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Export DraftKings salary information to CSV.

How to Import Draft Kings Salaries into Excel

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I’ve been exclusively focusing on web querying Fan Duel to this point. But what about Draft Kings? Is there a way to web query their salary information? Here’s an e-mail I recently got from a reader of the site…

Hey Tanner, I just got back from vacation and saw some of your recent posts. That looks great… but I play on Draft Kings. When I try to do those steps on that site, it doesn’t work. No player names. No salaries. Any ideas?

Draft Kings salary info.
There is no <Table> element on the Draft Kings salary info.

I followed the same web querying steps we went through in this post, “How to Use Excel to Web Query DFS and Other Fantasy Baseball Data”, using FanDuel’s site this time. And sure enough, no matter what web querying option you use… No dice. If you do an investigation using the “Inspect element” option for your browser, I believe the technical reason the web query is unsuccessful is because the salary information is not coded as an HTML table.

So things aren’t going to be as easy as the web query. But due to a nice feature on Draft Kings, we can get very close. It’ll take just a few extra mouse clicks to get to the same place.

You see, even running a FanDuel web query isn’t seamless. You still have to log into your FanDuel account in your browser, locate a contest ID (URL), and type it into your Excel file to kick off the web query.

One Extra Step for Draft Kings

While Draft Kings salary info can’t be web queried, they do offer the ability to export all player information from a given contest into a nicely packaged CSV file. The link for a contest appears just below the player list you sort through to select players for your lineup.Export DraftKings salary information to CSV.

“CSV” stands for “comma separated values”. Many computer generated data export files have some kind of delimiter, or character, that breaks the data into columns. The CSV format specifically uses a comma to separate the values. Here’s what a CSV file looks like when opened outside of Excel:

Draft Kings comma separated values export file.

That Looks Awful, How Do I Work With That File?

The CSV format does not look user-friendly when viewed outside of Excel. But fortunately, once you install Excel, it becomes the default program to open CSV files… And this format is so standardized, Excel is trained to clean up the data and put it in our friendly Excel format:

Draft Kings CSV export opened in Excel.

This Doesn’t Look as Efficient as a Web Query

Right about now you’re probably thinking something like this…

You mean to tell me each time I want to update my DFS baseball spreadsheet, I need to…

  1. go Draft Kings,
  2. find a contest to enter,
  3. export the salary information,
  4. open that CSV file,
  5. copy the information,
  6. and then paste it into my spreadsheet?

Not quite. Some of those things we have to do regardless. We can’t really automate the selection of the contest you want to enter. But we can have Excel automate steps four, five, and six (the process of getting the CSV data into a preexisting DFS spreadsheet.

Excel Data From External Sources

DATA_FROM_TEXTYou might remember in the previous web querying article that we used the “From Web” option to “Get External Data” into our Excel files.

Fortunately, Excel also has an external data option for “From Text” (and a CSV file is a text file) that works on the exact same principles of a web query.

Just like how the web query is set up to pull information from a very specific web URL, this text file link can be set up to pull information from a very specific file path.

So as long as we save and name our Draft Kings CSV file in the same place each time, the data can automatically pull in to our DFS Excel files each time we open it.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step Description
1. Log into your Draft Kings account (unlike for a web query, you can use any browser you wish for this).

Once you’ve logged in, locate a contest you’d like to participate in and click the “ENTER>>” button.ENTER_DK_CONTEST
2. After the contest loads, click the “EXPORT TO CSV” button below the player salaries (located on the left half of the contest screen).

NOTE: It does not matter if you check or uncheck the “ONLY PROBABLE PITCHERS” box. The export always contains all pitchers.EXPORT_TO_CSV_DRAFT_KINGS
3. Depending on the browser you’re using and its settings, one of three things will likely happen at this point:

  1. The CSV file will automatically download to your pre-specified download location
  2. You’ll be prompted to name the CSV file and choose where to save the file
  3. Or Excel may open and display the CSV file immediately

Regardless of what scenario you find yourself in, the main goal here is to save the CSV in a location where you want it to stay going forward. Maybe that’s your desktop or maybe you have a “Fantasy Baseball” or “DFS” folder on your computer. Save the CSV file in that long-term location.

So if it automatically downloaded to your “Downloads” folder, move it. If you’re being asked where to save the file, point it to the desired location. If Excel launched, perform a “Save As” to the desired folder. If you have the CSV file open, close it now.

