This is where daily fantasy baseball can bridge the gap, restart your baseball season, and potentially recoup your losses.
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Transitioning from season long baseball to daily is not an easy task. Baseball is by far the toughest of the DFS sports in my opinion. When the best players already have a 70-percent failure rate built in, the deck is stacked against you. That doesn’t mean you can’t be successful with a realistic plan. Here are some DFS principles to adhere to straight from the Fantasy Black Book Series that can help make your DFS venture a successful ride.
Daily fantasy baseball strategy advice
- Choose Your Contest Wisely
This is perhaps the most significant of all the principles – and the most commonly ignored. It also leads to the destruction of bankroll and a sour taste in many player’s mouths about daily fantasy. The big-time payouts of the giant tournaments (GPPs) is very tantalizing. However, the odds are stacked against you. In multi-entry contests, you may be competing against pros with many entries, bigger bankrolls and more experience. That’s not a good combination. The bigger the prizes, the more pros you’ll be playing against.
The best approach is the 50/50 contest where, although the prizes aren’t overwhelming, the success rate is significantly better. Avoid head-to-head matchups, too. They’re often traps to take advantage of new players. Stick with the 50/50s and get comfortable with the style.
- Bankroll Discipline/Management
Rule No. 1 directly ties to rule No. 2. In any given night you don’t want more than 10-20 percent of your entire bankroll in play. I know, that sounds boring, but you have to look at the big picture in baseball and play daily everyday as though it were seasonal, otherwise you run the risk of blowing through your bankroll in a short period. The discipline is difficult, but necessary, in the early going. If you are successful for a few weeks, then you can start trying your hand at small-scale single entry tournaments.
- Research/Commitment
If you think DFS is casual, you’re wrong. It takes more time, research and commitment than seasonal. Tools like my Relative Position Value per Dollar and Fantasy Alarm’s Playbook are great additions to your arsenal, but use them to educate yourselves. BvP (batter vs. pitcher), splits, trends all make a huge impact on your player selection process. Don’t let someone else pay for you. Learn to apply these concepts to your game so that you can have the true experience.
- Understanding Scoring
FanDuel, DraftKings, Fantasy Aces etc. all have nuances in terms of scoring and lineup creation. Learn them, understand them, and find the best DFS site for your taste. Play free games to see how the sites play and which cater to your strengths as a fantasy player. In fact, playing for free is highly recommended even on nights when you have money invested in other contests. Try different theories and lineups. Learn for free, not on your dime!
- Stacking and The “Colorado Factor”
When Colorado is in play, the DFS game changes and you must account for this shift. Prices will soar for those players and scoring will be up overall. When “stacking” players from one favorable matchup, try to have them consecutive in the lineup. Some stacks are tempting, but remember – if your eggs are in one basket, you will live and die with that outcome. If baseball teaches us anything, it’s that nothing is a sure thing.
Joe Pisapia (@JoePisapia17) is the seven-time best-selling author of the Fantasy Black Book Series for baseball and football. He hosts Fantasy Sports Tonight on Sirius/XM Fantasy Sports Radio and the Dear Mr. Fantasy Podcast.
