends up being full of the nut plays! Even if it’s just a buck. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone say something along the lines of “Damnit! I would’ve won $25,000 if I played my cash lineup with my tournament entries.” If you target the ‘safest’ guys in the best match-ups for your cash lineup, it would make sense that, eventually, that lineup absolutely crushes top to bottom, right? And, many times, some players in your cash lineup who you believe are going to be super chalky end up being <10% owned in GPPs. There’s no excuse to not throw that cash lineup into some kind of tourney that has nice payout potential. Trust me, just do it!

GPP Strategy: Team Stacking & Contest Selection

Team stacking is the single most powerful strategy you can deploy when building your MLB GPP lineups. For those that may be unaware of what “stacking” in MLB DFS refers to, it is simply drafting two to five hitters into the same lineup who are on the same team and bat directly by, or near, one another in their batting order. When stacking several hitters on the same team, the hope is obviously for that particular team to smack a slew of hits (preferably of the extra base variety) and post up plenty of runs on the board. In an ideal scenario, the guys you stack in a DFS lineup will get on base while other guys in your lineup pick up some RBIs by batting them in. It all comes down to accruing as many fantasy points as possible and a successful stack will do just that!

Most people gravitate towards stacking guys near the top of the lineup (1 thru 5) – and it makes sense as that’s often where the best hitters are going to bat in the order – 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, and 3 batters, for example. But I’d usually lean towards reserving that strategy for smaller slates when it is much more difficult to build unique GPP lineups.

Utilizing the stacking approach in tournaments is often done by using multiple teams. For instance, on DraftKings, a 4-4 stack would be four batters stacked together from two separate teams – but you can also build 5-3 stacks, 4-3 stacks with a one-off hitter, 3-3-2 stacks, 2-2-2-2 stacks, and so on. It’s also alright if you want to skip over a specific batter in the order, especially if you’re only trying to stack righty or lefty batters to take advantage of positive splits against LHPs or RHPs – aka “platoon splits.”

When determining what teams you want to stack, particularly if you’re including players toward the bottom of the order, it can occasionally be to your advantage to target road teams. This is because road teams are guaranteed to bat in the 9th inning no matter what. Most are aware of how this works, but for those who don’t know, home teams bat in the bottom of each inning of the game. If the home team is winning after the top of the 9th inning, there is no point for them to hit in the bottom of the 9th and the game is over. Players who were due up will miss out on that extra at-bat. One extra at-bat can make all the difference, especially if you have multiple guys consecutively stacked who would have benefited from hitting in the final inning. But do note, this doesn’t sway me off of stacking home teams… it’s just a small plus to rostering road team stacks.

Finding low-owned stacks will also give you a pretty clear advantage in GPPs in terms of being contrarian. Hardly anyone is going to take a chance on stacking a team that is facing a pitcher like Justin Verlander or Jacob deGrom (when he’s healthy). But while those guys are world-class pitchers, they’re facing literally the best hitters in the world as well. Aces get rocked quite regularly so, if you’re willing to take on the added risk, then don’t hesitate to throw one of those “against the grain stacks” into a lineup. If you want to talk to the MLB stack guru, be sure to hit up our boy @ZeroInDenver in the LineStar chat to get his insights!

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

This bit applies to both GPP and cash MLB DFS formats alike, but the weather is also a significant factor in baseball and can help in predicting potential high or low-scoring games. Extra scoring can be expected in stadiums that are placed at high altitudes where the air is thinner and balls carry further – as many know, this is why games at Coors Field (elevation: 5,200 feet) are always a popular DFS target. High humidity and hotter air temperatures (think somewhere like Truist Park in Atlanta during the summer) can also help baseballs travel further. Mix any of those conditions with winds blowing toward the outfield and you have a recipe for an ideal game to target hitters in. You can also apply the inverse logic to upgrade or downgrade pitchers. Cool temperatures in the 40s or 50s with winds blowing in at 15+ mph? That would be a great pitching environment. It’s also not unusual for games to get delayed or even postponed due to heavy rain that lingers or nearby lightning. As mentioned above, in the newsletters I will be sure to go over the games which possess the most notable weather impacts but plenty can change in the hours between when I write/submit my article and when the games actually start! There are several quality sources for up-to-date MLB weather info out there, especially on Twitter, but LineStar also has you covered every day when you check out the MLB Daily Dashboard. At the bottom of every game’s lineup card, you will find up-to-date hour-by-hour forecasts as well as postponement risk percentages (see below).

