MLB DFS: GPP Strategy Tips
It’s funny. When I wrote the cash game article, I was playing primarily cash games. Since then, I’ve switched to playing GPPs, with a focus on the smaller player pools because, for me, they’re more winnable. Plus, I prefer being in games where nobody has a random number eight hitter that has a monster game and makes it impossible for you to win. In huge tournaments, that player is almost always going to be in some sort of stack, but when you’re dealing with a GPP with around 100 to 200 players, that’s usually not the case.
In this article, I’ll cover the various types of GPPs that are offered, how best to attack them, and which sort of players you should be looking to roster. Full disclosure: While I have dabbled with making a bunch of entries in the large GPPs, it’s not a strategy that I’m particularly good at or enjoy. Fortunately, there are a lot of players out there who are, and many of them write content at RotoGrinders. I guess the takeaway from this is to be honest with yourself and your abilities. Do what works for you and makes you money. It sounds simple, and it is, but many players, myself included at times, don’t adhere to it.
Here are my top MLB DFS GPP strategy tips for playing on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings.
Small Player Pool GPPs
As I mentioned above, this is what I’ve been doing lately, and it’s been working out pretty well. I make one lineup per night, and enter it in most of the GPPs. I still enter the huge tournaments just in case I happen to have a team really go off, but those are just an afterthought. My strategy for building a lineup is a lot like what I talked about in my cash game article, but there are some differences that I’m going to discuss in detail.
Pitching is Still King
Just like with constructing cash game lineups, we want to maximize what we get out of our pitching investment while also figuring out which pitchers are likely to give up runs. In the large GPPs, it’s often beneficial to fade the chalk pitcher and hitters in an effort to gain an edge on a large part of the field. What good is it to get a huge game from Clayton Kershaw if you still have to beat a large percentage of the field who also used him? It makes sense to fade him and hope for a subpar outing and get your pitching points cheaper, or earn more from a pitcher who outperforms him.
I don’t really subscribe to that theory in the smaller GPPs, however. On most nights, I’m simply going to take the best pitcher with no regard to how high owned he will be. In fact, I’ve found that the top pitchers are often lower owned than I assume they will be. In these smaller GPPs, I’d rather let other players gamble on pitchers that end their night early while always leaving myself in contention to cash.
Sometimes, however, a cheaper pitcher is simply too good to pass up. For example, Jon Gray was $7,000 on FanDuel facing the Padres in San Diego. For me, this was the easiest play in the world given his upside relative to his price. I also felt there was almost no risk given how dominant he’s been against right-handed hitters, and how inept the Padres have been against right-handed pitchers. He ended up scoring 63, and allowed me to load up on some very good hitters facing extreme gas cans. When a pitching option like that presents itself, I’m almost always going to take the shot, and I would advise you do the same.
How to Select Hitters
I go through the same analysis when deciding which pitchers to target, and similarly to pitching, the best teams are not as highly owned as I think they will be some nights. Again, I’m not too concerned with ownership. I take hitters from the teams that I think will have the most successful night offensively. Now, I don’t just take anyone. I’m taking guys that I think can hit a home run, or that have such a favorable matchup and lineup position that they can earn a high score with multiple hits, runs, and RBIs. I’m not rostering zero power number eight hitters because I have to have a four player mini-stack of a particular team. Some players do that, and given I think it’s –EV, I don’t do it.
In cash games, you can get away with taking a crummy hitter so you can get in the guys you really like. After all, you don’t have to beat everyone, and cashing double ups and winning head to head matchups with a zero from a hitter happens all the time. If you want to take down a tournament, however, it’s probably best that you avoid rostering hitters that are unlikely to get you more than a single and a run. The exception would be when they’re minimum salary and you’re forced to roster an expensive pitcher. The salary relief is worth more than the hitter himself, and people often don’t consider that.
So, what does all of this mean? Well, don’t fall in love with a hitter to the point where you roster bad hitters in order to use him. Taking Carlos Gonzalez at Coors Field against an average right-handed pitcher is certainly attractive, but he’s not going to have a big game every time he faces a righty at home. Obviously you should use him if you can, but if you have to use Miguel Rojas at shortstop in order to do it, there’s likely a better combination of hitters you can take to maximize your upside.
