MLB DFS Strategy: Finding Leverage

May 18, 2021

Mark Kieffer gives some tips on how to be a successful and profitable MLB DFS player in the fourth part of his MLB strategy series.

This is the next installment of my MLB DFS Strategy Series. If you missed the first one about Bankroll Management and Contest Selection you can check it out here. The second installment about Contest Selection and Single Entry success is here. The most recent installment about creating tournament lineups can be found here.

Hello, RotoBallers, and thanks for taking the time to read this MLB DFS strategy piece! If you're here, it's likely because you want to be a better DFS player and learn more about how to be a sustainable DFS player who doesn't have to deposit more money in their account every week.

So far in this series you've read about bankroll management and contest selection. Last time I talked about a crucial topic - how do I build lineups that maximize my chances of winning each night? Today I am going to discuss various tournament strategies that can push you up over the top to win a tournament by using information that everyone already knows!

The Background

Most DFS players at this point understand that in order to have a chance to win a tournament you typically need to have a full-stack, and one or two pitchers (if playing on DraftKings) smash. Doing that type of research in a vacuum isn't difficult. It takes about five minutes to know which stacks are projected to score the most fantasy points and which pitchers are projected to score the most fantasy points.

You take that information and day in and day out, you don't smash. Your pitcher doesn't perform as well as you'd hoped. That stack only scored four runs, or even worse - the team scored nine runs all due to multiple home runs from the players hitting six-nine in the order and you stacked batters one through five.

Sound familiar?

To me it does, because that was me a few years ago. I was so focused on projected points and predicting what will happen in a random MLB game on a random evening, that I failed to look at the bigger picture: this game isn't about scoring raw points. It is about beating everyone else in the field. DFS is a zero-sum game. If we are in the same tournament and I win, that means you didn't.

Let's talk about how to put some of these ideas into action!

The Basics: Ownership

If you want to have more success in tournaments, you need to have a sense of what the field is likely to do. I don't care what game you play, if you know what your opponent is likely to do, that gives you a chance to build a strategy around beating them right?

The same thing applies in DFS.

If you do not know how to project or predict ownership, that's the first skill you need to develop. Some people have intuition, some people subscribe to models that predict ownership, some people just read every website, and when every website touts the same plays they know that's the chalk.

I know because I have done all those things as well. The cheapest way to project chalk in my opinion is to look at the Vegas lines and find the implied run totals. Generally, the teams with the higher run totals will be more popular than the teams that do not. Teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers have brand equity, so a five-run projected Yankees team will likely be more popular than a five-run projected Twins team.  Plug the popular plays into your lineup, see what else you can afford. Is there a minimum-priced punt that is batting at the top of the order that makes the expensive stack work? Is the stack so mispriced you can play anybody? Those are important things to know.

If the Dodgers are projected for six runs in Coors Field and are priced up to an extent that there's really only one logical way to build a lineup and fit the stack, there's a good chance that in addition to the stack, a lot of the pieces will be 20-30% owned as well.

The more experience you have, the better you will get at projecting chalk. When analyzing lineups after a slate has played, do not just look at the points but look at the ownership. Was the ownership what I expected or was it different? If different, break down the slate to see if there was some information in your process that you missed.

"But Mark, I won this random GPP once and I didn't do any of that. I just picked my guys and won." Congrats, hater, you flopped the nuts on a random day and got lucky. Enjoy the W!

All kidding aside, anyone who has had some success has been there at some point. Sometimes it really does pay to be lucky than it does to be good. But at the end of the day, projecting ownership is crucial to becoming a good DFS tournament player. If that ain't for you, then stick to the cash games.

"So I just fade all the chalk and I am good... Right?"

No. It's not as easy as that. A lot of DFS advice will use the term "good chalk" or "bad chalk". I used to use those phrases but I am trying to eliminate them from my vocabulary because they do not make sense.

Fading a 60% deGrom when there is a 20% Glasnow might be a good fade (most call this a pivot but I don't want to get into semantics). Fading a 60% deGrom when the next best pitcher is a 7.5k Alex Wood is not a good fade, because in that instance deGrom probably should be 80%+ owned.

A fade to me only makes sense if there is an alternative. Some people don't get that. Some just try to find all these low-owned players that are below 10% and 5% owned, trying to flop the nuts and hope for a win. That's hard to do.

