Daily Fantasy Baseball Strategies

This is a pretty broad topic, so I’ll just try to keep it brief and simple. The best daily fantasy baseball players try to project what each MLB player will score in each of a daily league's games, and then try to build the highest projected scoring team that will fit under the salary cap. It’s both as simple and as complicated as that. Some players use advanced mathematics and statistics to project fantasy baseball scoring and some just have it all in their head from years of following Major League Baseball. Let me go over a couple of strategy topics.

Let’s take a typical 450-point ranking cap league as an example. Since player costs are ten times their average fantasy points scored per game, if you use all 450 points indiscriminately, you will have a team that scores 45 fantasy points on average. When you use some skill to your selections, your average score should be even higher. The structure of your fantasy team is an important consideration. Top pitchers can cost up to 225 points or more, and low-end pitchers can cost 100 points. If you go with a 225 point pitcher in a 450 point cap, you are planning on getting 50% of your fantasy score from the starting pitcher position. If you go with a 100 point pitcher, you are planning on getting less than 25% of you fantasy score from your pitcher. These are considerably huge differences. If you are more adept at handicapping hitters than starting pitchers, you may want to spend your cap money on top hitters versus a top pitcher. If you really know starting pitchers, you may want to do the opposite. The point is the most important decision you make may be how much to spend on your pitcher because that has a lot to do with the texture of your daily fantasy baseball team.

How to Project a Starting Pitcher’s Fantasy Score

Usually, I start to analyze the average fantasy points scored per game, and then adjust for any game specific factors that would tend to make a pitcher score higher or lower than average. Game specific factors to consider include:

1. Offensive strength of the opposing team
2. Strength of the opposing pitcher
3. Home or Away
4. Quality of relief pitching on both teams
5. Pitchers recent performance

How to Project a Hitter’s Fantasy Score

For hitters, it is the same routine. Start with their average fantasy points scored per game, and then adjust for any game specific factors that would tend to make a hitter score higher or lower than average. Game specific factors for hitters include:

1. Strength of the opponents starting pitcher
2. Strength of the opponents relief pitching
3. Starting pitchers throwing hand
4. Home or Away
5. Hitters recent performance