Strategy Session: Relief Pitchers Can Win You Cars

by Cameron MacMillan (Cameron) Last Updated 2010-08-18 19:04:21

Daily Fantasy Baseball: Relief Pitcher Strategies and Tips – Part 1 of 2

Relief Pitchers Can Win You Cars

An oft-overlooked aspect of Daily Fantasy Baseball, are the intricacies in selecting a relief pitcher. Many sites do not even offer the option, but in the contests that do it could be the difference between going home empty, or driving home in a brand new Ford Mustang. Such was the case with Alex WaiverWire Zelvin in 2008 when he won the RotoHog Baseball ‘Stock Exchange’ contest, besting a purported field of 50,000 contestants to take the top prize automobile. One of the other players in the Stock Exchange contest did an analysis comparing Alex’s strategies used in the contest with those of the other top contestants. The results showed that Alex matched up evenly with the other top players in selecting hitters and starting pitchers; The edge that won Alex the top-prize sports car came from his superior selection of Relief Pitchers.

When I first started playing Daily Fantasy MLB on DraftZone, I would do my normal selection process of hitters and starting pitchers and lastly fill in relief pitcher with the most expensive player remaining, essentially ignoring the position altogether. An expert MLB drafter knows that this is not always the best way to operate, but that doesn’t mean this strategy may at times be correct. Sean SClement21 Clement says that relief pitchers are often “inconsistent” and that he usually focuses on his “stud offensive guys” instead. The key is knowing when the Relief Pitcher actually does become more important than your offensive players. To do that, we must first know the sites that offer it and their scoring systems. Currently, two Daily Fantasy Sites offer the Relief Pitcher spot on their rosters: DraftZone and Fantasy Factor

While it is initially easy to overlook Relief Pitchers in salary contests, a Save counts for the same amount of points as a Win on Fantasy Factor, and is only one point less on DraftZone. Given the average innings pitched, the RP has less opportunity to accumulate points than the SP, but this also means they have less time to accumulate the negative stats as well (which should help emphasize the higher variance of this particular roster spot that Mr. Clement alluded to). If Starting Pitchers are the most important spot, this scoring system should place Relief Pitchers right behind them, before the hitters. Researching the RP spot is something, that until recently, I did not focus my efforts on daily. It is likely that if I, who is writing this article, were not devoting time to this selection process, than there are plenty of other ‘fish’ still out there waiting for you to close them out each day. Just like Alex did to his RotoHog competitors in 2008.

Alex’s Strategy

Alex is currently in the midst of a Relief Pitcher contest with our team member Cal. Lately, they have been extremely focused on selecting Relief Pitchers, so I spoke with both about their particular strategies. Alex made it clear that there is one aspect of his strategy that he is not comfortable sharing, but he was kind enough to provide us with his general selection process. Alex’s strategy, is in his words, “pretty simple” :

• Look for teams who are favored…preferably heavily favored
• Eliminate those where it isn’t 100% sure who the closer is
• Eliminate those with a substantial chance of a rainout
• Eliminate those where the closer is likely to be given a day off due to excessive recent use
• Use whoever is left. If I don’t have enough closers left, I’ll take those who are barely favored or even very slighty underdogs if they meet the other criteria

Beyond this process, Alex recommends “eliminating closers who are really bad pitchers that he considers likely to blow a high percentage of save opportunities.” He didn’t include this as an important step above, because “there are a lot less of those guys than there used to be, and in many cases they will already be eliminated them because they don’t get 100% of their team’s save opportunities.”

Cal’s Strategy

Cal also gave us his daily walkthrough, though he didn’t mention any secret tips that he is withholding from the general public:

• Check the betting lines for the day. Start with teams slightly favored on the moneyline (like -120 to -140)
• Eliminate injured Closers
• Eliminate relievers who have pitched three days in a row or four of the last six days
• Check the relievers recent results, the more successful recently, the better
• Choose from the ones with the highest Save to IP ratio that remain
• Finally decide on one that is in the lowest scoring games for less variance

How To Close the Deal

There are clear similarities between both Grinders’ strategies that you should implement do your daily strategy arsenal when selecting relievers in the future. First, the chance of the pitcher’s team winning is very important, and an online sports book should be added to your Daily Fantasy bookmarks tab. Next, make sure to pay attention to recent play/recent use of the reliever. If they have been overly active the past 3-7 days, avoid them! Finally, past performance is an indicator of future performance. Check if that player is the closer for their team. Also check their total Saves to relief innings pitched. Performing these simple steps, could show you a big increase in your bankroll at the end of the day.

This article is Part 1 of 2. In the next piece, we will use real examples of situations to use Relief Pitchers on both Draft Zone and Fantasy Factor.

- Cameron