After a break for the All-Star break, we’ve assembled the Touts and posed another DFS question to those participating in FanDuel’s Tout Daily contest.
How much time do you spend researching and entering your DFS lineup(s)?
Seth Trachtman, www.rotoworld.com, @sethroto: I build my lineup around the pitcher, to the point that his salary determines how long it takes to build my lineup. Typically, if the pitcher is an ace, the high-priced choices for the rest of the lineup are limited. In that case, it probably takes about 15 minutes between looking at weather, matchups, and recent trends. For at least a couple positions, I simply scroll down to the bottom of the salaries to pick a player from there. However, if I opt to go for a cheaper pitcher, I have more freedom to pick the high-priced hitters. There’s more choices, and I’ll research pretty much every position. Unintentionally, it has taken more than 30 minutes to choose this lineup of hitting behemoths.
Phil Hertz, www.baseballhq.com, @prhz50: It depends on other life demands. This past Tuesday, it seemed I had 5 minutes to spare although I probably spent about 20 minutes. A week ago, I actually had some free time and spent about a half hour looking for some under the radar good match-ups. Interestingly I don’t think my results differed much. :<(
David Gonos, www.SoCalledFantasyExperts.com, @davidgonos: Probably about 45-60 minutes on an average non-writing day, depending on how many contests and on how many sites I decide to play that day.
Tim McCullough, www.rotoexperts.com, @Tim_RotoExperts: On average, I’ll spend about 30 minutes on the research depending on the pitchers available on a given night. If there are only one or two obvious pitcher choices it might be a little less. But if there are four or five possible choices it probably takes more like 45 minutes.
Jeff Boggis, www.FantasyFootballEmpire.com, @JeffBoggis: Probably more time that I need to and it all depends on where I am in the Tout Wars DFS contest. On Friday night, I have a slight chance of obtaining a 2nd golden ticket to the finals in late August, so Thursday night and maybe at noon on Friday, I will make one final review of my lineup. There has been an increased number of websites offering daily fantasy advice and rankings, which is a great thing for the industry, but can lead to “paralysis by analysis.” Each week is a learning experience and as much as we love to analyze statistics and look favorable and unfavorable match-ups, sometimes we out guess ourselves. Going with your gut feeling oftentimes outweighs a pile of player analysis and statistics. My research always starts with pitching as it is very difficult to finish high in the weekly standings due to a poor pitching performance. I like to research how the starting pitcher has fared over the past two weeks, and also against the team they are facing that night. I don’t necessarily have to roster the highest salaried pitcher, but I do want to roster a tier 1 pitcher in all of my contests. I can build a hitting team with the remaining salary. I spend more research on hitting versus pitching as I have to find great match-ups with my remaining overall salary. If I can find a hitter that is has a great match-up versus the opposing pitcher, is fairly priced, and is on a hot streak over the past 7-14 days, then they become candidates for my roster.
Rick Wolf, www.fantasyalarm.com, @RickWolf1: It is likely that I play less than others in this group. I play 2-3 times a week. At least one of those each week is a speed studying. 30 minutes before the lineup deadline, I look at the different components of the playbook, daily projections from the best in the business and then make quick selections. The other two times, I spend between an hour and 90 minutes. Recently because of the completeness of the DFS Playbook PRO – I do ALL of that on Fantasy Alarm. Jeff lays out the steps here and I skip some, but that is my roadmap: http://www.fantasyalarm.com/articles/jeffmans/20939/how-to-use-the-dis-mlb-playbook-pro/
Craig Mish, www.craigmish.com, @CraigMish: It depends on the day really. Sunday is the trickiest so in general I spend the most time trying to sort through potential pitfalls. On Sunday morning it could take me 45 minutes. Typically Tuesday and Friday I spend 30 minutes. Other days I play very little so about 15 minutes just to stay active.
Scott Swanay, www.fantasybaseballsherpa.com, @Fantasy_Sherpa: Anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, depending both on the time available and how much I care about a particular contest. So far, I haven’t noticed any correlation between time spent and points scored by my lineups, which leads me to believe I haven’t yet figured out the “right” way to construct consistently successful DFS lineups.
Charlie Wiegert, www.cdmsports.com, @GFFantasySports: Less than an hour. Based on my results, I probably need to do more! I check out the pitching to see who has a good chance of a good strike out night, and looking at Vegas odds, who has a chance of winning. I also use the Vegas odds for over/under on runs to be scored in the game to get an idea which offensive players I might want to roster. Then I check out the starting lineups to make sure everyone is playing.
Patrick Davitt, www.baseballhq.com, @patrickdavitt: I like to spend 90 minutes or more, but often I am squeezed into less because of other obligations on Fridays.
Scott Engel, www.rotoexperts.com, @ScottERotoEx: It takes me roughly about an hour to two hours depending on my schedule for the day. Ideally, first I like to do my own research and then target a few guys based on matchups, etc. Then I go over to our analysts at DailyRoto.com, because of the high level they play at, and see who they are targeting as well. Ideally I will get a good mix of my picks and theirs. Or roll out different lineups with more of an emphasis on mine in some and theirs in others if I am going multi-entry.
Jeff Erickson, www.rotowire.com, @Jeff_Erickson: Short answer – 90-to-120 minutes, depending on which day it is, and what’s at stake. On Wednesday I probably agonized for two hours on just my Fantasy Aces Survivor entry (15th place, by .5 point!), other days less. Sometimes the slate is easier to crack than others.
Todd Zola, www.mastersball.com, @ToddZola: I’ll spend a minimum of two hours and up to four depending on timing, how favorable I find the slate and if I need a reason to skip another workout. This may be cheating a little but I’m counting the time I put into researching the DFS content I write on a daily basis primarily because the same effort that goes into the initial research for my work would be exactly what I do if I wasn’t writing and just playing. The actual lineup entering can take anywhere from an hour to twice that, depending on how many sites and lineups I’m playing. I probably play a little more than most in Tout Daily but my volume pales in comparison to others in the industry and certainly the real grinders.