One final thing I want to discuss in this section, which also applies to all contest formats, 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 either a single lineup or less than a handful of lineups, then take advantage of contests like single-entry tournaments or three-entry max. You’re at a significant disadvantage if you have far less than 150 lineups entered into a GPP contest that allows 150-max entries. Many people also don’t expand their horizons when it comes to contest selection and they end up missing out on certain formats like quintuple-ups, 10x multipliers, winner-take-alls, satellites, etc. If your preference is to throw one lineup into the largest GPP of the day which features a $100k payout to first place and leave it at that, then I won’t stop ya. Just know that it’s probably not the safest approach for long-term ROI.

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 on a normal-sized slate (6+ games) if I wanted to play, say, $100 on DraftKings:

Cash Game Bankroll Allocation ($60 total):

$25 SE (single entry) Double-Up

$10 SE Double-Up

$5 SE Double-Up

$10 Head-to-Head Contest

$10 Triple-Up

GPP Bankroll Allocation ($40 total):

$12 Single Entry GPP

$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 (usually using my cash game lineup)

$8 allocated for random contest entries (perhaps a single bullet entry into a large $8 GPP or some entries into a low-dollar satellite contest)

Again, this is just a general example of what I would do personally. My contest selection changes quite a bit from slate to slate, especially if a specific slate feels best suited for a more GPP-heavy approach. If you have different ideas on what contests you believe you should enter, I am not going to argue! At the end of the day, have fun and play how you want while being aware that DFS is simply inherently risky.

Key Statistics & Other Research Info to Focus On

These days, the sport of baseball, while simple at its core, has dozens upon dozens of different recorded statistics and metrics. Ultimately, there is a vast amount of randomness to this game that will never be possible to foresee or predict. And, after all, unpredictability is part of the beauty of baseball. However, stats and other information can assist in providing us with at least a sliver of a predictive edge. That edge can sometimes be all the difference in MLB DFS. In the sections below, I’ll hit on what information I believe to be of the most help whether you’re building one lineup or 100+. You’ll see every one of the metrics listed below mentioned in the daily newsletters throughout the season.

LineStar does an excellent job at showing you 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 for some. If you really want to get down and dirty with other numbers, data, and splits, two free resources I recommend using are FanGraphs.com and baseballsavant.mlb.com. If you’ve never used FanGraphs or baseballsavant, it can take some time to get used to (and those sites are much easier to navigate on a laptop or desktop), but feel free to DM me on Twitter if you need any help. Pairing the vast amount of data provided there along with all of the info and tools provided by LineStar will essentially give you just about everything you could possibly need for daily MLB research.

Key Pitching Info & Metrics ⚾

When I go to build my MLB lineups, I tend to figure out which pitchers I want exposure to first before moving on to my decisions on hitters and stacks. This is due to pitchers generally carrying less variance than hitters on a day-to-day basis. Below you’ll find what stats and info I find to be most helpful when narrowing down my list of preferred pitchers.

Primary Pitching Stats & Info

This is the go-to information that helps me find preferred pitching plays and will be the most common things you’ll see referenced in the daily newsletters.

Vegas Totals & Moneyline Favorites

Pretty straightforward here. If a pitcher is taking the mound for a team that is something like a -250 favorite with <3.5 implied runs projected to be scored against his team, then that pitcher should clearly be in an excellent spot for that particular night. Typically, only high-level aces will garner those sorts of odds and implied runs against. Still, an SP in a solid spot will garner around -170 moneyline odds and <4.5 implied runs against. Odds to win and implied run totals are not what you have to live or die by when building a player pool for your pitchers but it is always a solid jumping-off point for research purposes. The lines set by major sportsbooks are done via complex algorithms made with the most detailed and extensive information available so it can be wise to weigh their importance accordingly!

kRate (aka Strikeout Percentage or K%)

Strikeouts carry the most weight when it comes to DFS scoring for pitchers and you want guys with high K upside in your lineups. I can live with pitchers who will likely give up a few hits and some runs here and there if it means that they can provide double-digit strikeout upside.

I also prefer the kRate stat 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. A low strikeout pitcher can see a significant boost in his K upside if the opposing team is prone to striking out at a high rate.

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. The standard ERA stat can be quite misleading and 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 or 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. For DFS purposes, he could be considered overvalued and riskier than someone with a 4.15 ERA but a 3.40 xFIP.

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.

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 that a guy gives up is quite useful. Since the WHIP stat weighs a walk the same as a home run, it 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.

SwStr% (Swinging Strike Percentage)

SwStr% is calculated by taking swings and misses from opposing batters and dividing that by their total pitches thrown. SwStr% is important because it can help indicate how unhittable a pitcher is and show whether or not their kRate is over or underperforming. Generally, you can double a pitcher’s SwStr% and that’s about where their kRate should be.

