How Can ResultsDB and SlateIQ Help You Win Tonight?

This article is part of a new series in which we will examine winning tournament strategies from top tournament players. We’ll focus on how you can use RotoGrinders Premium tools to replicate the concepts and strategies deployed by some of the best GPP minds. This week’s edition is FREE to all!

Today’s contributor is ChrisGimino, Premium Content Director here at RotoGrinders. While he is a talented DFS tournament player with plenty of 5-figure scores to his name (including one this month), the focus of this piece will be on the behavior of the very best DFS tournament players in the world as tracked by ResultsDB. There is a lot to be learned by studying the actions of successful players, and this article will serve as a guide to how you can take advantage of those strategies yourself tonight.

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Tonight on DraftKings, there is an $11 GPP with 200k in total prizes and 50k to first place. Many of you are here playing DFS to chase these big prizes, and unfortunately, many of you are making mistakes that are lowering your chances even more than the long shot odds implied by the contest size. Just a few mistakes include playing outside your bankroll (not entering the maximum number of lineups because it’s too expensive), creating uncorrelated lineups (not stacked enough), and failure to recognize the value of exploiting your opponents’ behavior in a high-variance sport like MLB DFS.

I know you’re going to play regardless when it comes to that first mistake, and luckily you are in a group with pretty much everyone else who plays the contest when it comes to that one. Only 40-75 players per slate have actually entered the maximum in these big contests over the past five weeks, so while it’s still somewhat suboptimal (assuming you have winning DFS skills), you’re at least in wide company (and that includes yours truly – entering 50 tonight).

The second and third mistake is what we’re going to use ResultsDB and SlateIQ to tackle today, and somebody who reads this is going to take down this top prize as a result. Ready? Let’s do it!

What Does ResultsDB Say About Stacking on Slates Like Today?

You haven’t been stacking enough on these big slates.

You don’t have to take my word for it- just know that it’s true. The only way it’s not true is if 100% of your lineups are 4+ man stacks. That’s not likely to be the case if you are reading this article, since you’d probably be one of the best players in the world. How do I know that?

Because that is who is using 4+ man stacks in nearly 100% of their lineups.

Behavior of a 10 player sample of the top-ranked players on RotoGrinders, 2019

You can give me the “small sample size” argument if you want.

You can also offer up the, “yeah but who are these players, and don’t they all play 150 lineups?”

Perhaps we can even go for the “Yeah of course stacks win, because everybody stacks.”

Those are all points we can have discussion about, but the simple truth remains: I sampled the top-ranked players in DFS for their behavior on the most recent string of Tuesday slates, and they all stack in nearly all of their lineups. I repeat: The top-ranked players in the known universe always heavily stack their lineups on larger slates. And we see with the help of ResultsDB that 4- and 5-man stacks are winning both first and second place often. I personally check the box of “That’s what the pros do, so I’m going to do it too.” I’ll let you draw your own conclusion.

What Does SlateIQ Say About Stacking on Slates Like Today?

Maybe you aren’t super convinced by the anecdotal view of the best players around and the actual winners of the past five contests. That’s not unfair, since you play DFS and likely have an analytical mind. So let’s ask SlateIQ – our solution that looks at thousands of contests to identify the most similar to today’s – to offer us up some insight from the past on how we should stack tonight.

Stack Type Leverage, From Today’s SlateIQ

I’m sorry to inform any stacking naysayers among you that the data clearly points to leverage for players who stack their lineup. AKA, it wins more than the field executes it. 5-3 stacks have enormous leverage, winning almost a full percentage more often than the field uses it. We saw above that 5-1-1-1 won a few recent prizes in these big mega contests, and SlateIQ shows us that winners have done this often in the 25 most similar contests to tonight. Essentially every stack size of four or more wins more than the field uses it. So again, I see evidence that we need to stack our lineups tonight based on what winners have done.

Who Should We Stack Tonight and Why?

The best tournament players consider the behavior of their opponents. Period.

In future episodes, we’ll dig into the specifics of how top players are gaining an advantage on you by applying pressure to leverage points. Simply put, they are finding teams with a better chance of success than the field’s ownership implies, and owning that team more than their fair share. Not all strategies are the same in this regard, and not every team that carries overweight-caliber leverage is low owned. The only thing you need to remember is that as you build your portfolio of lineups (whether it is 4, 40, or 100) is that you are playing a game against other people, and not a game to prove how much you know about baseball. Leveraging ownership intelligently by balancing it against a team’s likelihood of success is a key concept to help you reach the high end outcomes more than you otherwise would.

This is a very early look at ownership and leverage tonight from SlateIQ, but I think it will still help us get a grasp of the concept. We can check back later in the day to see if things have changed, as we always update SlateIQ roughly 45 minutes to an hour before lineup lock.

Stack Leverage, From Today’s SlateIQ

You can see if you sort the “leverage” column in this table that the Diamondbacks (vs. Musgrove), Philadelphia (vs. Woodruff), and Seattle (vs. Anderson) show up as the three highest (theoretical) leverage points on tonight’s slate.

Does this mean you should just start smashing lineups with them? Slow down, skipper. No, not yet. You have to ask three questions about every single team you see in this list:

Question 1: “Is this ownership accurate?” – RotoGrinders projected ownership is typically 85-95% accurate on any given slate, so you can generally trust it. Is it perfect? Not yet.