4. Open your DFS spreadsheet (you may want to make a backup before proceeding) or start a blank Excel file if you’re just beginning (don’t start in the CSV file!).
5. Go to the “Data” tab and click the “From Text” button.
DATA_FROM_TEXT
6. At this point Excel will prompt you to browse for the text file you want to import. Browse to and locate your CSV file.
DKSalaries.csv

Once you’ve located the file, select it and click the “Import” button.
Import DKSalaries.csv
7. Excel’s “Text Import Wizard” will launch and ask which type of text file you’re importing. Remember that a CSV file is a special type of delimited text file that uses a comma to separate the values (a fixed width file doesn’t have a character (like a comma or semi-colon) separating the data, it would just have clearly visible spaces separating the data into columns). So choose the “Delimited” option.

Also check the “My data has headers” box and click “Next”.

IMPORT DELIMITED

On the next screen, choose the “Comma” delimiter option and uncheck any other options. You’ll get a preview of how the columns will be identified. Click “Next”.
COMMA_DELIMITED

On the final screen of the Text Import Wizard you can likely just hit “Finish”. For future imports, if you have a column containing something you only want treated as text or a date, you can choose those options. But “General” is fine for our purposes.

FINISH_TEXT_IMPORT_WIZARD
8. Once you click “Finish”, you’ll be prompted about where you want to import the CSV data to in the Excel file. If you are working in your pre-existing DFS spreadsheet, click on the tab you want the text to import to and use the “Existing Worksheet” option, or just choose the “New worksheet” radio button.

Don’t click OK yet! Click the “Properties” button.

IMPORT_DATA_OPTIONS

9. There are many available properties to adjust, but I’ll call out a few I feel the most strongly about changing:

Prompt for file name on refresh – If you plan to save the CSV file in the same location and with the same name each time, you should uncheck this option. If left checked, each time you refresh the connection to the CSV file you will need to browse to and select the file. Conversely, if you don’t want the restriction of having to name the file consistently and in the same spot, you may want this checked. But you’ll then need to browse and point to the new file each time you want to refresh the link.

Refresh data when opening the file – As you can probably guess, if you check this box, each time you open your DFS spreadsheet it will link to and import the text file information.

Fill down formulas in columns adjacent to data – We may not need this, but if we end up needing formulas next to the data being imported, I would recommend checking this box.

IMPORT_PROPERTIES

Click “Ok” to accept the settings changes.

Then click the next “OK” button on the “Import Data” window.

10. That’s it! The next day, when you go to prepare for a new contest, simply repeat steps 1 through 3.

In doing so, be careful to name or save the CSV with the exact same name and in the exact same location as your Excel file is looking to.

For instance, if you saved your first Draft Kings export as C:\Users\tanner.bell\Downloads\DKSalaries.csv, then make sure you save it there again the next day. If you have an older CSV already sitting in that location, the export will likely save as “DKSalaries (1).csv”. Not a problem. Just delete the older one and rename the new download to be just “DKSalaries.csv” (right-click on the file and choose “Rename”).
Draft Kings Salary CSV Export

Web Query vs. CSV Import

I’m not sure which is superior or if there is even a clear winner. There is something elegant about the web query. And I really like how you can create a dynamic web query (I wish there were a way to do a dynamic text file link, but I can’t see a way to do that). But the web query is slow.

The text file import does require a couple of extra steps, in terms of naming the CSV file, but once that part is complete it’s essentially the same. The actual import of the data into Excel is much faster for the text file option (at times my web queries can take 30 seconds or more to complete).

For both options, Excel will seamlessly import the data and the rest of your Excel file can be built around this to automatically update based on the salary list.

Second Look at FanDuel

Having noticed this for Draft Kings, I took another look at FanDuel… Lo and behold, FanDuel has the same export option.

Export FanDuel player list and salaries.

One key difference in the FanDuel CSV is that it has a unique file name associated with the contest ID. Unique FanDuel CSV file name.

So if you decide to go the CSV route for FanDuel, instead of using this unique name, rename/save the file with a generic name like “FDSalaries.csv”. If you also save the file in the same location each time, you would be able to link an Excel file to it repeatedly. At that point, just follow the setup instructions above and there is no difference in the setup of a FanDuel export and a Draft Kings export.

But Wait… What is that on the FanDuel Salaries List???

Oh my… This might be enough to convert me off the web query and to an exported CSV approach even for FanDuel (damn you Chris Youngs and Jose Ramirezes!).

FanDuel Player ID Numbers

Player IDs (don’t know what a Player ID is?)… FanDuel player IDs, coming soon to a Player ID Map near you.