Making smart moves that are different from others, is what I call leverage.

Leverage

Finding spots where you have leverage on the field, is the goal of tournaments. If that isn't your goal, it should be your goal. Let's talk about a few examples of leverage:

Let's say there is a pitcher that is priced on DraftKings in the $7k-$8k range. And for whatever reason, in the context of this slate, that pitcher is the chalk and is expected to have high ownership. On the flip side, that pitcher does have the potential for blow up (they are priced $7-$8k instead of $9-$11k for a reason) and are facing a boom or bust lineup.  A way to get leverage on the field is to stack that lineup against that boom or bust pitcher. I talked about it in a previous article, but if there is ever a low-priced starting pitcher that is in a spot like this, I love to stack against the pitcher. If playing multiple lineups, you can have one lineup with the starting pitcher in it, one lineup with the stack in it, and one with neither in it and hope that one of the three lineups hit.

In this scenario, we are looking for situations where a pitcher being the top-scoring pitcher is as likely as the stack against them being the top-scoring stack of the night. Remember with tournaments, I am trying to win or place high in a handful a year. If that pitcher is chalk, he might be in 30-40% of the lineups, but most of the field won't also be 30%-40% on the stack against him. Generally, most Tournament players just avoid stacks against the chalk pitchers. In reality, the exposure to both events should be close and usually aren't. That difference is a small edge that can help you in the long run.

Another spot for leverage is finding stacks that have a greater probability of being the top stack than the ownership is. Let's say on a given evening the Braves have a 15% chance of being the top stack of the night, but they are projected to have between 5% and 10% ownership. That difference in ownership is good leverage to have on the field.

If a chalk play's ownership is equal to or less than the chances of them being the top score of the night, I define that as chalk I want to play.

Going back to the scenario with Alex Wood vs. deGrom. In that scenario, deGrom is 60% owned but he likely has a greater than 60% chance of being the top-scoring starting pitcher on the slate. I will roster deGrom in a spot like that in two of my three lineups (66% exposure) because I am of the belief he should be higher owned than he is. If he is pitching on a night with other Cy Young potential pitchers going, I will have deGrom in one of three of my lineups.

A similar scenario to this was on Friday, May 14th. Joe Musgrove was very popular, about 60% owned in some of my tournaments. This was on the same evening that Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Alcantara, Frankie Montas, Zack Greinke, Tyler Glasnow, and Corey Kluber were on the slate. Spots like this are good spots to fade the chalk. I wouldn't have stacked against Joe Musgrove or anything like that because his blowup potential was not the same as his potential as being the top pitcher on the night, but his chances of being the top pitcher on the night were lower than the 60% ownership he carried.

Whether Joe Musgrove gets there or not isn't the point. The point is rostering a 60% owned player with a 20% (or less) chance of being the best pitcher on the slate is a losing proposition in the long run. Avoid doing that.

The same line of thinking can be used when looking at hitters. Some nights Mike Trout or Ronald Acuna will be over 30% owned. I can promise you that despite them being two of the best hitters in the game, there is almost never a slate where there is a 30% chance of either being the top-scoring hitter of the night unless we are talking about a showdown slate.

Final Thoughts

Having a strong sense of what ownership will be in a high variance sport like MLB is an edge. Being able to play the differences in ownership to your advantage is the way to get ahead of the field. The goal of a tournament is to beat everyone else in the tournament, not to find the most projected points in a vacuum.

Some simple ways to gain leverage in tournaments is to attack a chalk pitcher (that shouldn't really be chalk) with a good stack, or find the difference between chances of the expected outcome and ownership percentage and play those differences. There are a lot of small edges to find that can help you win.

As you look this week at the various slates, see if there are situations where the slate gives you a chalk play you want to attack or whether the chalk is something you want to play. When the slate locks and you are doing analysis, instead of beating yourself up by not predicting that random double dong of the night, look at ownership. Did the ownership align with your expectation? Can you explain why or why not? I promise if you can take your analysis up a level by doing these exercises, you will be better at DFS Tournaments.

You may think everything I have written is common knowledge but I promise you 100%, this is NOT how the majority of DFS players think about the slates and their plays.

Make sure you check back next week as I continue this series of DFS strategy articles that I will be doing here at RotoBaller! Good luck and play smart!