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Tag: MLB DFS

Dongers Club 2019 Preview: Stacking ***** (Picking Hitters)

I have been labeled a grumpy old troll at times and one of the common reasons is when I come out with my famous “Stacking Sucks” statement in reference to anyone saying that stacking is the only way to win in Baseball DFS.  To be fair, I’m usually trolling when I go on these rants, but there are some serious pet peeves I have when it comes to folks discussing simply using “stacks” as their logic for picking players. To have things in full context, we must first look at the definitions of what a stack is and how it relates to what I am saying. STACK In my mind, a stack is considered when you play 4 hitters (or up to 5 on DraftKings) from the same team.  It doesn’t matter if they hit consecutively in the order or not, you are merely just taking the idea that if a team scores 7 runs on 15 hits and nobody else has that much offensive production on the slate then you’re going to want to have as much exposure to that team as possible.  I completely agree with this mindset and I have no issue with it as an approach. MINI STACK A mini stack would be when you have three hitters from a team but choose to not take it to the max limits on the DFS sites.  There’s no difference between this and a FULL stack other than one less bat. That’s it.  Those are the only types of stacks and I do them both often.  What I won’t tolerate is someone trying to take this down as far as they can because they only know the word stack and say that 2 players from one team is a stack.  In order to have a ‘stack’ we need a number of things.  Two is not a number of things.  It’s two players, it could be a combo, it could be just random clicking on accident and you didn’t even realize you had two from the same team.  Two is not a stack and please stop listening to anyone who calls it a mini-stack.  We must draw the line somewhere.   Now the question is, how do you build your lineup and this is where the real #StackingSucks label comes in for me. 4×4 STACK – A very simple construction.  You are playing 4 batters from team 1 and 4 batters from team 2 and putting them in the same lineup. 4×3 STACK –  The most common approach is to have two different sized stacks with a one off at either a position of weakness on the slate or a must own player. 3×3 STACK – Two mini stacks put together with enough flexibility to fill in our one offs. That’s it…  Some will try to force in their 2 man stack again with a 3-3-2.  Sure, 3-3-2 is a VERY common approach because we’re limiting our team exposure down to just three teams.  But that isn’t a stacking method any more than a 3x3x1x1 approach where we have two one off teams.   The problem with stacking, is always who do you stack in the lineup?   I do not like to blind stack teams, which would be taking two teams like OAKLAND and SEATTLE and saying I want 4 players from each but I don’t care who the 4 players are.  This is an MME approach where you are picking the teams you would like to have and then usually trusting a tool or optimizer to help give you the 4 best optimal players based on position, price and match-up but not caring at the end of the day who the four players are. So many times I will hear after the fact “oh man, you were on [Cincinnati], should have stacked 1-3-7-8….  But I played 1-2-4-5”.  And here in lies why Stacking Sucks.  Because if you are playing the Cincinnati Reds in that scenario then you should be doing multiple blind lineups to pull the Reds in.  But if you aren’t a stacker like me and you want to pick the best players then you would be going in and identifying the Reds that you want to have.  If you happen to wind up with 3 or 4 of them and have a ‘stack’ by definition then great.  But our approach into building the lineup is where we can have more success going forward.  So here’s a simple lineup construction thought … Are you playing MME?  (I won’t even take it to the extreme here, lets just say are you going over 10 lineups?) If the answer is Yes.  Then stack away.  Stack teams as much as your heart desires and I would recommend doing 4x3x1 or 4×4 only with this approach. If the answer is No however like me, then let’s not ‘stack’.  Let’s identify three things in our hitter selection to narrow it down and find the bats that we are going to end up using on that site. Which pitchers/bullpens are we targeting.  We have to find the weakness out there and/or the spots that we’re going to be picking on for offense based on the pitchers. What environments are beneficial for hitting on this given slate.  Usually driven by the weather and the ballpark environment itself. How does each position rate on a given slate in terms of pricing, quality of player and ratings.  We should understand if there are a ton of Second Baseman on a given slate who stand out as good plays to help us determine if we can take a risk on rostering a low in the order 2B on that night who happens to be in one of our ‘stacks’. Using these three criteria on players we will identify a narrowed pool of teams and thus hitters.  Depending on how much one team stands out above another, we will find ourselves likely playing multiple bats from one team.  If we’re going to be attacking a pitcher/bullpen in

Dongers Club 2019 Preview: Roofs, Pools and South Beach

The Dongers Club, by Steve Renner (SDCHICKENS) will take you through the Ballparks, Weather and Unique Rankings from only the Dongers Club and how to use them for MLB DFS this season. Some say this article alone is worth the full season subscription.