Doing This in Excel For Mac 2011

If you happen to be using Excel on a Mac, the menu location to start the import process is slightly different. You can find it on the “Data” tab. Excel for Mac Import

Or you can also find it under the Data menu.Data_Get_External_Data_Import_Text_Mac

Once you find these menu options, the settings are the same as above (for the most part). Make sure to click on the “Properties” button to get options about when and how to refresh the import upon opening the Excel file. Text file import properties.

How Is Your DFS Spreadsheet Coming Along

Do you have any neat features you’ve added? Struggling to get some kind of information added? Feel free to post a message below to share what you’ve done or let me know your struggles and maybe I can help.

Stay smart.

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How to Use Excel Text Manipulation Formulas with Fantasy Baseball Data

How to Use Excel Text Manipulation Formulas with Fantasy Baseball Data

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In our last post we took a close look at a handful of different web query options available in Microsoft Excel.

By the end of that post we had an Excel file that was able to automatically go out and pull in a raw listing of player names and salaries. All you had to do was figure out the ID for the slate of games you’re entering on FanDuel and type in that five digit number.

FanDuelContestID

Then voila… Current salary information (or you can even run it for tomorrow to start planning the night before)!

FanDuel_Salaries

The Next Step

So now we have player names and salaries. And we know from doing research at how to succeed playing DFS that we also need to bring in other information like batting and pitching splits, Vegas over/unders, and weather data.

We also know that using Player IDs is a more reliable way of matching players up with all of this data.

New Column On The Player ID Map

To bring all this data together, I recognized that we need a way to match a player’s name according to FanDuel to the player ID systems shown on the Player ID Map. So I made an update to the map over the weekend and added “FANDUELNAME” in column AF (I also added over 30 new players that have been called up during this season and/or are starting to have a “fantasy impact”. Guys like Carson Smith, Nate Karns, Carlos Frias, Lance McCullers).

FanDuelName

If you’re using the Player ID Map and you want instructions on how to drop in an updated version, check this out.

But We Had a Problem

Look closely at the image below.ClaytonKershawFanDuel

Who the heck is “Clayton KershawP”?

If you look through the list a little more you will see “Jose FernandezDL”, “Yordano VenturaDTD”, and “Ervin SantanaNA”.

You can probably see that some player names are reflecting health or availability information. This is great, but it poses a challenge for our ability to match to the new column in the Player ID Map. Kershaw is going to be listed as “Clayton Kershaw” on the list. Not “KershawP”.

Enter Excel Formulas “RIGHT”, “LEFT”, “FIND”, “LEN”, and “IF”

We are going to use a series of formulas to do the following things:

  1. Identify if a player name has “DL”, “DTD”, “NA”, or “P”. I’ve scanned the list of player names and those are the only injury/availability classifications I see.
  2. If a player has one of those health indicators on their name we will strip it off
  3. If a player does not have health indicators, we’ll just use their name as it is shown

RIGHT

The RIGHT function will give you the rightmost characters in a text string. For example, we could use the RIGHT function to look at the string “Yu DarvishDL” to determine if the two rightmost characters are “DL”.

This formula uses two inputs:

  1. Text – The main string of text you want to pull the rightmost characters from (this can be a cell reference)
  2. Num_chars – The number of characters to pull out

RIGHT_FORMULA

We will use the RIGHT function to look at only the last three characters of each player’s name. We only need the last three because our longest health indicator is “DTD” (three characters in length). And we don’t want to look at full names, because one of our health indicators is just “P”. We can’t just tell Excel to look for a capital P in an entire player name because player’s like Michael Pineda or David Price might cause us trouble. So by limiting our search to just the last three letters in a player name, we should be able to located “DL”, “DTD”, “NA”, and “P” without issue.

FIND

The FIND function searches for a specific string of text within another string of text. If the string you are searching for is located, it returns a number that indicates the location where the string starts. FIND is also case-sensitive (thank goodness, otherwise looking for “NA” at the end of player names could be a problem with guys named “Santana”).

This formula requires two inputs and has one optional input:

  1. Find_text – The string of text you are searching for. You can enter your text in double quotes or use a cell reference.
  2. Within_text – The string of text you want to search within. This can be a cell reference.
  3. Start_num (optional) – What character within the string you want to start searching at. For example, if you wanted to start by searching only after the fifth character in a name, you could enter a five for this argument.

FIND_FORMULA

We will use the FIND function in conjunction with the RIGHT formula mentioned above. We will use RIGHT to first pull out only the last three characters from a player’s name. We will then run a FIND on those three characters to look for “P”, “DTD”, “DL”, or “N/A”.

