With a Stokastic+ membership, you’re not just getting advice; you’re getting the crème de la crème of strategies from DFS champs like our own Steve “dacoltz” Buzzard and the whole Stokastic dream team. And that’s not all — you’ll be part of our lively Stokastic Discord community where users and pros exchange DFS wisdom and tips. But wait, there’s more than just MLB and NBA DFS pick advice on the menu. We’re serving up a feast of fantasy insights from the sharpest minds who’ve struck gold.
Every Thursday, Steve takes the mic on Discord, ready to field your DFS queries. Whether you’re looking to master strategy, dive into our tools or polish your game, he has the answers. Join us for the week’s hottest DFS discussions and advice during Office Hours — you won’t want to miss it!
Discord Office Hours – Expert MLB & NBA DFS Pick Advice & Strategy
Steve “dacoltz” Buzzard is a DFS legend, always at the top of the leaderboards across various sports. As one of the brains behind Stokastic Sims, he knows his stuff. Every week, Steve hosts Office Hours on Discord, ready to dish out expert MLB and NBA DFS pick advice. Whether you’re curious about past or upcoming slates or need tips on using our tools and content, he’s your guy.
Check out some of the top questions and answers from this week’s Office Hours with the one and only Steve “dacoltz” Buzzard.
MLB DFS Strategy: Changing Settings in the Sims
ltmercier91 asked: What settings do you always change on the MLB Sims?
dacoltz: The biggest setting I am looking at in the Sims is the ROI boosts. If I see players/teams that I am getting more or less of than I would like, I tweak those a fair amount. The Sims give you a great starting point, but I like to play around with players that I think have more or less upside (rookies, players coming off the IL, weather concerns, etc.). For the basic settings, I am mostly using the Sims to build for the biggest contests, so I set the pool sizes to the max available for that sport. I don’t really change things like stack exposures too much unless I am playing smaller contests because our defaults are what you see in the biggest contests based on some historical analysis we’ve done. Although, those may be changing a bit with the introduction of the Sims. But in general, the biggest thing for me is the ROI boosts.
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The MLB Lineup Generator is one of our easiest-to-use but also most effective tools we offer. All you need to do is select the DFS site and slate you plan to play, choose your stack type, the level of ownership you want from your lineups (chalky, contrarian, balanced or all) and players you wish to lock in. Once you’re satisfied, Lineup Generator will churn out high-ROI lineups and give you the information to determine how you want to proceed.
Check out the included screenshot for an example of a lineup that we generated for a DraftKings weekday main slate.
MLB DFS Strategy: Teams to Stack and Target With Pitchers
Vitonation23 asked: Have you had any certain teams you like to attack? What about teams you like to stack more than the rest?
dacoltz: Seattle seems to be the team to attack the most for the strikeouts, but everyone seems to be jumping onto it a bit. I am going to continue to ride the wave but watch out for their popularity.
On the hitting side, it’s tough because it is so dependent on who is pitching. Of course, the visiting teams in Coors, but that isn’t too shocking. I’ve actually been trying to play the Rockies in Coors a fair amount as well, but that hasn’t worked out too well yet; they are just pretty bad. The Athletics have been pretty good to me to start the year as well. I like the idea of some of the cheaper, not-so-popular teams to mix in with some of the more expensive plays from places like Coors, the Yankees, etc.
MLB DFS Advice: Choosing Lineups From the Sims
Clayton E. asked: For MLB Sims, if you are playing a 20-max and you have done all of your tweaking and ROI boosts, do you automatically use the top 20 lineups the Sims kick out, or is there some other nuance?
dacoltz: Just using the top 20 lineups for a 20-max after doing all the tweaking to ROI boosts, etc., makes a lot of sense. Those tweaks for me include things like a player or team that I might be getting too much of, so make sure that is part of your process. For most of the sports, I’ve noticed that the Sims are even more diverse than what I liked pre-Sims days. But for MLB, it feels like they are a little more concentrated than I was used to. It sort of makes me think the Sims are more right on those, but I’m not sure, so I keep trying to be a bit more diverse.
Another adjustment that I have seen others make that I don’t really make but I think has a lot of merit is using the cash percentage or top 10% as other metrics to combine with ROI. ROI is the best metric for long-term success, but it adds a lot of variance since it puts so much focus on getting first place, so you may not be able to put as much of your bankroll in play each day. I don’t really worry about this too much, but I think it’s a valid consideration.
NBA DFS Strategy: Avoiding Dupes in NBA DFS Showdown
hindulicious asked: Top-ROI lineups in Sims for NBA Showdown tend to dupe a lot still. Any tips to avoid this?
dacoltz: A lot of people are probably coming to the same conclusions from running the Sims and just using the top lineups. What I like to do in this specific situation is probably delete some of the top lineups that spend all their money or are over some threshold of duplicates, let’s say five, for example. This is actually what I did when I won the championship-round Milly Maker on DraftKings this year. I ran the Sims, deleted a bunch of lineups that spent too much money and had high duplicates with the thinking that those lineups would be super favored by a lot of people, not just from our Sims but from others in the industry as well. As it turned out, it was lineup 500 or so that was the $1 million winner, and I got to it just by deleting these lineups. Out of $10,000, that is still a really good lineup. To be clear, it doesn’t mean these lineups that I am deleting are bad; they might be the best lineups, especially in NBA, even if they are duplicated a bunch. I just want to give myself a chance to win with fewer duplicates.
