MLB DFS: Psychology of Stacking

So much of this game we love is about being smart and avoiding psychological pitfalls. If Yogi Berra played DFS, I’m sure he would tell you that it is 90% mental and the other half is player analysis and roster building.

There are a lot of DFS strategies that I tend to believe in because they’ve worked for me. There are others that I have seen work for other people, and still more that make sense to me when I hear other people talk about them. But in a lot of cases, I don’t dig into enough data to fully understand how, when and why certain strategies work. Stacking is one of the most used and most talked about tournament strategies. The biggest reason I believe that stacking can be a psychological danger zone is this; it is tempting to look at the success of others in large tournaments, and simply try to copy the strategy. A big problem with this is that stacking looks very easy after the fact. When you look at the leaderboard from a large GPP, and see a four or six-player stack take down the tournament, it is tempting to look at it and think, I could do that! But, if you’ve tried it, you have likely found it to be frustrating more often than not.

I’ve talked to several other players who feel similarly to myself in this regard; it’s very easy to spot what should be a high scoring team. It is then very easy to throw together a bunch of lineups using that team and filling in different pitchers and upside plays at the other positions. Then, you look at your list of rosters and think, I can’t possibly lose! I have multiple combinations of this can’t miss offense with every good pitcher, this is going to be an amazing night! And, then what happens next is even worse; your can’t miss offense scores 10 runs that night! Wait, why is that worse? Usually because of one these scenarios that we have all seen:

1)You used the wrong part of the batting order from your stack. The optimal play from your stackable team was a random, non-consecutive group of players.

2)You missed the high scoring pitchers of the night.

3)You left off the one hitter from your stack that was a must play, or overpaid for the big bat on the team that went 0-4.

4)25% of the field had the same stack, with better combinations around it.

The real question is not whether these scenarios happen, but what we can do about it. Let’s dig into some numbers, and see what we can learn. Even if there are going to be unpredictable events, we can certainly improve our odds of success by looking at what has happened in the past.

I went through every game in the month of May and separated all the games where a team scored eight or more runs, to consider that a “stackable” game. Of course, that is an arbitrary cutoff, but I had to pick something. Please note that while there are a lot of games in a month, this is still a relatively small sample size of data, but I think we can learn some things from this sample.

Where in the Lineup Do the Runs Come From?

In the month of May, Cleveland, Texas, San Francisco and Washington all had at least seven games of 8+ runs. When I broke the lineups down into the 1-4 hitters and the 5-8 hitters, this is what I found;

Cleveland – 1st-4th = 75 Runs+RBI – 5th-8th = 60 Runs+RBI
Texas – 1st-4th = 67 Runs+RBI – 5th-8th = 71 Runs+RBI
San Francisco – 1st–4th = 46 Runs+RBI – 5th-8th = 78 Runs+RBI
Washington – 1st-4th = 68 Runs+RBI – 5th-8th = 50 Runs+RBI

This looks like a fairly random assortment of batting order productivity. Cleveland and Washington had more production from the top of their order while Texas and SF saw better numbers from the back half.

The Rangers had eight high scoring games; here’s a deeper look at Texas and where their top scoring hitters came from in these big games;

1) 5th, 6th in order (Kyle Blanks, Shin-Soo Choo)
2) 1st, 4th, 6th, 7th (Choo, Beltre, Carlos Peguero, Robinson Chirinos)
3) 3rd, 4th, 8th (Fielder, Beltre, Tommy Field)
4) 1st, 9th (Choo, Chirinos)
5) 3rd, 5th, 9th (Fielder, Moreland, Field)
6) 2nd, 3rd, 6th (Choo, Fielder, Andrus)
7) 3rd, 4th, 7th (Fielder, Beltre, Andrus)
8) 1st, 6th, 7th (DeShields, Rosales, L. Martin)

