MLB DFS: Is It Easy or Hard?

In my previous life, I was a professional songwriter. I wrote a couple thousand songs over my career, and the reality is, I wrote a lot more mediocre songs than great ones.

The interesting aspect is that the process of writing a great song is no more difficult than the process of writing an average song; it is simply less likely you will write something great. The reason you sit down and write songs every day is that you are honing your craft so that when that right moment hits, and a great idea starts to form, you are ready to take advantage of it. I can very rarely tell the difference between a good or bad song as I’m writing it. Nearly every song feels amazing when you start working on it; it’s only later when you go back and listen with a critical ear that you can tell where you’ve gone right, or where you’ve missed.

I feel similar about building lineups in DFS. You are working to hone your craft every day through a process that will give you positive results over time. Not every lineup is going to be a winner, even though they may feel that way when you’re entering them. The big psychological hurdle in all of this is that when you win, it can feel very easy. And, when you lose, especially for a period of time, it can feel nearly impossible. Both of those ways of thinking can lead to danger. DFS lineup building is not easy, and it’s not hard. It’s a process.

The bigger problem of those two ways of thinking is to feel like it is easy when you hit a winning streak. If you have been playing baseball over an extended period of time, you probably have enough knowledge that you can throw together a pretty decent lineup in just a few minutes with a quick glance at the day’s slate. This is what I refer to as the 15-minute lineup. That’s all it takes to get a respectable lineup together, and a lineup that will win sometimes. The trouble with that is, the more you win by skipping a step or cheating on your research, the more you start to think this is an easy game. Small sample sizes in DFS are just as unreliable as small sample sizes in MLB. In the short term, wins and losses are not what matters most; it is the process you employ. Some days, your 15-minute lineup may be just a player or two different than what your fully researched lineup would have been, but over a season, those one or two players can be the difference between being a winning player and being a losing player.

On the flip side, when you lose for a few days in a row, you can start to think you’re missing something, or there must be some stat you haven’t discovered, and you can unnecessarily mess with your process when you haven’t been doing anything wrong. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but you can probably do too much research as much as you can do too little. I can find some reason to play or not play almost any player on a given day, and pressing too hard can lead to silly mistakes. Don’t talk yourself out of playing the smart plays just because it hasn’t worked out recently. You should always take the long term view with your research process and trust that the numbers will win out.

One more thing I want to mention is that if you are a tournament player, I can draw a further analogy to the songwriting example. You never know when that perfect storm is going to hit, and you need to play consistently in order to take advantage of that moment when it arrives. My most successful song was written in a Motel 6 in Mobile, AL when I really wanted to go eat some barbecue instead of writing a song. But, for whatever reason, that was my moment when the big idea hit, and because I employed a consistent writing process, I was able to sit down and knock out that song. You may bang your head against a wall for weeks at a time, being one player away from a big score, or having your pitcher get a big score taken away from a bizarre Southern California rainout (don’t get me started on that!). But the process you go through every day is the one that is going to get you that big score when your day comes.

With all that in mind, I want to take a look at a few numbers that may be overlooked in your 15-minute lineups. Whether you know these specific examples or not, there are bound to be some misconceptions you hold, and that is why you should go through your research process every day.

“”(player-popup #jose-abreu)Jose Abreu”:/players/jose-abreu-17437 is a power hitter.”

Maybe, sort of, is he? Abreu is still being talked about like he is the player he showed in his rookie year with a 26.9% HR/FB rate and a 36-home run season. No doubt he’s a strong guy, but we don’t have a baseline to call him a top of the line home run hitter. In 341 at-bats this season, he has a 51% ground ball rate and a 19.2% HR/FB rate.

Abreu can only hit so many homers with that high of a ground ball rate, even if the HR/FB improves, which we don’t know it will.

“Play the Rockies at home; sit them on the road.”

This is at least half-right for sure. Of course you want to start the Rockies at home, but should you always fade them on the road? As a team, yes, this is generally correct, but here’s a couple numbers for you:

The highest wOBA for a non-Rockies shortstop in the entire league is .361 for Jhonny Peralta, the next highest is Brandon Crawford at .345. What do you think Troy Tulowitzki’s road wOBA is? It’s .360.

Nolan Arenado has seven home runs in 172 AB at Coors Field. He has 15 home runs in 169 AB on the road.

Over the past two seasons, DJ LeMahieu is batting .328 at home and .238 on the road. Just wanted to see if you’re paying attention :)

Yes, the Rockies are way better at home, and some of their weaker hitters are only worth playing at Coors Field, but elite hitters like Tulowitzki and Arenado shouldn’t be ignored outside of Coors Field.

“”(player-popup #buster-posey)Buster Posey”:/players/buster-posey-10262 smashes lefties.”

Well, yes he does, he’s very good against lefties. But we are selling him short by talking about how good he is against lefties, because he may be even better against righties. His splits started to close the gap last season with a .382 wOBA against left-handed pitching and a .366 wOBA against right-handed pitching. This season, his wOBA against righties is at .390 vs. just .330 against lefties. Beyond that, his strikeout rate is all the way down to 8.5% against RHP with an 11% walk rate.

Posey is the elite hitting catcher in the league, not just the elite hitting catcher against lefties.

“”(player-popup #robinson-cano)Robinson Cano”:/players/robinson-cano-10370 is old.”

I know a lot of young people with fancy hair play DFS, but listen, 32-years-old is not old. We have recently learned Cano has been dealing with a stomach issue (yes, I know that sounds like an old person problem). That could have contributed to his slow start, which was never really as bad as it looked to begin with. Outside of a rough June, Cano has had his normal solid contact rate, and while he is no longer a 30-HR power threat, he will continue to be a run producer in the middle of the lineup.

In July, Cano is batting .352 with a .442 wOBA. He has hit over .300 for six straight seasons, and he could get close to that again this year.

“”(player-popup #albert-pujols)Albert Pujols”:/players/albert-pujols-10322, Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista are good.”

This statement may be incorrect, or at least understated. Go check out the lowest BABIP hitters in all of baseball, and you may be stunned to see that all three of these guys are in the bottom six of the entire league in BABIP. All three hit a lot of fly balls and are kind of slow, so they should have a low BABIP, so what am I saying? What I am saying is that Pujols with his 29 HR, Encarnacion with his 19 HR and Bautista with his 20 HR are all much better than you already think they are. All three have excellent plate discipline, absolutely crush the ball, and are likely to improve over the remainder of the season due to an increase in BABIP. To merely say these guys are good is doing them a disservice; they are elite.

These are just a few fun examples to illustrate that numbers can fool you if you get stuck in a way of thinking.

I can’t stress enough the importance of doing your research every day, even if what you know is correct. You are better off for double checking it. Don’t get psyched out by small sample sizes of winning or losing. Stick to your process and set yourself up for long term profits.

About the Author

CheeseIsGood
Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

One of the preeminent baseball minds in all of fantasy, Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood) has won contests at the highest levels of both season-long and DFS. He is a 2x winner of a $1,000,000 1st place prize in DFS; having won the 2014 FanDuel baseball Live Final and following that up by taking down a DraftKings Milly Maker Tournament in 2015. In addition, he’s won the Main Event championship in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship and the NFBC Platinum League, which is the highest buy-in entry league. His consistent success in the NFBC tournaments earned him a prestigious spot in their Hall of Fame. Dave can also strum a mean guitar while carrying a tune, and if you’re lucky, you’ll see him do so on one of his MLB Crunch Time appearances. Follow Dave on Twitter – @DavePotts2