League average SwStr% will be around 10%. Anything above 14% is elite and anything below 8.5% would be poor.

CSW% (Called + Swinging Strike Percentage)

CSW% is a more newly developed metric but it is pretty straightforward. To get a pitcher’s CSW% you simply add their Swinging Strike Percentage (SwStr%) with their Called Strike Percentage (CStr%). An elite level CSW% (also referred to as “Called Strikes plus Whiffs”) will indicate a pitcher who is not only highly unhittable but also someone who has excellent control over the strike zone.

Pitchers who have a CSW% near or above 30% are typically the guys you will want in your DFS lineups.

Secondary Pitching Stats & Info

I will occasionally use the stats/info below to further dig into pitchers for a specific slate and these stats will sometimes be referenced in the daily newsletters.

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 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. A lower SIERA correlates strongly with a higher strikeout rate as well.

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.

GB% (Ground Ball %), FB% (Fly Ball %), LD % (Line Drive %)

These metrics can help indicate what “type” of pitcher a particular pitcher is. Not every pitcher has to fall under the category of “ground ball pitcher” or “fly ball pitcher” but many do. Additionally, since line drives go for hits far more often than GBs & FBs, rostering pitchers with a high LD% can be a dangerous investment. Ground balls go for hits more often than fly balls, but when fly balls do fall for hits, they go for extra-base hits more often than ground ball hits do.

Average GB% among pitchers is around 44%. A pitcher is considered a “ground ball pitcher” when they reach above 50% GB%.

Average FB% among pitchers is around 35%. A pitcher is considered a “fly ball pitcher” when they reach near or above a 40% FB%.

Average LD% among pitchers is about 20%. A pitcher with an LD% significantly higher than that is likely having a bad time.

Note: I’ll get into Hard% below in the batting section, but a fly ball pitcher with a Hard% near or above 40% is someone you may want to target against using opposing power hitters. Those pitchers are more likely to give up home runs.

Soft%, Med%, Hard% (Soft/Medium/Hard Contact Rate)

Quality of Contact Stats (Soft%, Med%, and Hard%) represent the percentage of a hitter or pitcher’s batted balls that have been hit with a certain amount of authority. These percentages are based on data from Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) and, unfortunately, the exact algorithm is proprietary to BIS but the basics of it come down to a calculation based on hang time, location, and general trajectory. Generally, the more soft contact a pitcher creates, the better. Meanwhile, the more hard contact a pitcher allows, the more trouble they could get into.

A Soft% near or above 20% could be considered elite. Meanwhile, a Hard% near or above 35% could be considered poor.

HR/FB Rate (Home Run to Fly Ball Rate) & HR/9 (Home Runs Allowed Per 9 Innings Pitched)

The quickest way for a pitcher’s fantasy points to take a nosedive is by giving up home runs, especially HRs that score multiple runs. HR/FB Rate helps show the ratio of home runs given up by a pitcher for every fly ball they allow. The HR/9 stat simply shows how many home runs a pitcher has allowed on average per nine innings pitched.

An HR/FB Rate of around 5% could be considered excellent. League average HR/FB Rate will be around 9.5% while anything at or above a 13% HR/FB Rate could be considered awful.

As for HR/9, anything below 1.00 HR/9 is quite strong and obviously the lower the better. Once pitchers get close to allowing about 1.50+ HR/9, they become guys you may want to target with opposing power hitters – especially if those pitchers are throwing in a good hitter’s park with hot/humid weather and/or winds blowing out.

Key Batting Info & Metrics

As I alluded to above, no matter how high of a price you pay for any given hitter or what kind of hot streak they’re on, there is always a realistic chance they will go 0-for-4 on the night and lay a big, fat, rotten goose egg on your lineup. That’s just baseball for ya and an aspect of MLB DFS that you’ll have to live with. With that said, 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 many of 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 hitting stats and info below when targeting pitchers versus teams who are struggling in specific metrics.

Example: If a team is posting a 28% kRate and a sub-.300 wOBA against right-handed pitchers over the last month, it’s probably a good idea to consider any (talented) opposing RHP they may be going up against.

Primary Batting Stats & Info

This is the go-to information that helps me find preferred stacks and one-off hitters and will be the most common data and metrics you’ll see referenced in the daily newsletters.

Vegas Implied Run Total

Again, this is as straightforward as it gets. Any team projected to score 5.0+ runs by the sportsbooks would seem to make for a strong offensive team to target. When teams are really hot or in a great spot, they could carry a 6.0+ implied run total. It also won’t be uncommon for the Colorado Rockies and visiting teams to carry implied run totals near or above 7.0 runs when Coors Field is in play… especially when the weather warms up in late spring and throughout the summer.

