The OSF MLB Strategy

The way you put together your MLB team is key to your success as a daily fantasy sports player. Questions are a plenty for a new fantasy baseball player. Is it more important to put together your hitting first and then try and make your pitching work? Is it better to go the opposite route and start with pitching? Should I use 2 relievers instead of just 1 to capitalize on stud pitching/hitting? The questions go on and on and there honestly are many ways to put together a great lineup. We have had the most success finding better pitching than hitting. One of the reasons is because there aren't hundreds of pitchers to choose from. We can spend 30 minutes and look at most of the pitchers on the day and immediately know who we like and dislike. Hitters on the other hand can take forever. Without further delay, we'll get into our process of picking our Draftstreet MLB team. 

We always start our lineups by looking at the starting pitchers for the day. It is important to us to find the 3 best starting pitchers who are the cheapest. We have tried going with two closers and saving money, but we have found that to be very risky. The best way to do this is from the bottom up. Start at the "worst" starting pitchers and go up from there. Look for teams that are struggling (Oakland/Seattle), teams that have players out due to injury (Reds when Phillips was out), teams that are playing in big ballparks (Oakland, San Diego) and most of all just stay away from teams like the Tigers, Red Sox, Yankees, and other great lineups. Don't be a hero and think that Nick Blackburn is going to blank the Yankees for 6 straight innings. Most the time it won't happen and it isn't worth the risk. At the end of the day, we try and aim for 30-32K to be spent on 3 starting pitchers and one closer.

As far as hitting, it can be tough to pick the standout performances on a consistent basis. As everyone knows, getting a hit 3 times out of 10 is Hall of Fame worthy. The best we can do is look at matchups that are favorable to the hitter based off multiple variables. How the hitter is hitting as of late is the most important variable we look at before picking someone. At some point though you say screw it, I'm thinking so and so goes off (Pujols tonight) and you pick him. Next we look at the pitching matchup whether it be if it's versus a stud like Cliff Lee or Justin Verlander and then if they are facing a lefty or righty. There are plenty of hitters that platoon and only hit against lefties (Matt Diaz) and are great picks on those nights. This also comes into play with average to above average hitters that are facing pitchers from the same side. Star hitters usually don't have too many problems with this, but these lower tier hitters it impacts the most. Lastly, we look at the ballpark each hitter will be in. A power hitter in Colorado has better value in our eyes than one in San Diego. For triples hitters like Granderson, Bonifacio, and Dee Gordon who have great speed, a big ballpark won't scare us away from them. These type of hitters can get their fantasy points without getting a hit (walk, stolen base, stolen base).

There is no exact way to win a league, but you can improve your chances by looking at all of these different variables.