While my schedule doesn’t always allow me to play 20 lineups on Draft Kings, I almost always play a single entry on FD.  Since my primary job (I own a tutoring business) picks up next week, I figured I would spend some time discussing the single entries I play.  I won’t be multi-entering too much as I will be tutoring during the hours leading up to lock.  I can keep a quick eye on last minute changes for one lineup, but not 20.  I’ve been playing the $2 single entry and a $2 100 person contest in the slates I play.  I also play these contests on smaller slates.  I tend to play smaller slates when there are three or more games.  I also avoid small slates with a Coors game most of the time.  

For disclosure, on July 8th I won the $3 Single Entry GPP, which happened to be during the Rotogrinders Single Entry Series.  My bankroll on FD is in good shape.  I also am a Premium member of RotoGrinders and use their information on a daily basis.  I believe this will help me towards my goal of becoming a profitable DFS player.  Last night was a bit frustrating as I made some good decisions, but it didn’t end up resulting in a cashing lineup.  If I had told you I had stacked the Twins and used Wheeler, you might have expected a better lineup.  

SP – Z. Wheeler ($10000) – Based on pricing and matchups I narrowed my choices down to Wheeler, Severino, or Suarez.  The choice became easier once the Twins lineup provided so much value, as I was looking to stack them right away.  Most of the time it’s difficult to stack a strong offense with a top pitcher.  As this wasn’t the case, and Suarez doesn’t have huge K upside, I eliminated him from my choices.  I did use Suarez in my late night lineup.  At this point I was deciding between the K upside of Severino (28.2% vs 23.6%)  or the safety of Wheeler.  Wheeler was also $600 cheaper.  Wheeler has a low hard contact rate of 26.2%.  This combined with the weak Giants lineup, and ballpark made me side with Wheeler.  The price difference was also a factor.  Wheeler ended up with 49 points which beat Severino by 6.  Overall I’m happy with my reasoning for the pick.  

Twins Stack (Polanco / Grossman / Sano / Kepler ) – For an average of less then $2600 per player I got the stack I had targeted from the start of my daily research.  At the time they had third highest implied run total, and my projections had them as the highest scoring offense of the day.  The stadiums in Arlington is one of the best hitters parks due to the high temperatures and humidity during most summer days.  Combined with the numbers for the Texas starter, Hutchinson, the Twins stack was an east target.  Hutchinson had a 5.52 SIERA, a low K rate of 16.2% and a high walk rate of 14%.  I stacked the 2nd through 5th spots in their lineup.  I don’t usually play Mauer as he usually doesn’t have power upside.  While the Twins scored 10 runs, including 2 homeruns, this stack did not benefit as much as I would have hoped.  None of the players in the stack had the homeruns, nor broke 20 fantasy points in total.  Again I am happy with the reasoning on these picks, and would do it again given the same circumstances.  

Cards Lefties (Matt Carpenter at $4600 and Matt Adams at $3100) – Homer Bailey was pitching for the Reds (backed by a poor bullpen), and was giving up a .378xwOBA to lefties.  Along with his 4.90 SIERA and low 14.8% K rate made it an enticing matchup for the two lefties.  On top of that data, Carpenter had a .435 xwOBA and .304 ISO vs righties.  Adams wasn’t far behind with a .374 xwOBA and a .267 ISO.  This combination of data points made them easy plays.  Carpenter was the big spend in my lineup, and did hit a home run getting me 25.2 FD points.  Adams only had 6.2 FD points, which is a bit of a disappointment considering the Cardinals scored 12 runs.  Looking back at my process, I am happy with these picks.  

Rhys Hoskins ($3500) – First, I can’t help thinking that Hoskins is too cheap on FD, and I will likely play him at this price.  That being said let’s look at the data behind this selection.  If we look at Quintana’s 2018 data, it hasn’t been too good.  He has given up a .367 xwOBA to righties alomg with a 37% hard hit rate.  He also has a 4.69 SIERA to go with a 20% K rate and a high 10.3% walk rate.  Hoskins has a .362 xwOBA vs lefties to go with a .147 ISO.  He also has a 52.6% flyball rate.  I liked the matchup for him in a good hitting ballpark. 

Jonathan Villar($3400) – 2nd base was the last position I filled in my lineup and I had $3500 left.  I went with Villar in part due to his lineup spot (batting 2nd on the road) and in part for some stolen base upside with Salvador Perez out of the lineup.  The zero hurt.  Looking back, I admit I didn’t spend much time on this last pick.  If I had, I may have found some red flags.  The largest red flag, was the groundball rate of both Villar and Keller, the KC starter. Villar has a 50.6% groundball rate over the last 30 days.  Keller has a 54.7% groundball rate for 2018.  Part of improving in DFS (or anything in life for that matter) is acknowledging mistakes and learning from them.  

Hoskins and Villar got me a total of 3 FD points, which torpedoed any chance my lineup had for cashing.  Perhaps I could have found a better combination of players to go along with the Twins stack and pair of Cardinals.  Looking back the data wasn’t as promising for Hoskins as I assumed it would be, though I think $3500 is still a good price for that upside.  The data suggested that Villar was a poor choice and I should have spent more time researching the options at 2B.