Question 2: “Is this winner % accurate?” – That’s a tougher question to answer. SlateIQ usually does a nice job of pushing teams towards the top that should be there based on similarly matched situations of the past. Again, it’s not perfect, and more importantly, there is never going to be a clear right answer (unlike with ownership, which eventually becomes true/false). This is where you need to apply your own skill: Do you really think this team is X% likely to take down the GPP tonight?

Question 3: “Assuming I have accounted for and adjusted for #1 and #2, how much exposure do I really want to this situation?” We see the Rockies in Fenway against a red hot Chris Sale checking in at #4 on the list. The field is only expected to stack them 1.2% of the time in this model with 14% total ownership. If I have 50 lineups, and I agree there is some leverage here: How many lineups do I want/need? We could see 6 right handed bats here tonight, so sure, maybe I’ll take a Rockies stack or two to acknowledge the game theory edge to be gained. However, this is an example of where I wouldn’t press the leverage gas pedal all the way to the floor. It’s a large slate, and we can perhaps put our chips down on a similarly strong leverage spot without attacking one of the best pitchers in baseball.

So I’ve asked myself the three questions, and now I’m ready to talk about the three (early pOWN) high leverage stacks.

Arizona (home vs. Joe Musgrove – 4.91 implied) – Not a single player in the top six of this lineup is priced under $4,700 on DK. The ownership being low is a reflection of this, despite facing a pitcher who has been shelled in two consecutive starts. The PlateIQ bullpen tool shows a decent bullpen behind the starter for PIT, and the dashboard shows me a team with run-rate fastball/change-up numbers to go along with limited power to string together huge innings. At these prices, and against a pitcher who is certainly better than his last two outings… I am inclined to pass on the theoretical leverage here.

Philadelphia (home vs. Brandon Woodruff – 4.91 implied) – Josh Hader is lurking here with no action since Saturday, but the key thing to consider is that there are outs to avoid him if the Phillies jump all over Woodruff and the long relief early. The price points for the Phillies are more appealing than the Diamondbacks, as is the park. We’ve also got straight up better hitters up and down the lineup, with low expected ownership for Rhys Hoskins. If this is a 2% owned stack, you can lock me into some leverage here. I am not hyper-enthusiastic to attack Woodruff and the Brewers pen, but I am certainly more enthusiastic than this early projected ownership. Count me in for at least 3x the field here and three Phillies stacks minimum if the early outlook is correct.

Seattle (home vs. Brett Anderson – 4.5 implied) – The late hammer situation is in effect for me tonight, utilizing an overall lightly owned stack with demonstrated slate breaking HR upside. Anderson is a known user of the sinking fastball (FTSI) with an attempt to pick up groundball outs (massive 56% overall rate). I figure this is a boom or bust scenario for him, as guys like Mitch Haniger and Domingo Santana have groundball propensities to go along with DFS worthy power upside. Santana in particular crushes the FTSI when he gets one he can hit, and shows most of his power vs. lefties low in the zone where Anderson lives. He’s either getting me a zero with a bunch of groundball outs or smashing a HR. When I see fly ball hitters Edwin Encarnacion, Jay Bruce, and Ryon Healy directly behind him in the lineup, as well as a cheap Tim Beckham, I think I have a feeling how I’ll play this one tonight. I’ll get several Mariners stacks into my portfolio to reflect their positive theoretical advantage on the field at current ownership.

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Other Leverage Situations to Like:

OAK vs. Mike Leake and bullpen

STL vs. Mike Foltynewicz and bullpen

— Houston (yes, they are the chalk) vs. Ryan Carpenter and bullpen

KCR (more chalk. Slightly higher than current projected 7.8% to win IMO) vs. Shelby Miller and bullpen

Hopefully, you can see I am not just taking SlateIQ’s projected leverage at face value. I am attempting to make my own adjustments. I hope you can also see that I am considerate not just of each team’s baseball analysis for the night, but also of how my opponents are using them and whether or not there is leverage to be gained by betting on them. This strategy helped me score $20,000 earlier this month, and we consistently see top players leveraging ownership to win top prizes. I suggest you learn from them, if not from a humble jabroni like me.

How Can I Implement My Stacks?

I’m glad you asked! LineupHQ has a few new features in the stacking department you need to be using.

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The quick stacks feature lets you run multiple stack sizes now within the same build. If you learned anything today, you’ll be going there and setting up 100% 4- and 5-man stacks in your build tonight in an attempt to take down this 200k GPP. Personally, I’ll be using the stacks I just mentioned above in the quick stacks tool to generate exactly the number of stacks of each team I am looking for and leveraging the ownership on my terms. I will also be letting the builder help match my teams with the best possible secondary stacks and one-offs using my projections. Once I’m done running my 50 lineups, I’ll use the new stack summary tab on “My Lineups” to ensure I’ve got the mix of teams I am looking for.

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Hopefully when it’s all said and done, one of two things will have happened. Either I was able to use ResultsDB, SlateIQ, and LineupHQ to win me some more money… or somebody who took the time to read this article got wise to the behavior of winning players in contests like this, and correlated their lineups with a well-designed leverage strategy on the way to a nice pay day.

Best of luck! A little bit of that never hurts either.

Images Credit: USA Today Sports Images

About the Author

ChrisGimino
Chris Gimino (ChrisGimino)

Chris Gimino is a top mind in the industry and one of the primary contributors at RotoGrinders. Together with our team of experts, his work is powering projections, simulations, ownership, and analytics across 10+ sports for betting, DFS, and fantasy pick’em contests. A multiple-time Live Finalist and shipper of 6-figure wins, Chris delivers actionable tools and advice for RotoGrinders Premium subscribers. Follow Chris on Twitter – @ChrisGimino