The GPP Scene: MLB Week 8
Hey everyone! Welcome back to the GPP Scene, which hopefully is back and better than ever after a one-week hiatus. Action has gotten crazy across the industry as the major DFS sites have had some big time tournaments over the past few weeks. Tournament play is more exciting than ever before for MLB, and hopefully this article can help you out with your own strategy.
Here’s the way it will work. I will enter the $10 FanDuel Line Drive GPP five days a week with three different teams, and only those three teams. The teams will be composed of the following:
| Team #1 | Two-team stacks with 4 hitters from each team, finished off by whatever pitcher I like best that fits within my remaining cap.1 |
| Team #2 | My favorite expensive pitcher of the day with a team of lesser hitters. |
| Team #3 | A total punt at pitcher surrounded by a team of better hitters. |
1 – This is my general GPP strategy on FD.
I’ll document the results of each team along with my profit and loss and return on investment as the days go by, with some final analysis for the week at the end of the article. Let’s get to the week seven results!
MONDAY, JUNE 2
Team #1 – I mini-stacked against two of the worst pitchers on the board tonight, opting for the struggling Rays due to a matchup with Randy Wolf and the red-hot Brewers against Kyle Gibson. I also had to remove one Brewer as Matt Garza fit on this squad so I could only have three Brewers. I chose Lucas Duda at first base instead. The Brewers put up six runs, but the Rays couldn’t get anything going against Randy Wolf and that held this team shy of cashing though the score wasn’t too poor. * FINISH: 35.83 PTS / 397 OF 1340 FOR $0.
Team #2 – Kershaw was obviously the ace of the day pitching at home against the struggling White Sox. He didn’t disappoint after a rocky start and racked up 19 FanDuel points. The bats were all solid as well, as not a single player went for a negative score. Jonathan Lucroy and Joe Mauer (at a $2500 price tag) were the big performers here and this team got the week started off with a low-end cash. * FINISH: 46.75 PTS / 104 OF 1340 FOR $30.
Team #3 – I hit the punt pitcher today as I chose Charlie Morton against the Padres and he did well, though he hit a wall toward the end of his outing. It didn’t matter anyhow, as the big sticks didn’t pay off on this particular day. Only one of my bats topped 2 points, including duds from guys like Yasiel Puig, David Ortiz, Chase Utley, and Hanley Ramirez. * FINISH: 21.25 PTS / 1134 OF 1340 FOR $0.
TUESDAY, JUNE 3
Team #1 – The mini stacks were Baltimore and Arizona with both teams playing in supreme hitter-friendly environments in Arlington and Denver. Baltimore went off for eight runs, and I pegged this portion of the mini-stack right as I had HR’s from both Nelson Cruz and Adam Jones. However, Arizona continued the first-game malaise in Coors Field theory as they only put up four runs, of which I didn’t have much. Gerrit Cole was solid as the pitcher on this squad, but missing on half the stack once again kept this squad short of cashing. * FINISH: 37.91 PTS / 400 OF 1340 FOR $0.
Team #2 – I didn’t want to take CJ Wilson against the Astros, but this night was very thin on aces and I didn’t feel like I wanted to take Gerrit Cole twice. This was a mistake, as Wilson got shelled and finished with a whole 1.66 fantasy points. In a GPP on a single-pitcher site, that almost guarantees that you aren’t going to cash. It’s simply not going to happen with two points from your pitcher. The two big bats I was able to fit on this team actually did very well (Tulowitzki and Cruz), and the value bats weren’t too shabby, but there was no overcoming Wilson. * FINISH: 25.66 PTS / 989 OF 1340 FOR $0.
Team #3 – Though I am not the biggest fan of Collin McHugh, I must admit that he has been very solid to this point of the season. He held the Angels at bay in this game but struggled with his pitch count and only struck out four guys. Still, he got the win and put up a solid 13 point total for a very cheap price. The expensive bats were worth the price tag tonight, as I was able to fit Tulowitzki on this team as well. Adam Jones and Adrian Beltre also homered and the combination of three dongs alongside a solid performance from the punt pitcher meant another nice cash for Team #3, which has been bearing fruit over the past few weeks. * FINISH: 48.50 PTS / 88 OF 1340 FOR $40.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4
This was one of the highest scoring nights of the season, as Arizona and Colorado played a Coors Field classic with a 16-8 final score. Arizona went off in the final two innings and completely shifted the landscape of GPP’s industry-wide with that outburst.
Team #1 – Knowing that the world would be on the game in Coors, I played the fade and mini-stacked Baltimore in a good matchup against Nick Martinez in Texas along with the Cardinals against a recently-hittable Jason Vargas. Needless to say, this did not work out given the game that played out in Denver. If you didn’t have Rockies and D’Backs as a majority of your squad, you had little chance this evening. On a normal night, this score would probably place around the top third. Tonight, however, it finished in the bottom third. It was a crazy night! * FINISH: 37.33 PTS / 1093 OF 1674 FOR $0.
Team #2 – I went with Wainwright as the ace of the night against the Royals. He was three outs from a complete game shutout, and then Yadier Molina let a strike three pitch bounce away and the leadoff man to reach. A single later and Wainwright was done. Then the bullpen proceeded to blow his victory. It was that kind of night for most of my teams, as this team had no prayer of cashing — even with those potential extra points from Wainwright. None of the bats scored more than three points, as I faded the Coors game here too. * FINISH: 27.75 PTS / 1480 OF 1674 FOR $0.