Dongers Club 2019 Preview: Attacking Frauds

Batting Second … Attacking Fraud Players Pitchers in MLB DFS Welcome to the #2 hole in the Dongers Club 2019 Season Preview, where we dig into identifying, and attacking Fraud Players and how to avoid them as traps in DFS.  So let’s first recap what the definition of a fraud is in the context of what I’m saying here …   Fraud (noun) … a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities. THOSE NEW SHINY PITCHING FRAUDS This is exactly the description that comes to mind when we get into the day-to-day routine of looking at who’s Pitching and who’s batting where and in what situation for the purposes of DFS analysis.  Suddenly we will find ourselves in Mid May or early June and not only are certain players 40% owned but they are being referenced as these new found elite talents that are going to be future super-stars in the league. There is this fascination among DFS analysts to be “first” much like reporters and insiders in the news cycle want to be the first one with a story to get the credit, everyone in DFS suddenly thinks that they are the smartest person in the room if they can find some young player at value and hit them before the whole world is on top of them.  With all of that we get what I call the perfect DFS shit storm and a player like Caleb Ferguson is 60% owned in cash games making his major league debut on the road. Ferguson made his first start on Wednesday, June 6th at Pittsburgh.  He lasted 1 2/3 Innings on his way to giving up 4 ER off 2 hits, 3 walks and striking out only 3 on 57 pitches.  All of this for $7,400 on DraftKings.  Ferguson would go on to make two more starts for the Dodgers going 4 IP against the Rangers and then 5 IP against the Giants (both at home).  In neither contest did he A:  Win,  B: Strikeout more than 3 batters or C:  Help anyone win a damn thing in DFS.  Ferguson moved into the bullpen for the Dodgers for the rest of the year where he managed to appear in a total of 29 games and bring his ERA down to 3.49 while posting a nice 10+ K/9 ratio and gradually settling into a nice middle relief bullpen arm for the Dodgers on their way to another World Series appearance. But Ferguson is the epitome of a DFS Fraud.  If you played DFS on that day and poked around the MLB DFS Industry you likely heard insane claims such as “This kid is a future star”, or “he has had serviceable numbers in the minors so far this season” or my favorite “I researched this kid all day, he did a great job limiting his walks in the minors and he’s going to be a future All-Star.” ……..  It’s no shocker that the folks who were on Ferguson quickly shifted their attention to hyping up their NFL product or some other excuse as to why they couldn’t provide MLB analysis any further for the season.  Picks like Ferguson are the lazy approach to picking players. Now, I know what you are thinking.  Am I simply bashing every new player?  At some point we have to get on these guys before their prices catch up to the skill set, no?   Absolutely we do, and without looking into the Caleb Ferguson’s of the world we wouldn’t trust guys like Walker Buehler, Joey Lucchesi, Trevor Richards, Andrew Suarez, Ryan Yarborough, Domingo German, Shane Bieber, Brad Keller, etc…   All arms who at some point during the 2018 season became new faces to use and trust. So what’s the difference?  How do we try to identify someone like Ferguson or Jacob Faria — who was also hyped up like he was the next coming of Jesus at times in 2017 — but not miss out on the likes of Joey Lucchesi or Trevor Richards?   Is Ryan Borucki good?  What about Jalen Beeks? There’s a few check boxes that you should be trying to check when you hear a new name pop up and most apply to both pitchers and hitters. 1)  Where did this prospect rank at the beginning of the season? Below are where some notable pitchers ranked at the beginning of the 2018 season, as per Baseball America, these guys were all in the Top 100… 11.  Michael Kopech 13.  Walker Buehler 27.  Mike Soroka 53.  Jack Flaherty 61.  Brandon Woodruff 90.  Tyler Mahle But out of 30 teams, there’s a good chance that one teams top prospect may not find their way into the Top 100 of a particular scouts list, and so we want to dig into the actual teams farm system to find out what the future path of the player coming up is.  Domingo German was one of the Yankees better pitching prospects who was ready to come up last year.  Shane Bieber was on record as having been labeled to be groomed as the next Corey Kluber and Trevor Richards although ranked as low as 18 even within the Marlins farm system had quickly been ascending up the ranks. The point here is that, we want to know about these players BEFORE they come up to the big leagues.  More often than not you are going to get burned by a new pitcher who has no pedigree or hype associated with them before they arrive in the big leagues and you certainly do not need to take a risk on chalky young starting pitchers.  They flop way more than they succeed.  Kerry Wood aint walking through those doors. There are plenty of other reasons these guys turn into Frauds however if they do come up and appear to stick with the big leagues. 2) The Popular Organization Hype Simply put.  If the player is on the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cardinals, Cubs

Dongers Club 2019 – First Pitch

The ultimate MLB season preview from Steve Renner gives you win total predictions, sleepers, busts and more in the Dongers Club 2019 First Pitch.

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