CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Opening Day!
Happy Baseball! For a minute there, it looked like the season was going to be in trouble, but thank goodness we made it. I was prepared for a 2-month window of nothing but dad joke articles, and really, that would have been fine too. If you’re new to RotoGrinders or to the Million Dollar Musings, welcome! If you’ve been with me in years past, thanks for coming back for another season of baseball analysis and the usual amount of nonsense.
I am going to talk through the opening day slate a little bit, but I want to start by talking about how to approach the beginning of this season, as well as what to expect here this season. It’s always tricky to project anything in the first couple weeks of a new baseball season, but with the shortened spring, that is even more true this year. Players have had less time to prepare than they are used to, and while this will affect everyone to some extent, it is most likely to affect pitchers in the early going. I am going to be hesitant to pay top dollar for aces until we see them stretched out in the regular season. As always, we only have previous years data to look at, so early in the year, that’s what we’ll be relying on. All of this is a long way of saying that while we do have ‘best plays’ based on long term data, I recommend spreading out your exposures and taking some chances early on. If we are assuming that some pitchers will be coming out of the gate slowly, that not only downgrades high end pitching, but it also makes it more palatable to play bats against top pitchers. Yeah, ‘palatable’. I have indeed learnt some new fancy words this offseason.
Before we go any further….
Let’s Talk About Core Plays
Folks, baseball is a completely different type of DFS game than anything else. This is especially true if you’ve been primarily playing NBA. Due to the small sample size of one baseball game, the range of outcomes for any player is outrageously huge. There is no such thing as a ‘can’t miss’ spot for any baseball player, particularly on the hitting side. The highest projected player on a slate can and will go 0-4 multiple times this season. A player projected for 10 points has a realistic floor of zero and a ceiling of 40+. In NBA, there are slates when it is completely reasonable to lock button a player in 150 lineups, or have multiple players at 50% exposure or higher. There is also some level of certainty to the best points per dollar plays and you can be reasonably confident in getting at least some return from the top projected players each night.
I say all of this to tell you that while we do have Core Plays in LineupHQ for MLB, you should not treat them the same as you might in other sports. Personally, when I am building 150 lineups, I will almost never have more than 25-30% exposure on any hitter on a full slate. Even if am only playing a 3-max entry or other limited lineup contests, there is no such thing as a lock button hitter for me. I also do not play cash games personally, and while my Core Plays are certainly cash game viable, I would not recommend blindly locking them in and building like you might do in NBA. I’m more interested in chasing upside, and so some of my Core Plays may be higher variance plays with home run upside. I will usually make a note in LUHQ that lets you know how I view that player, and for what sort of contests I am recommending him.
I will often be more locked in on the pitching side, depending on the slate, and all that will be laid out for you in this article each day.
The Daily Plan
Some days may be a bit different depending on the schedule and how many bad puns I need to get in the article, but essentially, this is what the you can expect to find here this season.
The article will focus on the Main Slate, typically the evening slates. When there are early slates of 4+ games, I’ll provide a cheat sheet and/or some Cliff Notes, but there will not be in depth analysis on those smaller, earlier slates.
I’ll spend the bulk of my time going through the pitchers on each slate, as this will also in turn affect what hitters we’ll be targeting. We’ll look at recent trends and long-term data, not just to help decide who to play that night but also in the hopes of helping you to better understand how to analyze baseball stats. I have always been, and continue to be, more interested in teaching you how to do your own research, and less about telling you who to play.
If you want a refresher course, or are unfamiliar with baseball terminology, I recommend reading this article, which walks through the stats that I will be referencing most often and how to use them:
I always wrap everything up in a tidy little bow with a section affectionately known as the Cliff Notes. As we learned a couple seasons ago, those things you used in school to avoid reading the whole book were actually called CliffsNotes, not Cliff Notes. But I am certain that Cliff Hillegass of CliffsNotes fame would have been quite happy with the re-purposing of his idea. (Also, even easier than reading the CliffsNotes was just watching the movie.)
Moving on to the hitting side, we will have already started narrowing things down simply by identifying the best and worst pitchers on the slate. I am not going to spend as much time going in depth on hitting stats, but rather breaking down some lists of how I’m approaching the slate. We’ll look at top stacks, both chalky and contrarian, picking out some top individual bats and looking for salary savers. As lineups are released throughout the day, I will update the article if there is slate-changing news, otherwise, you will be able to see my updated rankings, as well as those of other analysts on the Expert Rankings page.
That’s the basic overview of the plan for this season, and I’ll always be around to answer any questions you have about the research process.
I guess we should go ahead and see what’s in store for OPENING DAY 2022!
Opening Day Pitching
I’m writing this early in the week, and there could potentially be a change or two in expected starters. There could also be some changes based on weather, and right out of the gate I need to mention that everything about this pitching slate gets thrown out of (or into?) whack if the Mariners-Twins game gets postponed. Robbie Ray is the clear top pitcher on DK, and everything shifts if his start is moved. I’ll adjust if/when we get that news.
For now, this is what Opening Day looks like:
Red Sox at Yankees (FanDuel only) – Nate Eovaldi at Gerrit Cole
Brewers at Cubs (FanDuel only) – Corbin Burnes at Kyle Hendricks
Mariners at Twins – Robbie Ray at Joe Ryan
Mets at Nationals – Tylor Megill (?) at Patrick Corbin
Guardians at Royals – Shane Bieber at Zack Greinke
Pirates at Cardinals – J.T. Brubaker at Adam Wainwright
Reds at Braves – Tyler Mahle at Max Fried
Astros at Angels – Framber Valdez at Shohei Ohtani
Padres at Diamondbacks – Yu Darvish at Madison Bumgarner