LEFT

Similar to the RIGHT function, LEFT will give you the leftmost characters in a text string.

This formula uses two inputs:

  1. Text – The main string of text you want to pull the leftmost characters from (this can be a cell reference)
  2. Num_chars – The number of characters to pull out

LEFT_FORMULA

We will use LEFT on players that have health information in their name. For example, for “Clayton KershawP”, we will want to pull out the first 15 characters (out of the total 16 characters in the full string of text).

LEN

The LEN function will tell you the number of characters in a string of text.

This formula has just one input, Text, which represents the text to want to count the characters from. This can be a cell reference.

LEN_FORMULA

We will use LEN with the LEFT function mentioned above. Remember the “Clayton KershawP” example where I mentioned that string of text has 16 characters and we want to take the leftmost 15 characters? We will use LEN to easily get that 16. We’ll use LEN to evaluate how many characters are in every player’s name.

IF

The IF function allows you to evaluate a cell to see if a condition is true or false. If the condition is true, we can give one result or a specific formula. If the condition is false, we can give a second result or an alternative formula.

This formula uses three inputs:

  1. Logical_test – The condition you want to evaluate for being true or false.
  2. Value_if_true – The value or formula you want to run if the Logical_test is true.
  3. Value_if_false – The value or formula you want to run if the Logical_test is false.

IF_FORMULA

Nesting Formulas

By default, the IF function only allows you two options. One if true. One if false.

This might be a problem for us. Here are some of the tests we need to run…

If we find “P” in the last three characters of the player name, cut off the last character from the name (or if the player’s name is 16 characters in length, give me the leftmost 15). If we find a “DL” in the last three characters of the player name, cut off the last two characters from the name (or give me the leftmost 14 from a 16 character name). If we find a “DTD” in the last three characters, cut off those three letters from the name (or give me the leftmost 13 from a 16 character name). If we find an “NA”, cut off the last two characters (14 from 16). And if none of those are true, then just give me the full length of the player’s name and remove nothing.

Thankfully you can also “nest” IF functions to give you more options. In a weird combination of Excel language and plain English, our formula will look something like this:

=IF(player is status "P", give me LEFT(player_name, LEN(player_name)-1), if their status is not "P" then IF(player status is "DL", give me LEFT(player_name, LEN(player_name)-2),if their status is not "DL" then IF(player status is "DTD", give me LEFT(player_name, LEN(player_name)-3, if their status is not "DL" then IF(player is "NA", give me LEFT(player_name, LEN(player_name)-2), if their status is not "NA" just give me player_name))))

This is basically saying, if a player is marked as “P”, cut off one character from their name (that’s what the “-1” is doing in the LEFT(player_name, LEN(player_name)-1). If the player is not marked as “P”, go to the next IF statement. If the player is marked as “DL”, cut off two characters from their name LEFT(player_name, LEN(player_name)-2). If the player is not marked as “DL, go to the next IF statement.

And so on. Until we get to the very end of all the IF statements. The final player_name just indicates that if all the previous IF conditions are false, this is what will show.

One More Web Query Option I Didn’t Mention

We looked at quite a few web query options in the last post, but I neglected to mention one that will now be helpful to use. We are going to be placing the formulas from above next to the FanDuel web query results (you can see my vision of how this will look below, they’re shaded a yellowish color).

FormulasNextToData

The potential problem with doing this is that the web query results and FanDuel’s list of player names will be changing each day and for each contest. The length of the player list is going to be a lot longer for a full slate of games on a Wednesday night than it will be for the afternoon slate on a Thursday.

Fortunately, Excel offers a setting that will attempt to fill the formulas down as far as the data in the web query reaches. To activate this setting, first select a cell in the middle of the web query results (for example, select the cell with Clayton Kerhsaw’s name).

Clayton_Kershaw_FanDuel

Then click on the “Data” tab. And then click the “Properties” button in the “Connection” section of the Data tab.

Data_Connection_Properties

This will bring up the “External Data Range Properties” dialog. Check the bottom check box for “Fill down formulas in columns adjacent to data”. This will attempt to fill our formulas to the exact size of the web query results. I also like to uncheck the “Adjust column width” box because each time the web query runs, it resizes my columns and I find it annoying.