Team #3 – For whatever reason I chose Daisuke as the punt pitcher of the day. This was a completely idiotic move. I was shocked when I saw that he was 13% owned. He only scored 2.33 fantasy points and this put the 13% of us behind the 8-ball. The upshot was that taking him allowed you to fit all the big bats in the Coors Field game (which is probably why 13% of us did it). Goldschmidt, Tulowitzki, Parra, and Beltre all went off for this squad, as the bats scored a whopping 49 points. However, with the super high scoring night and the meager total from the pitcher spot, this team fell short of cashing. * FINISH: 51.33 PTS / 380 OF 1674 FOR $0.
FRIDAY, JUNE 6
Team #1 – With a promising rookie on the mound for the Rockies and Ryu on the mound for the Dodgers, I elected to fade the Coors game again. Instead, I elected to stack Oakland and Baltimore facing off against each other in Camden Yards with Wei-Yen Chen and Tommy Milone — two struggling lefties — on the bump. This was only a 4-3 game, but there were four home runs in this game and I happened to have three of them. Jered Weaver also put up a solid 17 points on the mound, but this team fell just short of cashing as some highly owned players put up nice totals tonight. * FINISH: 45.25 PTS / 207 OF 1564 FOR $0.
Team #2 – Yu Darvish was the clear-cut ace of the day, but he had one of his worst starts in recent memory. Even that was decent enough, as he racked up enough strikeouts and stayed around long enough to get the win. The value bats let this team down though, thanks to poor performances by guys like Mitch Moreland, Oscar Taveras, and Austin Jackson. * FINISH: 34.75 PTS / 668 OF 1564 FOR $0.
Team #3 – The third big hit of the year becomes the second big score for the runaway freight train being engineered by Team #3. Tanner Roark dominated the Padres and was a golden pick as the punt pitcher, as he hurled eight dazzling shutout innings with 11 strikeouts to total 23 fantasy points with his victory. At just 6.1% owned, this gave me a nice edge on the field. The big bats came through in a big way too, as Buster Posey, Jose Reyes, and Andrew McCutchen each had 8+ fantasy points. It all added up to the highest single night score of the year for any of the three teams, even though it wasn’t the highest finish. * FINISH: 59.50 PTS / 13 OF 1564 FOR $120.
SATURDAY, JUNE 7
The mojo from Friday didn’t carry over to Saturday as this night was a disaster. I was extremely high on the HR-dependent Braves bats against HR-machine Wade Miley in Chase Field, but this game let me down by the end of the night.
Team #1 – Arizona and Atlanta were the mini stacks with the two teams facing off in a hitter-friendly park. These mini-stacks were paired with a reasonably priced Tim Hudson at pitcher who was going up against the Mets at home. Pretty much everyone on this team disappointed outside of Evan Gattis and this squad never stood a chance. * FINISH: 21.75 PTS / 613 OF 838 FOR $0.
Team #2 – Knowing that a ton of folks would be on Chris Sale, I went with the pivot of Max Scherzer at pitcher against the Red Sox. That worked out well as Scherzer ended up with more points thanks to Mike Trout grand slam off sale in the 8th. The value bats were solid, as I put Gattis on this squad as well and Yangervis Solarte put up a respectable 6.75 points. This team was in the money most of the night but fell out with all the late blown saves and extra inning points that became available. Those are the breaks. * FINISH: 37.66 PTS / 100 OF 838 FOR $0.
Team #3 – I was a big fan of fading the highly-owned A’s bats tonight (in GPP’s) against Kevin Gausman, a highly touted prospect who simply hasn’t put it all together at the MLB level yet. However, I wanted to have some exposure to them and the punt pitcher team was the perfect spot to do it. Therefore, I threw Moss, Donaldson, and Lowrie on this squad with Shoemaker as the punt pitcher against the White Sox. None of the punt pitcher options were worth a hoot on this night, so I don’t think this team could have cashed anyhow. The poor game from the A’s big bats pretty much put the nail in the coffin for this squad, though Alex Gordon and Jason Heyward did have nice games. * FINISH: 29.50 PTS / 337 OF 838 FOR $0.
FINAL RESULTS: THROUGH EIGHT WEEKS
| Statistic | Team #1 | Team #2 | Team #3 | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Score | 1366.61 | 1393.96 | 1282.45 | |
| Average Score | 34.17 | 34.85 | 32.06 | |
| High Score | 56.50 | 48.75 | 59.50 | |
| Low Score | 6.08 | 22.00 | 13.08 | |
| Entry Fees (Seas) | $400 | $400 | $400 | $1,200 |
| Winnings (Seas) | $450 | $215 | $720 | $1,385 |
| Profit/Loss (Seas) | $50 | -$185 | $320 | $185 |
| ROI (Seas) | 12.5% | -46.3% | 80.0% | 15.4% |
MY ANALYSIS
It was a solid week on the GPP front, and I am really impressed with how much steam the punt-pitcher strategy is picking up lately. I must give credit to the readers who pointed out that they liked this strategy for GPP’s several weeks ago — before this trend had even started to pay off at all. As the bats have heated up across baseball with the warmer weather, spending a good majority of the salary cap on hitters is starting to yield solid returns. It’s becoming clearer by the week that this is a winning GPP strategy, as the previous “high score” for Team #3 (through seven weeks) was broken three times in Week 8 alone. The stud-pitcher strategy continues to have the highest average score which again lends credit to this being the best strategy for cash games.