An Unorthodox Salary
If you’re setting MLB lineups for FanDuel tonight, you might notice an unorthodox salary:
While a $220 salary is (much) lower than what we typically see, there’s a question as to whether Kike Hernandez’s salary will actually impact contests. After all, Kike’s a platoon player who usually starts only against left-handed pitchers and tonight the Dodgers face righty Johnny Cueto. No big deal, right?
Maybe not.
The Two Important Rules
Each daily fantasy sports contest at FanDuel is governed by a set of rules. For the MLB contests, there are two important rules that should be noted for this conversation:
- You must not exceed the total salary cap of $35,000.
- You must fill out a complete roster: SP, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, and three OFs.
We must follow these rules in setting our lineups . . . but nowhere do the rules state that we can’t roster players who won’t play.
So Kike’s presence (or lack thereof) in the Dodgers’ order tonight is only one variable in the lineup decision. Because of the stated rules, there are other factors that must be considered.
Opportunity Cost
Because of Kike’s salary, the strategy for guaranteed prize pools tonight hinges on how people answer this question: Is rostering his (probable) zero FanDuel fantasy points worth the extra salary space you will receive as a result?
First, we must determine how much taking a ‘0’ hurts you.
That depends entirely on A) the DFS sport you’re playing and B) the size of the contest you’re in. In MLB, because of the day-to-day volatility of batters, there’s a decent chance that Mookie Betts, the highest-priced batter on FanDuel tonight ($4,600), will score exactly the same number of points as Kike or any other player who isn’t in a lineup. Risk and uncertainty matter in DFS, and we have quite a bit of both in daily fantasy baseball contests every day.
Opportunity cost is how we make all of our decisions in DFS, even if we don’t realize it. Paying up for David Ortiz at first base instead of taking a value player? We’re betting that Ortiz’s Upside outweighs the salary difference between the two players. Fading the ‘top value’ for the night? We’re betting that the probability of that player’s busting outweighs the number of lineups that he is in. Everything in DFS is about opportunity cost.
This second point is also very important in the Kike dilemma tonight: If you’re playing in a huge GPP — say the “Squeeze,” which has 57,803 entries — taking a ‘0’ could be more harmful than in a contest with a smaller field. When the field is larger, there is more of a chance that luck (nailing a lineup at all positions) will outweigh strategy (creating more salary space by rostering Kike).
Strategy Ownership
We also have the variable of ‘strategy ownership.’ We often think about player ownership — the percentage of lineups a player is in for a contest — but we don’t nearly as often think often about ‘strategy ownership’ — the percentage of lineups that utilize a particular strategy. When considering the probability that any given strategy will be ‘correct’ for a tournament, we must weigh the likelihood that the strategy will be employed by other users. Stacking four players on FanDuel is perhaps the most optimal strategy in terms of maximizing lineup points, but, because many people do it, stacking four players might not actually maximize your odds of winning the GPP.
This is why the Kike strategy could be an interesting contrarian one in tournaments tonight: Although it might carry less expected value than simply ignoring his pricing quirk and filling out a regular lineup, you’re gaining a lot of value by employing a strategy that few DFS players are likely to use. Contrarian plays are, by definition, less optimal than . . . optimal plays. However, contrarianism can become optimal because of the nature of DFS tournaments and strategy ownership.
$220 Worth of Advice
Is taking Kike in your FD lineups tonight worth the probable ‘0’ that he will return?
It depends on the opportunity cost and how you fill out the remaining spots of your roster, and it depends as well on strategy ownership and how many other DFS players utilize that strategy.
This is the fun of DFS: There are always edges to be found, even if it means tanking a lineup spot to take down a tournament.