External_Data_Range_Properties

Step-By-Step Instructions

If you want to make sure you’re at the same starting point as me, here’s an Excel file (more…)

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How to Use Excel to Web Query DFS and Other Fantasy Baseball Data

How to Use Excel to Web Query DFS and Other Fantasy Baseball Data

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NOTE: It appears the information below is no longer relevant. You are welcome to read the article because it still contains a valuable approach that can be used in other scenarios. But the specific act of web querying FanDuel for salary information as shown below no longer seems to work.

With a web query there will be no more manual copying and pasting of data.
With a web query there will be no more manual copy and pasting of data.
Does this sound familiar?

You’re doing prep work for setting a daily lineup or even preparing for a season-long rotiserrie league. You’re trying to set up a spreadsheet to help you prepare, but you are sick and tired of having to copy information from the web and paste it into Excel.

There has to be a better way!

In this post I’ll show you an efficient way of grabbing player salaries directly from FanDuel’s website using Excel’s web query function. In fact, I’ll show you three different variations of Excel web queries:

  1. Simple web query
  2. Dynamic web query
  3. Table-specific web query

Before I begin, I need to be honest with you about something.

I Don’t Know Where We’re Going

This is the first post of what I hope will be a series documenting how to build a spreadsheet for DFS. But the thing is, I don’t know exactly where I’m headed on this journey. I can’t promise you a panacea to cure all your DFS aches and pains. I don’t have a master plan that will lead us to a perfect functioning spreadsheet that will fit everyone’s exact desires. But my plan is to just start moving the ball in the right direction.

I don’t have much DFS experience. I don’t know exactly what you want. If you are looking for DFS lineup advice, I can tell you I won’t be giving that. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career… OK, I’ll end my Liam Neeson joke.

I hope that by just starting to build something, starting to share techniques you can use on your own, and by seeking feedback, we will eventually end up with something special.

Some of the techniques I’ll show you may seem silly. Or pointless. Or way too involved.

But I have a purpose in mind. You might wonder why I pull data from Site Y when Site X has the same information in an easier to use format. Or you may want to incorporate additional data that I don’t want to pursue.

That is why I want to stress it is not the “WHAT” in the instructions that is the important part. It is the “HOW”. I’m going for that whole “teach a man to fish” proverb. So let’s start learning…

Not All Versions of Excel are Created Equal

I’ll be using Office 2013 installed on a Windows 7 machine. I believe the web querying experience will be similar for Office 2007 and Office 2010 (while using Windows). Unfortunately, I have had poor results with web querying in Excel for Mac, but it can be done.

What Is a Web Query?

A web query is an automated way to copy information from a table on a web page into Excel. It removes the need for you to manually copy and paste data from websites into Excel. On top of that, you can set the query up to run each time you open an Excel file or change a particular value, so you can escape the cycle of continuously needing to go to a web site, copy the data, and paste it into Excel each day you want to set lineups. It can refresh automatically!

As you’ll soon see, setting up a basic web query is fairly easy. But there are a couple of more advanced settings that should make your life a little bit easier.

Step-By-Step Instructions, Simple Web Query

For this example, let’s just go with a simple and straight-forward web query. Later in this post we will build on this.

(more…)

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How Do You DFS?

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Nobody should go it alone.

At the end of my last post, “Maybe I’m Wrong About BvP“, I mentioned an online survey was forthcoming… And here it is.

I say nobody should go it alone because my hope with this survey is to use the SFBB community to identify the best DFS tools out there, what types of information people want to see, and what sites are currently providing that information. Once we have that information, we can start figuring out the best way to bring it all together.

Please take the time to complete this survey, especially if you are using specific websites, tools, or resources to develop and set your daily lineups.

The survey should load right below, or you can go here to contribute.

Create your own user feedback survey

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How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball - Part 4 - Maybe I'm Wrong About BvP

How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball – Part 4 – Maybe I’m Wrong About BvP

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I’m a little embarrassed about this. One of the reasons I started this site is because it aggravates me when people over-simplify things or fail to do proper analysis before making claims.

And I just did this myself.

What I Did Wrong

To fully understand where I went wrong, you should probably read Part 2 in my series documenting my DFS journey, “The Book and Addressing the Myths“.

I read The Book. And it’s clear. It’s right there in black and white for all to see. Don’t use BvP to make decisions.

An excerpt from "The Book", by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin
An excerpt from “The Book”, by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin

So what’s the problem?

It might help if we first take a step back. When we’re analyzing a particular baseball statistic (pick one), we often find that they’re not predictive from one year to the next. Take batting average for instance. We know that just because a batter hit .300 last year, it’s not a safe bet to count on that repeating itself.