Ballpark/Weather Factor

This was hit on above, but if a team is in a hitter’s ballpark or might receive a boost from hot/humid weather with winds blowing out, they’re an offense to consider (sometimes even if they’re going up against a top-level pitcher). If you click here you can see a ranking of the best and worst hitter’s parks from last season.

wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average)

wOBA is one of the best “catch-all” offensive statistics available. 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, particularly 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.

wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus)

wRC+ is a terrific stat that I love referring to on a daily basis in the MLB newsletters. As much as I nerd out on all of these different numbers, stats, and analytics, quick mental math is not my strong suit and that is where wRC+ comes in to simplify things. wRC+ shows just how impactful a player is for his respective team and very accurately indicates their overall offensive value when compared to the league average. 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 the league at any given time. This stat is scaled each year so that a wRC+ of 100 is precisely the league average. Every point above or below that is one percentage point better or worse than the league average.

So it’s a metric that helps you visualize a player’s effectiveness via some super simple mental math. If a batter is posting a 140 wRC+ then he is essentially providing 40% more offensive run value than the average hitter in the MLB at that present time.

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 league average no matter what.

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 H, 4 Singles, 0 HR

Player B: 10 ABs, 1 H, 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 option.

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 delve too deep into, but the primary reason is that hitters tend to read pitches better when they are breaking toward 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 potentially advantageous match-up versus the opposing starting pitcher they are set to face on any given night. 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, it should not be uncommon to stack one side of the plate if the 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 hitter (or a stack of hitters) could end up with unfavorable bullpen match-ups for much of the game. However, if that hitter (or hitters) is a determining factor as to why the starting pitcher got pulled (e.g. your team stack shelled the opposing SP for seven hits, two homers, and five runs in the first two innings), then your lineup is not likely to suffer too much.

Secondary Batting Stats & Info

I will occasionally use the stats/info below to further dig into batters for a specific slate and they will be referenced in the daily newsletters, though likely not as often as the metrics and info mentioned in the section above.

HardHit% (Hard-hit Rate)

Hard-hit Rate is a borderline primary stat for me and one that I will reference quite a bit in my own daily research as well as in the newsletters. HardHit% is a bit different from Hard% (Hard Contact Rate) and in a way, it helps illustrate a hitter’s power somewhat similarly to ISO, but by different means. Essentially a baseball is considered a “hard hit” ball if the exit velocity off of the bat is 95 MPH or above. That 95 MPH threshold is statistically proven to be the general starting point where exit velocity drastically starts to improve a hitter’s batting average and extra-base/home run upside. Historically, balls that are hard-hit result in above a .500+ batting average and .600+ wOBA.

An elite HardHit% would be above 50%, an average HardHit% would be about 40% and anything below 30% would be considered poor.

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, balk, 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 defenses. A player’s seasonal BABIP can also be useful when compared to their career BABIP or their BABIP spanning across recent seasons.

Example: If a player has a BABIP of .330 across their last three seasons but starts 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 a .350 BABIP or better while the worst hitters in the MLB will be around or below .260.

Opposing Bullpen Strength

This is an often overlooked aspect in MLB DFS. When considering batters and their pitching match-ups, most people only weigh the quality of the opposing starter. These days, a starting pitcher can typically be estimated to pitch 5 or 6 innings so 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 (of course the opposite can be true against strong bullpens). If the initial starter gets shellacked early, then the majority of a team’s at-bats in the game could come against the bullpen. If it’s a bad bullpen, this can be where low-owned stacks thrive if they do manage to go off early against the starter.

You also have to consider the fact that many teams without a cemented five-man pitching rotation will elect to run with an “opener + long reliever/bullpen” strategy. As in, their SP will pitch only one or two innings, by design, and will often be followed by a long reliever (who would usually be expected to pitch anywhere from two to five innings) or either just a platoon of bullpen arms who pitch an inning or less apiece for the rest of the game. In that scenario, it can be tough to rely on righty/lefty splits from the opposing offense. But you can also upgrade/downgrade a potential team stack depending on the quality of the opposing bullpen.

If you read this whole article, thanks for hanging with me! Hopefully, I didn’t put too many people to sleep blabbering on and on about different stats and strategies – but I wouldn’t mention all of this stuff if I didn’t believe it could truly be helpful. In summary, there is so much information out there, so many different metrics and statistical categories in baseball, and even more ways to use them when approaching MLB DFS – 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 simply have to utilize whatever tools and information are at our disposal in an attempt to gain a theoretical edge on the field.

So, with all of this said, I wish everyone the best of luck this season! Let’s have some fun!