Using Coors to Your Advantage
You’re not alone. I have been there too. Hey, we all have. We’re all in this together…
What am I talking about? I’m talking about this:
You’re playing an MLB DFS slate, and you have built a great team. Your games start. Everything goes well. You put up a really solid score — a score you know will bring a nice return on your cash-game investment and that may even bring you a big day in
GPPs.
And then, the game at Coors Field begins. You don’t own any players playing in that game. And by the time that game reaches the fifth inning, you have not only lost your dreams of a big GPP day, but are now hoping to simply get lucky and hold on in cash games. (Sorry to break it to you: by the time the game at Coors reaches the sixth inning, you probably won’t be in the money in cash games either.)
I know what some of you were thinking as you read that. I know you were thinking it because I was even sort of thinking it as I wrote it: Why would you ever fade Coors Field in cash games to begin with?
But now, let’s look at the other side of this. This is also a place we have all been before.
You have loaded up on bats at Coors Field in a great matchup, and ownership in the early games is higher than you would have expected. Even better: most of the highly-owned players in the early games don’t do much, and by the time the game at Coors is getting underway, you’re already pretty close to the money. You have no question that your seven Coors bats are going to give you an easy day of cashing in cash games along with a shot at a solid GPP finish.
But then…the game at Coors gets underway. And nothing really happens. The Rockies push across a run in the third. The opposing team pushes across a couple runs in the fifth. By the time you reach the seventh inning, you’re looking at a 4-2 ballgame with no home runs and no huge hitting explosions. What’s more, you’re staring up at a long, high climb to even break into the money in cash games — with GPPs already a long-lost cause.
There might not be anything more frustrating in MLB DFS than fading Coors Field in favor of a team that puts up a tremendous day — only for this team to be wrecked by the offensive onslaught out west. I say there might not be anything more frustrating than that because if there is something more frustrating in MLB DFS, it’s probably those times when you load up on Coors and get absolutely nothing.
But you know what? While others sometimes complain about Coors and get annoyed when the Rockies are set to be home for a few days, I always get excited. “A week and a half of games at Coors? What could be better!”
If you have read any significant amount of my DFS writing (or…at least, if you have paid attention to any significant amount of my DFS writing), you know that one of my core focuses is always to look for an edge. You should break down a slate, each day, and be able to determine where your edge on the field can be found. And when Coors Field is in play, this is usually the easiest place of all to find your edge.
The reason? On days when the matchups dictate that Coors should be heavily-owned, it always somehow manages to be lower-owned than it should be. And on days when the matchups dictate that Coors should be treated like any other ballpark, it always manages to be higher-owned than it should be.
“Okay,” you may be saying. “That’s great and all, but how the heck do I know when the matchups dictate that Coors should be heavily-owned, and when do they instead dictate that Coors should be treated like any other ballpark?”
Hey, guess what? You’ve come to the right place! It just so happens that this is exactly what we are going to be exploring in this course.
If you have ever complained about Coors Field, this course is for you. If you have ever wished Coors Field made more sense, feel free to hop over that fence. It’s more fun over here where I’m standing. It’s more fun to see a set of upcoming games at Coors Field and to get excited about how easy those slates will be.
Want to join me over here?
Let’s get started right away.