What do we do in this case? We disaggregate the data. We break it down into other component statistics that we can much more reliably project. Instead of looking only at batting average, we’ll start to look at strikeout rate, walk rate, batted ball profiles, historical BABIP, and more.

I Should Have Done This with Batter-Vs-Pitcher Stats

I should have thought to disagreggate things. After all, just like I get along well with certain people and others make me want to drink bleach, some hitters are going to “have an edge” on certain pitchers and they’re going to be overmatched by others.

Not all pitchers are created equal. Not all hitters are created equal.

Whether it’s a batter’s swing path, a pitcher’s arm slot, a batter’s ability to go the other way, a pitcher’s level of deception, a batter’s inability to hit the down-and-in pitch, or a pitcher’s proclivity to throw a changeup in two-strike counts, there are many variables at play in a BvP matchup.

And it is VERY likely that these variables give an edge to the pitcher or the hitter. It’s VERY possible that one of these variables could put the odds overwhelmingly in one party’s favor. It’s also VERY possible that for every factor giving an edge to the hitter that there is an equal and offsetting factor giving an advantage to the pitcher.

It’s not that BvP is useless. It’s not that it has no predictive value. Certain hitters have an edge over specific pitchers. And vice versa. Of course they do. It just makes sense.

The problem is that we don’t know how to separate out the BvP matchups that are predictive those that don’t. Due to small sample sizes, when you go to break it down, BvP matchups probably fall into these nine buckets:

Bucket Description
1. Hitters with an edge over a pitcher, exceeding the expectations due to good luck
2. Hitters with an edge over a pitcher, performing right at expectations due to neutral luck
3. Hitters with an edge over a pitcher, underperforming the expectations due to bad luck
4. Hitter with a neutral matchup against a pitcher, exceeding the expectations due to good luck
5. Hitters with a neutral matchup against a pitcher, performing right at expectations due to neutral luck
6. Hitters with a neutral matchup against a pitcher, underperforming the expectations due to bad luck
7. Hitters overmatched by a pitcher, exceeding the expectations due to good luck
8. Hitters overmatched by a pitcher, performing right at expectations due to neutral luck
9. Hitters overmatched by a pitcher, underperforming the expectations due to bad luck

And just like when you combine a bunch of bright colors of Play Doh into one and end up with brown; when you combine all of these different buckets into one, you end up thinking that batter versus pitcher matchups don’t matter.

How This Came To My Attention

It was an interview with Todd Zola, by Patrick Davitt on the Baseball HQ podcst, and this article at Fantasy Alarm.com that helped me realize the err of my ways.

(more…)

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How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball – Part 3 – Game Theory and Optimizing Your Chances of Winning

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Welcome to the third part in my series documenting my journey of getting started with daily fantasy baseball. In the first segment, I did some introductory background reading. In the second segment, I took a look at some common statistics that you might be inclined to look at but that have been proven to be misleading (Batter versus Pitcher stats and players in the midst of hot or cold streaks).

More Background Reading

While I was doing my initial background research for Part 1 of this series, I also bought Jonathan Bales’ book “Fantasy Baseball for Smart People”.

The book is a tremendous resource if you’re like me and just getting started. I presume it’s also quite helpful even if you’ve been playing the daily game for a while.

If I’m being honest, you will save yourself a lot of time by buying his book instead of waiting for me to slowly process my own way through DFS and writing about it. Once you read Bales’ book, then come back to me to see how to implement the topics covered in an Excel solution. Bales has created an excellent beginner’s guide to daily fantasy baseball by giving you strategies, tools, websites, and outlining the exact information you should be looking at when generating lineups.

One topic I’ve seen mentioned in the book and repeated many times online is that to be successful at DFS you need to play the game regularly (“grind”) and as such you need to develop an efficient routine that allows you to create quality optimized lineups regularly. My hope is to use Excel (and maybe other technology tools) to do this.

My “Aha Moment”

There are two significant benefits I got from “Fantasy Baseball For Smart People”. The first is that it’s a convenient and complete package. You could probably get nearly all of the information from the book by reading through the various articles I linked to in Part 1 of this series. If you go that route you even get the information for free. But this book will save you time and puts them in a nice easy-to-use and convenient package.

As much as I love technology, I’m still a “book-in-hand” kind of guy. So I bought the paperback, which lets me dog ear pages I want to remember and reference easily in the future. There’s no easy way to do that with the 20-30 articles I linked to in Part 1.

The second big benefit I get from the book is an insight I did not see anywhere else in my prior readings.