Being Contrarian
In general, I’m more of a fan of being contrarian with hitters than pitchers. I think your main focus with pitchers should be rostering the player who is most likely to score the most points. If that happens to be the most expensive player, so be it. You have to remember that pitchers are the only thing that even remotely resembles a sure thing in baseball, and they also happen to be the most predictable source of fantasy points. In general, there are enough value hitters, or hitters that are priced way too low that rostering a top arm is not much of an issue.
There’s a fine line between being contrarian and being reckless. Yes, sometimes bad offenses in bad parks score a bunch of runs, but unless you’re trying to take one a tournament with thousands of players, you don’t have to go so off the board that you put yourself in position to lose on most nights. In general, I just pick the hitters I like the most while trying to maximize the overall upside of my lineup. If there’s a choice between two guys, I’ll usually go with the player I think will be lower owned. I will never, however, roster a player simply because I think no one is going to have them. Every player’s spot on your roster should be justified by statistical analysis.
Vegas
I really don’t have much use for Vegas lines other than to find out where other players are likely to look for their hitters and pitchers. The lines are really nothing more than a combination of park factor and pitcher quality. The wind direction heavily influences run totals for games at Wrigley, but other than that one particular circumstance, Vegas lines don’t really tell you much, and they certainly don’t tell you which hitters are actually going to contribute to those potentially high scores. Everyone has had a hitter or two from a team that goes off for 10+ runs who contributes next to nothing offensively. If you’re building your lineups based on which teams Vegas projects to score the most runs, you’re doing it wrong. Not every hitter is going to have a big game when their team piles up runs, and it’s quite possibly nobody will if the runs mostly come from stringing together a bunch of hits. If you want to take down a tournament, you need home runs.
The Vegas lines are a great way to predict ownership for the day, however. The teams projected to score the most runs will likely see the highest ownership. That doesn’t mean you should automatically fade those teams, though. Just know that players will likely roster less than ideal options from those teams simply because of what Vegas says, and use that knowledge to your advantage. Differentiate your lineups by not using the zero power and not very good fill-in lead-off hitter from the day’s top projected offense.
Summary
I could go on and on about other ways to analyze matchups to try to gain an edge in tournaments, but this article would end up being much too long. Let’s go over what we’ve covered here.
Pitching is still king, meaning the slate revolves around who is pitching that day. The hitters mostly stay the same, and whether or not they are usable completely depends on who is throwing the ball to them. On FanDuel, where pitching is weighted more heavily than hitting, it should always be your goal to get the most points possible from the position. In certain instances, a cheap pitcher has so much upside relative to their price that they’re a near must play, but, for the most part, I want the guy who is capable of having a huge day. DraftKings is a bit different in that pitchers aren’t as heavily weighted. You can often get away with targeting cheap pitchers in the interest of stacking up four or five hitters from a particular offense.
When selecting hitters, you want guys who can get home runs, or, at the very least, can be expected to drive in runs or score them. Individual hitter performance is a bit important on DraftKings where runs and RBIs are only worth two points, or two-thirds of a single. On FanDuel, they’re worth 3.2 and 3.5, respectively, and both are worth more than a single. Be aware of scoring differences and adjust your selections accordingly.
Being contrarian and looking at Vegas lines often go hand-in-hand as the highest hitter ownership is almost always going to be from teams that are projected to score the most runs. Be aware, though, that teams that are projected to do well often don’t, and even when they do, the hitters you expect to do well won’t necessarily have good games. You can go the contrarian, or lower-owned route, by identifying other offenses you like and selecting hitters that will be much less popular. With pitching, I’m not big on going contrarian. Contrarian pitchers are contrarian for a reason, and that’s because they’re unlikely to pitch well. Pitchers are also much lower variance than hitters, so I prefer to lock in who I think the day’s top pitcher will be, then build a solid lineup of hitters once I’ve done that.
Hopefully this has helped some of you. I look forward to writing more of these types of articles in the future. Good luck!