An Introduction to Predicting Pitchers

Listen up. Pay attention. This course will be the most important thing you ever learn about MLB DFS — about how to make MLB a beatable game.

Seriously.

I say it all the time in my RotoGrinders articles. I’ll say it again:

Predicting pitching is the most important element of MLB DFS success.

I have some other DFS courses available here at RotoAcademy. Step 2 is my course on predicting hitting (it’s easier than you think!). Step 3 focuses on putting it all together (combining the things learned in these first two courses to build consistently successful rosters). I also have some advanced courses that can really take your game to the next level. But don’t skip ahead to those. Don’t skimp on your knowledge of predicting pitching. This is the foundation of MLB DFS. This is the core knowledge you need in order to be successful.

“Foundation? Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve already been playing MLB DFS for a while and don’t exactly need a beginner’s course. I’ll pass.”

If that’s what you are thinking right now, I’ll let you in on a secret: this is not a beginner’s course. (Okay, that’s not really a secret, but it’s always fun to write, “I’ll let you in on a secret.”) This is, instead, a foundational course, and the difference is this:

A beginner’s course focuses on the things that a beginner needs to know.

A foundational course focuses on the things that beginners and seasoned players alike need to know.

I won’t hold back. I’m going to show you everything I know about predicting pitching (and everything I know about how to apply this knowledge).

Do I know everything there is to know in this area? Probably not. But predicting pitching is my greatest strength in MLB DFS (and I’ll tell you: I’m a pretty darn good player overall), and it is something I focus on every day.

Each day that I play, I study the results of all the pitchers who pitched that night in order to see what I can further learn. Each day, I expand my knowledge, and today (or over the next few days — or for however long it takes you to read this course), I’ll be sharing this accumulated knowledge with you.

Once you master this knowledge, you will immediately increase your MLB DFS success. In fact, once you master this knowledge — even before you learn about picking hitters, and even before you learn how to put it all together — cash games will become a consistent source of DFS income. All from predicting pitching.

Enough in the way of intro, though. You ready?

Let’s go.

Why Predicting Pitching is Important

If you know anything about statistics, you know that the larger the sample size we have, the more accurate our understanding of these statistics (and the inferences we can make from these statistics) will be.

Wait. Am I getting too formal in my writing style? Crap! Let me pull things together for a second (or rather, I guess, let me push things apart so it’s not so stodgy in here, and we can talk like we’re sitting down at a campfire together with a couple bratwursts and a couple cold beers, talking about MLB DFS like the pals we are).

Okay, that’s better. Let me start over.

We all know sample sizes are important, right? Of course we do! And we all understand that a pitcher who faces 25 or 30 batters in a game has a much better chance of seeing their “large sample size” stats normalize in a single game than a batter who only gets 4 or 5 at-bats. And that’s the big thing here. You can predict which hitters are likely to have a good game (yes, I’m not joking — stop laughing; you really can, and I’ll show you how in Step 2!), but while most nights will leave you disappointed in one or two (or three… or four) of your “hitters who should have had a good game,” you will have far fewer nights in which your pitchers leave you with that feeling like someone drilled a hole in your stomach.

Let me tell you a story. (Oh, what’s that? Yeah, go grab another beer first. I’ll wait. The fire needs to be stoked a bit anyway. You back? You settled in? Okay, then. That story…)

In 2014, I started playing MLB DFS for the first time. I was fortunate enough to enjoy some sizable success even before I really put all my knowledge together into a comprehensive, fully-interlocked piece. Then, by the time I did pull everything together, I was able to use my already-grown bankroll and my pile of ever-growing knowledge to pretty much string together four months of quality performance.

Around September of that year, however (after I returned home from my free trip to the Bahamas — courtesy of DraftKings — where I finished seventh place out of 50 in the $1 million tournament), I apparently decided to go on an MLB losing streak and donate back a nice chunk of the money I had won in MLB and was winning in NFL. It was sort of that “win a bunch of money on Sunday in NFL, and then give it back throughout the week” plan. (It’s not a plan I recommend.)

In case you cannot guess: the main culprit behind my losing streak was hitters. No, I wasn’t doing anything different with hitters. I wasn’t changing my approach or making big mistakes. Instead, I was simply “running cold” — picking hitters with sound reasoning and logic behind my pick — but with horrible results showing up each night.

I’ve certainly grown even more in my knowledge since then, and I’ve picked up a few things that would probably prevent me from ever having quite so bad a cold streak with hitters again. But that’s not the point of this story. The point of this story is the following.

One night during that cold streak — in fact, it was the last night of MLB I played during the 2014 season — I accumulated a team of hitters that went a combined 1-31. That’s one hit (a single, no less), in 31 at-bats.

I would like to present a challenge to you. I challenge you to pick eight hitters in a night who will combine for only one hit. Seriously — try it (I’ve tried it since then). I mean, don’t try it this moment because we’re hanging out, and you’re reading this, and I’m about to pack your brain with knowledge, but try it one night. Or two nights. Or 10 nights. It’s pretty freaking difficult to do!

Even picking bad hitters against good pitchers, it’s tough to accumulate a team of eight hitters who combine for only one hit in a night. And yet, I managed to do that one fateful night in 2014 when I was picking good hitters against bad pitchers.

That’s crazy.

But that’s not the craziest thing about that night. No — the craziest thing about that night was this.

I still almost cashed in tournaments that night. And if I had played cash games that night (50/50’s or double-ups), I would have cashed.

How is that possible?

One word: Pitching.

When people come to MLB from other sports, they quickly gain this concept that MLB is remarkably difficult to predict — that it’s nearly impossible, in fact, to experience any sort of consistent success in MLB. These people sometimes go so far as to imagine that “luck” is the biggest factor in MLB (as if those guys — myself among them — who string together winning month after winning month in MLB are simply “the luckiest guys in Vegas.” Sorry — Rounders snuck up on me there).

Here’s the thing, though: most nights, you can do a good job predicting hitting. Yes, there is variance in the small sample sizes of hitters. Yes, you will have nights in which your hitters fail to perform. But here’s the cool thing: because of the predictability of pitching, you can always have a good shot at cashing in cash games, even on nights when your hitters fail to perform! Once you reach a place where you can consistently predict pitching performance, you will have a much higher floor than your competition, and you will be in great shape to compete in MLB DFS every single day.

About the Author

JMToWin
JM Tohline (JMToWin)

JM Tohline (Tuh-lean) – DFS alias JMToWin – is a novelist and a DFS player who specializes in high-stakes MLB and NFL tourneys, with a strategy geared toward single-entry play in multi-entry tourneys. He joined the DFS scene at the beginning of the 2014 MLB season, and has since won five DFS championship seats and two separate trips to the Bahamas. His tendency to type a lot of words leads to a corresponding tendency to divulge all his DFS thoughts, strategies, and secrets…which is exactly what he does in his RotoGrinders articles and RotoAcademy courses. You can find JM on Twitter at JMToWin.