Fantasy Home Run Derby Debuts on DraftStreet
After much anticipation, DraftStreet has unveiled Home Run Derby for Fantasy MLB. Personally, I’m stoked for this innovative new game style. The simplicity of the Home Run Derby format opens a lot of doors in the Daily Fantasy World: I’m looking forward to being able to actually watch a game and know how my players are scoring in MLB. I’m looking forward to being able to join a 3-way match with Devo and HixvilleHunk and actually stand a chance to win. And to get some lineups in on days when there’s no time to research. But what is really appealing, is the appeal itself, the mass appeal.
I’m hoping DraftStreet’s HR Derby will open the doors to a big audience of casual season long players, and start growing the industry. It’s not going to be a long-term focus for the sharks and Grinders, but it will still help us all out. It’s too early to tell, but I think we could be looking at the HR Derby being to Daily Fantasy what the Turbo Sit and Go was to Online Poker, a no-brainer, low ROI, consistent winner. I’ve been testing out HR Derby all morning and here’s my initial tips to get you started.
DraftStreet Home Run Derby 101
Scoring and Roster – Standings will be determined purely by homeruns. Each HR is worth 1 point. No other stats will be considered. This may have been obvious, but I thought we should make it clear. The Roster consists of 7 Utility spots only, and you have a $100,000 Salary. Today it ranges from a variety of hitters at $2,500 to Mark Teixeira at $32,022. I’m thinking ties could be a likely occurrence, so here is DraftStreet’s tie policy so you’re aware: “Those teams will split the allotted points for their shared position in the rankings. For example, if two teams are tied for 2nd place in a category, these two teams would split 2nd and 3rd place points. Therefore, both teams would receive 8.5 points ((9+8)/2) for this category.” I think there is a bit of strategy you can pull from this. If you’re playing for the win, use some reverse-psychology for your tie-breaker. If you think two players are dead-even in HR likelihood, I’d suggest taking the player with the lower salary or that will be in less demand by the majority. This could give you better field odds, and help avoid some ties.
Weekly vs. Daily – All HR Derby contests are offered in the Weekly format only, to help prevent ties and get more games in. The obvious thing to look for is game count. It’s not as big of a difference as the NBA where you get a range of 2 to 4 games (up to a 50% difference), but keep in mind that the players with 6 games are only getting 85.7% of the opportunities those with 7 games are. Multiplying a player with 7 games salary by .857 is a good way to determine their value compared to a player with 6 games.
*Home vs. Away – * Where as Home vs. Away isn’t that impactful in Daily, it has an effect in a Weekly format. If a player has 7 straight home games, that is the potential for between 88.9%-100% of the opportunities a player with 7 away games would have. That number will on average make Away players more valuable.
BallPark Factors – And those away players could be more valuable if they’re playing the Indians then the Rangers. When you have the same environment in Baseball for the entire week, I think it’s time to start nitpicking over the details.
Pitching Matchups – With 6 or 7 games, I’m actually going to pay little attention to matchups. I’ll avoid the players on a road-trip in Philly for example, but I don’t think it’s worth the time to nit pick over each pitchers ERA even for this game type. Then again, it’s day one for me on HR Derby. Let me know if you think otherwise in the comments below.
Wednesday Weekly Lineup
With that said, here’s my lineup for a Weekly starting today. I tried to target the best balance of HRs per game avg. + 7 Games + Away + Friendly Parks (with a little attention to pitchers). Here’s the outcome:
Come and join me using the league ID above!
There appear to be some off prices today (Chris Young and Justin Upton). Get ‘em while you can!
Cameron MacMillan
RotoGrinders.com Fantasy Content Manager