Daily Fantasy Baseball: The Upside Chronicles (May 18)

Welcome to the daily segment that you won’t want to submit your lineup without.

Everyone knows that the bottom line to winning big in DFS is by maximizing your upside. In this daily segment we will examine which players provide the best opportunity to blow past their expected point totals and make you the next guy to hold a giant DraftKings check.

I consider myself a numbers guy – crunching numbers on spreadsheets, slaving over sabermetric data on Fangraphs, all the fun stuff that baseball junkies love to do. That’s what makes FantasyLabs the most exciting invention since we were introduced to DFS. Here we have the ability to manipulate data any way we want, discover trends and most importantly use them to make lots and lots of money.

What you’ll get from me on a daily basis is a systematic way to uncover upside and maximize our chances to finish at the top of large tournaments. Everything has been broken down into two key numbers: base score and upside score.

The methodology for base score comes through analyzing three of the Pro Models that you can find in the Models section (Bales Favorite, Tournament and Max Home Run/Strikeout). The twist is that I removed the Upside rating from these models.

Next we turn up the heat to get our upside score by using two custom models that I have created – I like to call them Weighted Upside and Pure Upside. Weighted Upside attributes 50% of the points to upside and the rest get distributed amongst important offensive/pitching categories that coincide with a high ceiling. Pure Upside gets its name when we turn the slider up to 90% in the upside category to uncover who carries the true breakout potential.

These models used independently won’t get us very far but as a unit they give us value in all the right places. When we combine all the data to form these two metrics, we get a list of players that are reliable enough not to crush our GPP lineups while providing all the essentials for a top score.

Let’s get to the fun part. Below you will find the top players in action – tonight is a short slate of only six games but there is no shortage of money to be made.

Pitcher:

1. Corey Kluber (@CWS; $10,100 DK)

Base Score: 64.69 (rank: 3)

Upside Score: 78.44 (rank: 1)

2. Chris Sale (vs CLE; $9,500 DK)

Base Score: 82.3 (rank: 1)

Upside Score: 68.9 (rank: 4)

3. Dan Haren (vs ARI; $6,600 DK)

Base Score: 49.63 (rank: 4)

Upside Score: 62.39 (rank: 5)

4. Mike Fiers (@DET; $8,600 DK)

Base Score: 47.87 (rank: 6)

Upside Score: 70.25 (rank: 3)

5. Rubby De La Rosa (@MIA; $6,900 DK)

Base Score: 37.12 (rank: 8)

Upside Score: 70.99 (rank: 2)

 

CATCHER:

1. Wilin Rosario (vs PHI; $3,300 DK)

Base Score: 84.37 (rank: 1)

Upside Score: 77.3 (rank: 2)

2. Stephen Vogt (@HOU; $4,100 DK)

Base Score: 61.57 (rank: 3)

Upside Score: 79.7 (rank: 1)

3. Evan Gattis (vs OAK; $3,700)

Base Score: 65.96 (rank: 2)

Upside Score: 74.01 (rank: 3)

 

FIRST BASE:

1. Mark Canha (@HOU; $3,500 DK)

Base Score: 56.38 (rank: 3)

Upside Score: 84.57 (rank: 1)

2. Lucas Duda (vs STL; $3,900 DK)

Base Score: 61.74 (rank: 2)

Upside Score: 76.9 (rank: 2)

3. Paul Goldschmidt (@MIA; $5,300 DK)

Base Score: 56.34 (rank: 4)

Upside Score: 72.83 (rank: 3)

 

SECOND BASE:

1. Jose Altuve (vs OAK; $4,800 DK)

Base Score: 75.78 (rank: 1)

Upside Score: 84.08 (rank: 1)

2. Dee Gordon (vs ARI; $4,900)

Base Score: 56.28 (rank: 2)

Upside Score: 70.98 (rank: 3)

3. Chris Owings (@MIA; $3,700 DK)

Base Score: 50.58 (rank: 4)

Upside Score: 75.13 (rank 2)

 

THIRD BASE:

1. Nolan Arenado (vs PHI; $4,200 DK) *PLAY OF THE DAY

Base Score: 83.74 (rank: 1)

Upside Score: 81.34 (rank: 1)

2. Luis Valbuena (vs OAK; $3,900 DK)

Base Score: 51.35 (rank: 4)

Upside Score: 71.68 (rank: 2)

3. Miguel Cabrera (vs MIL; $5,100 DK)

Base Score: 68.98 (rank: 2)

Upside Score: 51.08 (rank: 5)

 

SHORTSTOP:

1. Freddy Galvis (@COL; $4,100 DK)

Base Score: 67.81 (rank: 1)

Upside Score: 67.81 (rank: 1)

2. Marcus Semien (@HOU; $4,700 DK)

Base Score: 60.23 (rank 2)

Upside Score: 69.01 (rank: 2)

3. Jonathan Villar (vs OAK; $3,100 DK)

Base Score: 49.54 (rank: 5)

Upside Score: 65.63 (rank: 3)

 

OUTFIELD:

1. Josh Reddick (@HOU; $4,200 DK)

Base Score: 71.92 (rank: 2)

Upside Score: 81.44 (rank: 1)

2. George Springer (vs OAK; $4,700)

Base Score: 61.15 (rank: 6)

Upside Score: 79.34 (rank: 2)

3. Drew Stubbs (vs PHI; $3,200)

Base Score: 71.95 (rank: 1)

Upside Score: 76 (rank: 4)

4. Ender Inciarte (@MIA; $3,700)

Base Score: 67.43 (rank: 4)

Upside Score: 77.22 (rank: 3)

5. JD Martinez (vs MIL; $4,400)

Base Score: 52.09 (rank: 8)

Upside Score: 74.26 (rank: 5)