Being good in daily fantasy baseball is more than just knowing the big name superstars or all of the players on your favorite team.  You have to actually know baseball and be aware of the players that most people consider “no name guys” because those are actually the guys that can contribute the most to your team and win you some money.  Just because you see that Cliff Lee is pitching that night doesn’t automatically qualify him as a must start especially considering he is going to take a larger hit out of your cap space than the other pitchers.  The same thing goes for batters, starting Mike Trout night in and night out is not going to win you a lot of money.  He has such a high cap hit that it’s going to handicap you when selecting the rest of your roster for the day.

When selecting your pitcher you have to take a lot of things into consideration.  First of all you don’t want to discredit choosing an ace as your pitcher for the night just because of his high salary cap but you also don’t want to discount the cheaper options.  Sometimes the best value for the day can be found at the pitcher that only cost you $6,100 as opposed to the pitcher that has a cap hit of $11,000.  Always pay close attention to matchup if a guy has struggled vs. a team throughout his career don’t risk starting him just because he’s had a good season up to this point.  If a pitcher pitches poorly against the Rockies there’s a reason for that you can find better value somewhere else.  On the flip side when you have Johnny Cueto pitching against the Padres it’s hard not to start him because you know he’s too good to fail in the matchup.  

Me personally I like to look at the value pitchers first before I look at the aces that are pitching that day.  Generally I prefer to find a value pitcher that doesn’t eat up a huge chunk my salary cap.  When you can start a pitcher like Jesse Chavez against that Astros for only $7,100 you are already setting yourself up for success.  You have saved your self thousands in cap space by not choosing one of the top pitchers, but you still have a pitcher that will likely provide you nearly as many points.  When looking at pitchers it’s about who you think you can get you a win.  Sure it looks sexy to select Clayton Kershaw, but if he is going up against Adam Wainwright it’s too much of a toss up as to whether or not he can come out with the win due to the quality of the opposing pitcher.  Wins get you an extra four points which are beyond valuable, as four points is often the difference between you making and losing money.  Take this into consideration when selecting pitchers, you want someone who is a probable candidate to get the win that night.

Now onto the batters which are not nearly as easy to choose from as the pitchers are.  The strategy used for selecting batters changes on a daily basis based on what type of pitcher you chose.  If you picked one of the high end pitchers that has a higher cap hit you will have to use more value picks in your lineup but if you select a solid value pitcher then you can stack your lineup with more the higher end batters.  The most important thing when browsing through the batters is to find the batters that are hot.  A batter that is on even a little hitting streak like four or five games can make for a good play. 

To pick a winning lineup means being able to choose a guy like Chris Parmelee for only $2,500 instead of settling on an outfielder that you think is a safe play because of his name.  Don’t settle on guys because you recognize their name and value them as a safe play, you have to take risks if you are going to win.  Even when you have the cap space to choose a high end position player make sure he is not on a cold streak because even the great Miguel Cabrera goes through cold spells.  Nothing demoralizes a lineup up more than spending $6,000 on a player and getting no points out of him.  Every lineup needs one or two stud batters just be sure to do your research on him such as seeing how he’s the past week and who the opposing pitcher is for that game.  Johnny Cueto has the type of stuff to shut down the best of hitters, so if he’s going up against the Pirates you’ll want to think twice before choosing Andrew McCutchen as your stud outfielder for the day.

My most recent lineup that I used in an 80 team 50/50 league consisted of Johnny Cueto, Salvador Perez, Adam Lind, Brandon Phillips, Trevor Plouffe, Mike Aviles, Chris Parmelee, Andrew McCutchen, and Adam Jones.  As you can see this lineup is not loaded with studs, but with these players I managed to finish in fifth place out of the 80 teams.  Of these batters the only ones to cost more than $3,000 were McCutchen and Jones.  I spent a large amount of my cap to use Cueto against the Padres and based the rest of my lineup off of cheap value players that that were hot at the plate at the time.

Hopefully I have provided you with valuable insight that will lead you to choosing a winning lineup the next time you play daily’s.  Don’t forget that David Wolfe and myself will also be providing you with our value picks for the day as well as the lineup that we will be using.  Our lineups are selected using FanDuel, so if your looking to make some money get an account started and use us at eDraft to provide you with a winning lineup.