MLB Double Ups vs. GPP Tournaments

Daily Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Double Up Leagues vs. GPP Tournaments
By Adam, DFS Player, Rotopicks.com

The two most popular types of games on DraftKings (one of the best daily fantasy baseball sites on the web) are salary cap tournaments (sometimes referred to as GPP's or Guaranteed Prize Pools) and salary cap double ups.

Tournaments have a top heavy payout structure where only ten to twenty percent of the participants win money, whereas double ups have a fifty percent payout structure, paying the top half of it's entrants. Your gears are probably already churning thinking about the implications and strategies of these two types of payout structures.

Tournaments are high risk, high reward. Double ups are more conservative low risk, low reward. As such, each type requires a different strategy in order to maximize your winnings.

Since tournaments have a ton of entrants and only a few get paid, you need to be daring. Your target score in a guaranteed prize pool tournament is about 130 - 160 points on DraftKings and in a double up, you want to build a lineup that is projected to score around 75 - 95 points.

On DraftKings, there are 10 players on a roster (2 pitchers and 8 hitters), a $50,000 salary cap and the tiers of pricing goes something like this: the cheapest pitchers are $5,000 and the elite can run over $12,000. DraftKings rosters hold 2 pitchers so this is a large chunk of change when you draft two elite starting pitchers. Optimal strategy calls for about $15,000 - $20,000 in pitcher salary, which is usually a two mid-high end pitchers. This salary hit leaves $30,000 - $35,000 for your 8 hitters.

Cheap hitters are $2,000 and the elite hitters are a little over $5,000 on DraftKings. The roster holds 8 hitters and with about $32,000 allocated to them, you can afford 8 mid to fringe high end hitters on average ($4,000 a piece). With these numbers in mind, approaching tournaments and double ups is a different animal. Let's start with double ups.

Daily Fantasy Baseball Double Up Strategies

When you enter a double up, you shoot for 75 - 95 points on DraftKings. You want everyone to perform, and you do not need monster performances. Thus, you want as little variance as possible. In other words, you do not want the high risk high reward players. You want the players who consistently get on base, even if they do not hit for much power. This means you will most likely be picking from the mid-tier section of salaries for most of your hitters and pitchers. We simply do not need the most expensive hitter or pitcher. We just have to be good enough to finish in the top half of the tournament field.

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A good idea when browsing players for a double up is to check the game log, more specifically the last 10 or so games. You want a player who gets points almost every day, even if those points are not eye popping. This leads us to conclude it may actually be better to shoot for high average guys instead of the sexy home run hitting players. Sure a couple bombs could win your double up tournament easily, but home runs are very hard to predict. Hits are much easier.

Daily Fantasy Baseball Tournament/GPP Strategies

Tournaments, on the other hand, will need a couple/few bombs to place in the money. You should go for players who have a tendency or at least the potential to score big. It is more of a gamble, but getting only a couple points from everyone on your team will not cut it. This means you will be grabbing a couple of those high end players, and because of the salary cap hit they will make, you will need some serious sleepers. When choosing sleepers, look at matchups: batter vs. pitcher, lefty vs. righty, home vs. away, and especially ballpark. Splits can help narrow the field of cheap sleepers. Browse the starting lineups and the players who are starting, who have power, and are playing in home run friendly ballparks. Also scour the starting pitchers and try to target hitters facing pitchers who allow a lot of home runs.

One trick for finding bargain home run hitters is using a stat called HR/FB, which is the amount of home runs per fly ball percentage a hitter is hitting. If a known power hitter is having a down year, check to see if their home run to fly ball ratio is well below their career numbers. If so, there is evidence that this number tends to revert to the norm. These power hitters will be cheap because they are not hitting their home runs, but they may just turn the corner soon.

Summary

In short, be conservative in double ups. Go with consistent hitters and pitchers. Stick to mid-tier priced players for an evenly priced roster of players. Conversely, be daring in tournaments. To get the big numbers needed to place, grab some elite bats and find the bargains who can put up a big day as well.

Good luck and as always, thanks for reading!

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