The goal isn’t to maximize points (in your lineup), but to maximize win probability.

~ Jonathan Bales – Fantasy Baseball for Smart People

Maybe this is obvious to everyone, but it wasn’t to me. It’s a significant difference between season-long leagues and DFS.

I can’t envision a scenario in a season-long rotisserie league that you would not want to maximize your projected points in the standings. It’s a simple concept that having the most points in the standings gives you the greatest likelihood of winning the league.

But there’s an interesting wrinkle that I alluded to in Part 1 that changes things in DFS. Player selection is not mutually exclusive. I know, I know. There I go again using math words. This is a fancy way of saying that the players you choose for your team can (and inevitably will) overlap with players chosen for other teams.

Bales’ point can be illustrated by a simple example… (more…)

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Updated Resources Page

Updated Resources Page

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Check out the updated SFBB Resources Page.

Now that the season is underway and you no longer need to exert so much energy on draft preparation, it’s a great time to read a book, check out in-season analysis tools, or try listening to new MLB or fantasy baseball podcasts.

I’ve broken the resources page down into segments for books, free tools, premium tools, and podcasts. Know of a great tool that I’m missing? Please let me know on Twitter.

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How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball - Part 2 - "The Book" and Addressing the Myths

How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball – Part 2 – “The Book” and Addressing the Myths

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Welcome to the second segment in my series documenting my own journey of getting started with daily fantasy baseball. In the first segment I did some introductory background reading, started to identify some analysts I can trust, took notes about research topics to focus on, and started planning features to be included in an Excel spreadsheet.

In this next segment we will take a closer look at some of the biggest myths that I’m seeing perpetuated out there.

I Can’t Believe We Even Have to Talk About This

I didn’t think I’d have to say anything like that until my daughters were teenagers… But here we are.

Just because you read something on the internet doesn’t make it true. We’ve all heard that before, right? I got up on my soapbox at the end of Part 1 and warned you to be careful out there… And here’s an example of why:

I would argue that BvPs are the most reliable out of all the sets we commonly use because they have the most amount of similar variables.

While it is wrong to accept BvPs as fact, it is equally wrong to discount their merit entirely.

BvPs are just one of the many things you should consider when building a roster but they are not the only thing.

Those are all from the same article talking about the merits of BvPs, or “Batter versus Pitcher” statistics. I promise you the article exists but I am not going to link to it. I’m not here to start fights. I merely want to point out that this misinformation exists, both in the form of online advice and it must also be a viable strategy in some DFS players’ minds.

Why Are You So Confident That BvPs Don’t Matter?

I can definitively say they don’t because it’s been studied by people much smarter than me. Studies using years and years of MLB data have been completed on this topic multiple times and have found that batter-vs-pitcher (or “BvPs”) information is not predictive unless you are talking at least a history of over 100 ABs between the two players.

So we have credible studies based on oodles of data performed by very smart people. Or we have baseless claims, anecdotes of individual examples, and Paul Goldschmidt’s numbers against Tim Lincecum on the other side.

If you find a study that suggest BvPs are meaningful, please let me know. But from what I have seen so far, it appears to be very irresponsible to suggest BvPs have value.

What Research Are You Referring To?

The main and most well known study I’m referring to is from “The Book” by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin. They studied “batters owning pitchers” and flipped it and studied “pitchers owning batters” from the time frame of 1999-2001. They identified players that “owned” other players during that three year span. Then they looked at what happened for those same players in 2002. In a very nice coincidence, in 2002 the hitters had 361 plate appearances against the pitchers they “owned”. And in that same season the pitchers had 361 plate appearances against hitters they “owned”.

The results were that the hitters had a wOBA of .349 against the pitchers they owned. These 30 hitters that were studied had wOBAs against those same pitchers ranging from .500 – .800 the two prior seasons. Then in 2002 they hit a combined .349, which is essentially league average.

And the pitchers that had dominated a group of batters allowed a wOBA of .343. Those 30 pitchers had wOBAs allowed ranging from below .100 to .210 from 1999 – 2001. Then in 2002 they too only allowed a league average wOBA against.

The results in The Book are clear: (more…)

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How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball - Part 1 - Background Reading

How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball – Part 1 – Background Reading

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I’ve been playing rotisserie baseball for darn near 20 years at this point, but as I write this article, I’ve never before played a day of daily fantasy sports.

I’m generally familiar with the concept. I’ve read many strategy articles on the topic. But I’ve never put together an effort to dive in and develop a formal plan about how I’m going to attack this new game.

