With a Stokastic+ membership, you’re tapping into top-notch advice and strategies straight from the pros, like our perennial winner Steve “dacoltz” Buzzard and the rest of the Stokastic crew. Plus, you’ll be part of our Stokastic Discord community, where our users and pros bounce DFS advice and questions off of each other. It’s not just MLB DFS pick advice we’re talking about here. We’re diving into all things fantasy, with insights from the minds who’ve hit the big bucks.
Every Thursday, Steve will hold court on Discord, ready to tackle your burning DFS questions. Whether you want to dive deep into strategy, explore our tools or fine-tune your game, he’s got you covered. Here we will cover some of the best DFS discussions and advice from this week’s Office Hours.
Discord Office Hours Recap – NBA & MLB DFS Pick Advice & Strategy
Steve “dacoltz” Buzzard is a name you frequently see at the top of the leaderboards in all sorts of DFS sports, and he is one of the masterminds behind Stokastic Sims. He has weekly Office Hours on Discord to answer questions and give NBA and MLB DFS pick advice, whether it’s about any slate past or future or advice on how to use our tools and content.
Below are some of the best questions and answers from this week’s Office Hours with Steve “dacoltz” Buzzard.
MLB DFS Advice: Getting Started With MLB Daily Fantasy
Mayweather DBI asked: I’m about to start MLB. Any basic fundamentals you can help me out with? Adjustments I should be making with the Sims?
dacoltz: I don’t think there are any universal adjustments you need on the Sims, as it should be factoring all the items that you should be considering. If you are new to MLB DFS and Sims in general, some things you might consider: 1) It is going to suggest stacking most of the time, and I think that is right and have stacked most of my lineups. 2) MLB is a lot more variant than some of the other sports, so I tend to diversify more than the other sports. The Sims process does this pretty well, but sometimes it is still a little concentrated for my liking (although that is a personal preference). Don’t be afraid to use the boosts up or down on players that you think you are getting too much or too little of. A lot can happen in MLB DFS, and you should play your gut feelings 3) Weather is a concern in MLB, unlike other sports. Be sure to be up on the weather, and if you think a game is at high risk of getting rained out, don’t be afraid to just cross off those teams from your exposures and not play them at all. You can win a lot of ways in MLB, but not if you get a rained-out game. 4) That said weather games are also very under-owned because a lot of people cross out games, so if you think the weather is going to be fine you can get some good leverage on players. Check out the MLB channel as we are always discussing weather there.
One of our best deals here at Stokastic is our MLB Lineup Generator sale. For a limited time, you can get seven days of MLB Lineup Generator for just $3 when you use the promo code MLBLGWEEK!
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: Pitcher Diversification
sniffs1234 asked: Have you been changing your strategy on pitchers this year? It seems a lot of chalk pitchers have been failing in easy spots. Are you diversifying your pitcher exposure more this year?
dacoltz: I have been diversifying my pitchers a bit more this year. I think in general the top pitchers aren’t nearly as dominant, as they aren’t going as deep into the game and a lot are hurt already as well.
MLB DFS Advice: Percentage to First in the Sims
cescmonte asked: Does it make sense to increase the percentage to first for the Sims to create more contrarian builds?
dacoltz: I think if you are building fewer lineups than the actual contest size, you can definitely increase the percentage to first, as that will act as a good proxy for a more contrarian build that having a larger contest pool would also simulate. But if the contest pool is close to the same size, it will give you more contrarian lineups, but that may not be a great thing always, as it increases your risk as well. In that case, I would leave it the same.
NBA DFS Advice: Basketball Contest Archetypes
cartier23 asked: How do you determine what archetype to use in basketball? What dollar amount contest do you change it for? Is this something that will be added to baseball?
dacoltz: The archetype is essentially based on the type of contest you are playing; for example, the highest stakes are the highest-dollar contests that the sites offer. These are normally in the hundreds of dollars. The marquee is the biggest contest of the day. It is whatever contest has the biggest total prize pool for the day and normally has thousands of players in it and is typically around $10 to $25. The notch in between those is everything between that, contests that are $25 to $100, for example. Sometimes, though, the contests that are $100 may only have 100 people in them and play closer to a very high-dollar contest. Then you do the analysis the other way on the low-stakes side. The low stakes is stuff like the mini-max, and the notch between low and marquee is everything between those.
I don’t think we will offer anything like this for MLB, at least not right now, as the analysis that we did showed that the ownership exposures were very similar between high and low stakes for MLB since everyone is diversifying quite extensively. We will likely have these archetypes for NFL.
