Daily Fantasy Strategy
Are you tired of paying up for pitchers in DFS only to see them fail to make value even in the best spots? As someone who writes about MLB DFS on a daily basis, and specifically about pitchers, I’ve noticed that the recent perception among many DFS players is that paying up for pitching is an exercise in futility. If high priced pitchers are going to bust on a regular basis, why not just pay for cheaper options and get better bats?
This led me to conduct some research on how often pitchers are meeting their salary-based expectations. What I have today is an empirical analysis of all pitchers over a seven day period (5/21 – 5/27) using Draftkings scoring. What I hoped to discover was how often high priced pitchers were failing and cheap pitchers were succeeding compared to the public perception that paying up for pitchers is becoming old hat.
For the sake of this article, I divided up pitchers into three categories. All pitchers who cost 9k or more were deemed “expensive,” pitchers costing between 7k and 8.9k were labeled “mid-tier,” and pitchers that cost 6.9k or less are referred to as “cheap.” For the sake of using numbers that will be easy to understand and compare, I found the average DK points per 1000 dollars of salary for each tier of pitchers. For example, on May 27, Gerrit Cole scored 35.1 DK points at a salary of 11,300. His DK points/1000 was 3.1, or as we sometimes say in DFS he made 3.1x value on his salary.
Results
My one week sample was made up of 175 starts made by both conventional starters and openers.
- On a point per dollar basis, it was the mid-tier that had the most 3x performances with 14 starts in which the pitcher had a DK points per 1000 dollar ratio of 3 or higher. The cheap pitchers were second with 11, while expensive pitchers only hit the 3x mark 6 times in 54 starts.
- The expensive pitchers did register the most 30 DK point or higher games with 6, including a 42.8 DK point performance by Justin Verlander while priced at 11,300. Pitchers in the mid-tier had 4 such performances, while pitchers priced under 7k turned in 3 of them. Lucas Gioltio had the best performance of any pitcher in the sample with a 43.65 DK point effort in his complete game shutout of the Astros while being priced in the mid-tier at 8.4k.
- Expensive pitchers racked up 21 outings of 20 DK points or more, while the mid-tier pitchers hit that threshold 16 times, and cheap pitchers only 9 times.
- I also wanted to see how often these pitchers registered “duds,” which I defined as an outing in which they failed to score 10 or more DK points. Expensive pitchers registered 14 duds, while the mid-tier only had 13. Cheap pitchers expectedly had the most with 24 duds.
Analysis
- Expensive pitchers still have the highest floors for cash games. The data backs up the fact that if you want 20+ DK points from your starting pitcher, it makes sense to pay up for a more reliable arm. Expensive pitchers hit the 20 DK point threshold in 38.9% of their starts while mid-tier pitchers only hit the same mark in 25.8% This goes along with the conventional wisdom of paying up for pitching in cash games. At least lock in a high priced pitcher as your SP1.
- The best values on a point per dollar basis are often found in the mid-tier. Not only did we see more 3x performances in this range (14), but they also occurred at the highest percentage (22.5%). The 7-8k range has always been my “sweet spot” for GPPs as it’s usually possible to find starters who can match or exceed the points scored by some of the higher priced options. The data backs this up as expensive pitchers only hit the 3x threshold in 11% of their starts. If we looking to maximize our roster’s upside and point-per-dollar potential, then rostering mid-tier and cheap pitchers (hit 3x in18% of their starts) are going to give us the best chance of stumbling onto that GPP winning lineup.
- Cheap pitchers bust really often and therefore are really risky DFS plays. This 6.9k and lower range is usually made up of bad starters, rookies, and openers, but there are definitely some diamonds in the rough here from time to time and you shouldn’t rule them out for GPPs. Their “dud” rate of 40.6% shows that they are much more likely to score 10 or fewer DK points than they are to make tournament value. Once in a while, we see a pretty good pitcher mispriced down in this range that I would consider for cash games, but in most cases, we shouldn’t be looking for cash game options in this salary tier.
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