In this series of posts I will document my journey and the resources I’m using to get myself familiar with the game. I must repeat that I have never done this before. I can’t sit here and promise you daily fantasy riches. But my goal is to find a way to play this daily game smartly, efficiently, and strategically.

Be Careful. Be Smart.

I know we’re not playing poker here. But because I’m an ultra-conservative accountant that hates giving away money, I’m reminded of this famous quote from the movie Rounders.

I’m not about to jump in the DFS waters without getting a plan together. While there are probably a ton of new players jumping into daily fantasy baseball when the season starts, I know there are a lot of sharks swimming in those waters.

I can’t go in blindly. I can’t go in lazily. And I can’t assume my knowledge of baseball will be enough to win.

Many readers of this site probably know A LOT more about the topics and tools for this game than I do. I’m going to share the resources and articles that seem helpful to me, but I’m sure there are other (and better) resources out there. Please share those tools and resources you find most helpful in the comments below so we can all do this more effectively. And if you think I’m wrong in something that I’ve said or if I’m leading people in the right direction, let me know. Let’s have a cordial debate.

I’m excited and nervous… Let’s go!

How Have You Never Played DFS Before?

Good question. I suppose I should address this before we get started.

I’ve mentioned many times on this site before that I’m married and have two daughters, I work full-time, and try to run this site on the side. From what I do know about daily fantasy baseball, my impression is that it takes a good amount of effort and time to play effectively. I know that weather can be a big factor in games. Lineups may change late in the afternoon. And I work until 6PM EST most nights. I can’t get on many of the DFS sites at work. So if I get home at 6:30, that doesn’t leave much time to eat dinner with my family, set a lineup, check the weather, make late lineup swaps, etc.

So that’s the angle I’m operating from. I’m not only looking to learn the most effective ways to play. I also I need to find ways to play this game well in that environment. It might mean coming up with lineups the day before. It might mean finding services or apps that can notify me of lineup or weather problems. Or it might mean only playing on the weekends. I don’t know yet. But if I can’t find a way to play on a level playing field during the week, I won’t do it.

There has to be a way.

Prerequisites

A lot of the introductory material about getting started with DFS baseball assumes you come in without any advanced (or even moderate) knowledge of baseball statistics.

My first thought about that is it’s actually intriguing that there’s a need to explain some of those statistics. See the Matt Damon video quote above. Maybe I won’t be the sucker at the table.

With that said, I’m going to assume you know what FIP, K/9, wOBA, regression, and SIERA are.

I don’t mean that you can rattle off the exact formula for wOBA or even know the specific differences between SIERA and FIP, but just that you have a rough concept of what those terms are. If those terms are Greek to you, I might suggest digging around the Fangraphs Glossary for a while to acclimate yourself to the sabermetric terminology.

My Notes

I’m going to start on this journey by reading up on as much strategy as I can. I’m not talking about player-specific information. Just general strategies at how to win at this new game. I’ll try to summarize my findings here and then I’ll link to the articles I’ve read at the bottom of this post.

My notes are below. I want to reiterate that I am just compiling this information from the web and summarizing my thoughts. Credit for these original works goes to the authors mentioned later in this article.

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How to Automatically Shade Drafted Players In Excel

How to Automatically Shade Drafted Players In Excel

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I know, I know. It’s mid-March, college basketball is taking over your time, and you’re in the final push of draft preparation for your baseball leagues. The last thing you want to do right now is start tinkering with your draft spreadsheet and screw something up.

Then here I come with another monster Excel post…

NOT THIS TIME! I swear. This is an easy one and you might find it helpful.

In this post I’ll show you how to use Excel’s conditional formatting to gray out players that have been chosen during your draft.

Excel’s Conditional Formatting

Conditional Formatting is a way to adjust the format of individual (or many) cells based upon the information within that cell. If you were using this in a business spreadsheet you might want really high sales months to show up in bolded font or below average sales people to show up shaded in red.

For fantasy baseball you might want all players projected to hit 30 HR to have their HR projection in bold red font. Who knows.

The point is you can tell Excel “what to format” and “how to format it”.

Here’s an example of what I’ll show you in this specific post:EXAMPLE_DRAFTED_PLAYERS

Assumptions

I’m using Excel 2013 in the screenshots below. I think this will work on Excel 2007 or 2010 without any issues. I’m also assuming you’re starting with a spreadsheet you created following either this standings gain points series or this points league series.

Step-by-Step Instructions

(more…)

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