Tag: DFS

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

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.

Continue reading “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 3 – Game Theory and Optimizing Your Chances of Winning

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… Continue reading “How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball – Part 3 – Game Theory and Optimizing Your Chances of Winning”

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

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: Continue reading “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 1 – Background Reading

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.

Continue reading “How To Get Started With Daily Fantasy Baseball – Part 1 – Background Reading”