Again, we see a fairly random assortment of productivity. In a couple games, the more obvious plays, Fielder, Choo, Beltre came through. But in other instances, you would’ve needed players like Carlos Peguero or Tommy Field to maximize your Texas stack. As an example, in game two of that list, the Rangers were going against Sam Deduno, a very clear game to target a stack against. The optimal four-player stack was Choo, Beltre, Peguero and Chirinos. How many lineups would have put together that did not use Elvis Andrus or Prince Fielder hitting 2nd and 3rd in that lineup? Andrus and Fielder combined for 2.25 FanDuel points, while Peguero alone posted a score of 13.75. Now, if you were entering 15 different Texas stacks, you might have had one that went 4-5-6-7. But if you were only entering a handful of lineups, it would have been virtually impossible not to use Fielder in a Texas stack that day. Why? Again, it’s all psychological. I would not be OK with correctly choosing the best team to stack and losing due to not having the team’s best hitter on my roster.

I found a similar situation with the other teams when I looked at who you needed to have on your roster in their big games to get the bulk of their scoring. It was a very scattered list with no consistent trends from day to day or team to team.

The Prince Fielder situation gave me the idea to look into some more big bats in the middle of the lineup and see how often you need to have a team’s top hitter to cash in on a stack;

The Big Bat in the Middle

Have you ever stacked the Nationals and not used Bryce Harper? How about the Giants with no Buster Posey? It is very hard to do; psychologically I have trouble convincing myself ahead of time that it’s a good idea. And beyond that, like I said in the Rangers example, I could not deal with stacking the correct team and losing because of not having their best hitter. But, do you always have to have the team’s best hitter?

In the Nationals’ seven stackable games in May, Harper was a key element in five of those games. There was only one game when you would’ve hurt yourself by using Harper. It looks like it was not a coincidence that Washington’s hot streak of high scoring, stackable games was in the midst of Harper’s hot stretch. So, in this case, yes, you usually did need to roster the big bat to win with a Washington stack.

In the case of San Francisco, like Texas, it was less clear. In the Giants’ seven high scoring games, Posey only had two big days, a couple of duds, and two games that he wasn’t even in the lineup. San Francisco’s hottest stretch correlated with a hot streak from Brandon Belt. Belt had four games of elite production, where you could not have succeeded in a Giants stack without him. However, in two of the other three games he was a non-factor. Outside of the Belt explosion, which came mostly all in one weekend in Cincinnati, the Giants’ runs came from all over the place. Optimal Giants stacks included big games from Aoki, Pence, Duffy, Panik, Crawford, Blanco, Susac and Maxwell.

Cleveland is a team, like the Giants, that doesn’t have a clear best hitter. Jason Kipnis was the hitter who had the biggest hand in a majority of their eight big games, and would’ve been a useful player to have in any of one of the stackable games. Outside of Kipnis, the Indians production came from some unexpected places, although less scattered than the other three teams. Six of the eight games saw the optimal lineup come from the top five spots in the batting order.

I cherry-picked a couple other teams who have a clear best hitter; Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton and Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman. I lowered the threshold of a stackable game to six runs to get a bigger sample. In Miami’s five big games, Stanton only had one big game, two decent games and two bad games where he would have hurt you. In Atlanta’s six big games (taking out one where Freeman didn’t start), Freeman was a key part of three of the games, and worthless in the other three.

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Putting together this data, along with what I saw in the previous section about batting order, my conclusion would be that you definitely do not always need a team’s best hitter. Beyond that, most stacks will include a team’s best hitter, giving you a chance to be contrarian even with a popular stack. One more reason why leaving a team’s best player out of your stack could be a profitable idea is that when you roster Giancarlo Stanton with a Marlins stack, you are not only competing against everyone else who has the same stack, but another large percentage of the field who have Stanton in mixed lineups.

Four vs. Six-Player Stacks

The thing that stood out the most to me from everything I looked at is the difference between stacking four players and stacking six players. If I had to just sum everything up into one takeaway it would be this; a four-player stack is very difficult to hit correctly, while a six-player stack is much more likely to give you the big day you need.

