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There are a few different formats when it comes to fantasy baseball. While some players enjoy leagues that last the entire season, others prefer daily fantasy contests. The common ground between daily fantasy and season-long play is consistency in research. With both leagues, fantasy owners benefit from keeping tabs on how different teams are performing. Season-long players might look to organizations that are out of the playoff hunt or teams that are projected to lack depth and a winning record. The same goes for daily fantasy play, where you likely won't take an over-priced catcher on a team that might afford them 3-4 at-bats when you can select a low-priced player from a game with a highly projected run total. That's because more at-bats lead to the increased chances that player has to score for your team.
A second important factor in lineup construction is finding where players are positioned. Most teams release their daily lineups hours before that night's contest, affording the user time to do their research. When it comes to playing on
One of the major advantages for fantasy players is the ability to check weather forecasts and wind speeds through an app or website. This readily available information can make for a boom or bust lineup. If the forecast looks gloomy, a player might check out players from a different game. Some fantasy fans prefer the competitive advantage of taking a chance on a game with low player ownership. You also have to take weather effects into consideration. Remember, if a game doesn't go 5 innings, the postponement with result in nullifying any statistics achieved during that game.
Ballparks are also something to take into consideration with fantasy baseball. For example, Coors Field is known as one of the best hitters' parks and usually favors the long ball. The major daily fantasy providers also utilize this knowledge when constructing salary numbers for a given day.
When players are called up or make their first start on the mound, they usually carry a low price point. To get called up, the player would be performing at a high level within the lower leagues. Players coming off injury or the disabled list are also worth a look in both fantasy formats. Tracking these individuals and their progressions are something the user can do to give them an advantage over the competition.
Looking at Vegas numbers will help you narrow down your search for different players. Starting with pitchers, you're going to want to pinpoint teams that are heavy favorites to win. This means the starting pitcher has good odds to get you a win. You are also going to want to look at totals. A low total suggests Vegas believes it will be a lower scoring game. Going one step further, you can see implied totals to break down how a game is projected to turn out.
As for using Vegas for hitters, you are going to want to look for higher totals and implied team totals. These games can suggest good park factors and/or weaker starting pitching. If a team has an implied total over five runs, Vegas is expecting their offense to be productive.
Vegas numbers can also be used to determine fantasy ownership. If a pitcher is a -300 favorite, he might be one of the higher owned arms on the slate. But if a pitcher is just a -130 favorite and has big strikeout upside, his ownership might be lower and he'll come with excellent upside.
Between the two major sites, there are some differences when it comes to scoring. The on-base stats are slightly different. FanDuel weights that a walk or hit by pitch is equal and are three points. DraftKings has a single as one point more than a walk or hit by pitch. A double is also twice the points of a single on FanDuel, where a double is only two more points than a single on DraftKings. Runs and RBIs are also worth slightly more on FanDuel.
Pitching is where we see the biggest difference. We also have to note DraftKings is a 2SP lineup format, where FanDuel you pick just one. DraftKings also has a wide variety of negative points for hits, walks, and hit batsman against. You also get points for complete games and no-hitters. On FanDuel, the only negative is run against. FanDuel also rewards pitchers for a quality start, which helps out if a bullpen is responsible for a loss. DraftKings doesn't offer points for a quality start.
Stacking is a popular strategy for building a lineup. Basically, stacking is a strategy that involves adding players that will assist each other in racking up fantasy points. This is similar to picking the quarterback and wide receiver on the same team. With this strategy, you'll want to aim for the top six hitters in a lineup. There's the option to mini stack using three players, or even go as large as five.
Baseball has plenty of different stats for both hitters and pitchers, which can be a bit overwhelming. wOBA is a great overall stat to consider for hitters and pitchers. For hitters, wOBA weighs each type of hit differently. The higher the wOBA, the more overall production they have for fantasy. If a starting pitcher is allowing a .375 wOBA to left-handed hitters, that means we should be looking to see what left-handed hitters are in the lineup. ISO is a power stat that is popular in the DFS world. If you are diving into batted ball stats, fantasy points correlate with how hard hitters hit the ball, but also how they hit it. Heavy ground ball hitters don't correlate as well with fantasy points in comparison to hitters who hit line drives and fly balls.
Strikeouts are the main stat for pitchers, and also easier to project. You'll want to take a pitchers K% into consideration with the opposing team’s strikeout rate against that handedness of pitcher. After this, we can start to look at ERA and estimating stats like xFIP, and SIERA to see how they have been pitching. These stats take ERA a step forward where it removes some of the variance out of ERA. Walk rates for a pitcher, also known as BB%, are important. Walks are frustrating because they drive up pitch counts and create chances for earned runs. As for batted ball stats, pitchers that get ground balls are a major plus in comparison to fly ball pitchers, as they have higher chances for giving up more home run production. Overall, we want to find the strikeouts first, and then the rest of the stats will determine how safe a pitcher is for the format you are looking for. Opposing team stats will be telling for the starting pitchers on the slate.
In addition to helping individuals make more well-informed fantasy baseball decisions, daily fantasy projections can also provide useful analysis for daily MLB betting picks. Information such as Weighted On-base Average (wOBA) can be helpful in determining the result of a player's first at bat. Sports betting is now legal in more than 20 states across the US, and experienced bettors who are already on sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel can claim more new users bonuses via the plethora of new betting sites available in each legal state. Platforms such as Bet365 and BetMGM offer their own new user bonus that can be claimed if someone hasn't signed up for that platform yet.
Being aware of DFS projections is key for MLB contests. This page features plenty of excellent information that daily fantasy sports fans can use whether it's their first time playing fantasy sports or they've been entering contests for years. Additionally, the page analyzes how sports betting information can be vital for daily fantasy sports competitions.
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