Getting started in MLB DFS: What to look for, how to do it

There is no daily fantasy sport with more variance than baseball.

You can get absolutely lost during the research process for a given slate. Unlike football and basketball, where you can bank and project volume, baseball is different. Mike Trout, the consensus top player in the sport, has far less control over his outcome than someone like Russell Westbrook would in the NBA, or Michael Thomas in the NFL. But that variance, and the handful of other underlying factors, make preparing for an MLB slate so much fun. There is a process to researching every sport, but the majors is an entirely different ball game.

FanGraphs

Good luck playing daily fantasy baseball without understanding FanGraphs. Sure, it is possibleto do so without it, but the premiere baseball website on the planet allows you to truly unmask who a player is and what their tendencies are. You will hear this a lot from me, but my main focus when looking at any slate is positive correlation, and it especially applies for baseball. FanGraphs allows you to look at hundreds of advanced metrics, including how often a pitcher throws a certain pitch and how effective that pitch is. On the flip side, I also love looking at how successful a certain hitter is against a certain pitch to try to identify if it is an advantageous spot. For instance, a pitcher like Kansas City’s Jakob Junis threw his slider 43.9 percent of the time in 2019, the highest rate among qualified pitchers. He also gave up a ton of production to left-handed hitters, while Colorado lefty Charlie Blackmon ranked second in baseball against the slider last year. Those numbers, at least to start, would make someone like Blackmon a solid option on a given slate.

Of course, there are so many other factors, too.

When selecting your starting pitchers, you are obviously going to look at the opposing matchup. But regardless, you want the best chance of getting as many strikeouts as possible, especially if you are spending up at the position. You can find strikeout rates all over FanGraphs, as well as swinging strike rates, which is a better indicator of just how good a pitcher is at inducing swings and misses.

Batted ball data is also important when researching. A lot of pitchers in the league don’t induce many swings and misses, which gives your hitters a better chance of getting on base and scoring runs. You can sort to find the pitchers who allow the most contact in baseball, then correlate with hitters who generate a lot of contact at the plate. Of course, not all contact is the same, as we want players that create hard contact and fly balls. The former leads to the ball landing in gaps and making it more difficult for fielders, while the latter is obviously something that you will see from home run hitters. And as the weather gets warmer, those fly balls and hard hits turn into home runs more often.

Weather

Speaking of weather, mother nature can alter an entire slate of baseball games. Two gas-can pitchers in an elite ballpark could lead to a game with a high total, but constant rain could lead to postponement. If you have the time, I would highly suggest taking a look at any potential precipitation and wind in each game. A heavy dose of wind in an already small venue isn’t exactly a recipe for success for opposing pitchers, while it is a welcoming sight for hitters.

Ballpark

Unlike football and basketball, venue is a huge part of the equation in baseball. Understanding the dimensions of every ballpark in the league is important when choosing which hitters to target and which pitchers to avoid. Every venue is different. For instance, Yankee Stadium has a short porch in right field, sitting just 314 feet from home plate, making it very advantageous for left-handed hitters. Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park and Baltimore’s Camden Yards are two other hitter-friendly environments. Then, there are the bigger ballparks that favor pitchers, such as San Diego’s Petco Park or San Francisco’s Oracle Park. Knowing the ballpark and a hitter’s tendencies when it comes to pulling the ball, or going opposite field, can give you an edge.