The big problem with a four-player stack is the low likelihood of getting the correct four players in your lineup. There were very few examples that I found when the high scoring players from a team were in consecutive lineup spots. It happens on occasion, but more often than not it a player here and a player there, often separated by several positions in the lineup that have the huge days. I personally rarely use four-player stacks on FanDuel since I do not usually put in enough entries to cover the different lineup combinations I would want.

On sites that allow six-player stacks, it certainly seems as if you see full stacks on top of GPPs more often. Because you can cover more of a team’s whole lineup with just a few entries, it makes sense that it would be a more successful strategy. I have not yet cracked the code on the six-player stacking, as I struggle with a lot of the psychological traps that I’m trying to help you avoid. Let’s take a look at some of these trouble spots.

Psychological Stacking Traps To Avoid

1) The “How Can I Lose” with these combinations multi-entry – This is a particular problem of mine that leads to too many entries in a tournament. The more entries I make around a particular stack, the more it feels like it just can’t lose. But, the simple truth is; it can, and most often will lose. You are not the only one on that stack, and everyone else also has solid ideas on what to build around it

2) The Must-Play Star – Every different way I looked at it, I did not see any evidence that there is a must-play hitter on any team when they have a big day. If you’re single entering the Nationals, yes, put Bryce Harper on your team, but don’t get locked in no matter what. Strange things happen every day.

3) Transferring lineup ideas from one DFS site to another – The scoring, the stacking rules, the salaries, everything is different between sites. This is particularly true with stacking; if you watch the leaderboards every night, it is not always the same types of lineups that win. You need to start your from lineup from scratch on each different site.

4) The “It Worked For That Guy” strategy – It is so tempting to just copy the winning strategies. If a big GPP is won with a six-player stack combined with one ace pitcher, one value pitcher and a punt power catcher and high priced OF from another team, what is your first thought on building a lineup the next day? Every day is different; learn from what has worked, but don’t assume it’s the same thing every time.

5) I would have won “if only” – When you are close, you can always find that one little change that would’ve put you at the top of the standings. If only I’d played Rizzo instead of Goldschmidt, I would have won. This thinking leads to anxiety or depression in addition to throwing too many entries in the next day. Don’t overlook the fact that everybody else was also one player away.

Some New Things To Try

1)Build your stacked lineup inside-out – I am guessing most people build their lineups this way; Find your stack and pick the 4-6 players you want. Add your pitcher. Then, fill in whatever you can afford with the other spots. This may not be the best way to do it. If you assume that hundreds of other players will have the same stack as you, then isn’t it reasonable to assume that the determining factor is not the stack itself, but what you put around it? Given what I saw in the randomness of what part of the order the optimal stack comes from, the best course may be to pick your optimal non-stack lineup pieces. Find 2-3 guys that are must plays for you, get the pitchers you want, and then build your stack around that.

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2)Leave the best player off, but fill his position with a different top play – If the Nationals are the top stack of the day, most all stacks will have Bryce Harper. If you cannot afford Harper and Mike Trout on the same roster, then you can be sure there won’t be a lot of Nationals/Trout lineups. This is the same idea of the building the roster inside-out, but being more intentional about what players you’re leaving off your stack.

3)Be OK with not winning every day – This is a big one, and a constant psychological struggle for me. I play too many lineups because I can’t bear to miss out on that one perfect combo that I know is out there. Even players rolling out hundreds of entries are not covering close to every possible scenario, it just can’t be done. So, each day, find that one spot that you feel best about and hit it hard. If it’s one pitcher plus a particular 5 players from a stack, then use them on every roster you build that day, and be OK knowing you might just not win that day. As long as you’re playing within your bankroll, you are giving yourself a better chance long term by just focusing in on your best lineup. You can’t cover everything.

As with everything in DFS, there are so many different paths to success. Stacking absolutely works for some players, while for others, it may not be the way to go. Be sure that you know why you are playing the lineups and the contests you are playing. You should enter a contest with a lineup that you feel can win, not because it looks kind of similar to a lineup you saw someone else win with. Have a well thought out plan for how many entries you are putting in around a stack, and what combinations of players you want to have. When you win, enjoy! When you don’t, move onto the next day and realize that something different is likely to happen.

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