Well it was a great week for our fearless leader here at Daily Overlay as Greg pulled down a $50K first prize on Wednesday. Want to know how well our own in-house experts have been doing? Look no further than Greg’s winning lineup and you will find that both of his pitchers came from Brad’s “On the Hill” article and he used the sneaky Mark Reynolds and Gregory Polanco plays from Stephen’s BvP article. In addition to Greg’s winning ways, you need not look any further than our MLB Expert Grading Table and you will see that Brad continues to lead the field and Stephen is holding strong in 3rd place. I read them everyday, Greg reads them everyday…are you reading them everyday? If not, I’d suggest you start doing so.
In this article, I will give a brief recap of each day we gathered and graded the experts, including how the Industry Consensus picks did, highlighting which experts were at the top for the day and which players were only called out by one or two experts, but produced an “A+” grade. We will also review the overall standings and highlight the top experts so far this season. And finally, I will publish results of our Lineup Construction series.
As a reminder, we are currently gathering selections and publishing the MLB Industry Consensus articles and MLB Consensus Lineup Construction articles each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday during the season, so be sure to check back about an hour or so before the first pitch of the first game to get a look at the consensus picks and sample lineups for the day.
Overall Leaderboard
I’ll lay out the top-3 for the season below. We had a flip-flop at the top but our two in-house guys, Brad and Stephen are still leading the pack..
#1) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 3.56) hangs on to the top spot for another week. He saw his score bump from a 3.40 to a 3.56. Brad has found a groove and you should join him every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
#2) DailyRoto (Score: 3.24) hops into the 2nd spot on our season long list. A nice week from DR saw their scored jump to a 3.24 which is really, really good considering the volume of picks that they put out.
#3) Daily Overlay – BvP for MVP (Score: 3.22) took a step back to 3rd. A tough week when you see your score go from 3.19 to 3.22, yet still get hopped. As Stephen would tell you, BvP isn’t everything but it’s certainly a nice starting point for your lineup.
Week in Review
Monday (April 25th)
Not a brilliant start to the week for the experts. Only two of our 16 experts that submitted picks scored above 3.0 for Monday.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Industry Consensus finished in 9th for the day with a score of 2.12. Not a great score…but better than most.
A+ – Chris Archer, Buster Posey, Welington Castillo, Miguel Cabrera, Jose Bautista
F – Twenty-two of the 43 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day
#1) DailyRoto (Score: 3.80) topped the scoreboard with eight of their 30 picks finishing with an “A+” on Monday. Included in those “A+” grades were Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Trout and DR was the only site that picked them.
#2) Daily Fantasy Cafe (Score: 3.67) comes in 2nd for the day with three of their nine picks finishing “A” or better.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Giancarlo Stanton (DailyRoto)
A+ – Mike Trout (DailyRoto)
A+ – Lucas Duda (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Nathan Eovaldi (Fantasy Pros)
A+ – Trayce Thompson (Fantasy Pros)
A+ – Michael Saunders (Fantasy Pros)
Tuesday (April 26th)
A much better day on Tuesday for our clan of experts. Six of our sixteen finished above the 3.0 threshold for the day including a phenomenal 6.67 score from Rotocurve.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Consensus finished right in the middle of the pack in 8th with a score of 2.78.
A+ – David Price, Johnny Cueto, Rich Hill, Chris Sale, Travis Shaw, Andrew McCutchen, Josh Reddick
F – A total of 17 of the 36 picks finished in the failing category.
Top Experts of the Day
#1) Rotocurve (Score: 6.67) scored the top spot with two of their three selections finishing with an “A+”.
#2) DailyFantasySportsRankings.com (Score: 4.31) hauled in five “A+” picks to take home the silver medal for the day. DFSR was the only expert to play Brandon Moss and Adam Eaton.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Brandon Moss (DailyFantasySportsRankings)
A+ – Adam Eaton (DailyFantasySportsRankings)
A+ – Nolan Arenado (DailyRoto)
A+ – Mike Moustakas (Scout)
A+ – Xander Bogaerts (DailyFantasyCafe)
A+ – Austin Jackson (ESPN Daily Notes)
Wednesday (April 27th)
What a day! Only five of our 17 experts scored below 3.0 and six scored above 4.0. This was, by far, the best day we’ve seen from the experts this season.
Industry Consensus Picks
The Consensus had a great day with a 3.79 score. Unfortunately, when everyone else does so well, that will position you in 8th place for the day.
A+ – Steven Wright, Francisco Cervelli, David Ortiz, Mark Reynolds, Dustin Pedroia, Neil Walker, Nolan Arendao, Stephen Piscotty
F – Jose Berrios, Matt Wieters, John Jaso, Lucas Duda, Adrian Beltre, Evan Longoria, Kike Hernandez, Yasiel Puig
Top Experts of the Day
#1) MoxyBall – Cheat Sheet (Score: 8.67) tallies the best score we’ve seen yet this year. Six selections and five of those finished at “A+” with the 6th scoring a “C”. MoxyBall was the only expert to play Adam Lind.
#2) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 5.33) brings home some hardware in 2nd place for the day. Brad brought home one “A+” and two “B” grades for the day.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Victor Martinez (DailyRoto)
A+ – DJ LeMahieu (RotoGrinders Consensus)
A+ – Aledmys Diaz (Scout)
A+ – Gregory Polanco (Daily Overlay BvP for MVP)
A+ – Adam Lind (MoxyBall)
A+ – Khris Davis (DK Playbook)
A+ – Byung Ho Park (Fantasy Pros)
A+ – Joey Rickard (Fantasy Pros)
A+ – Jose Quintana (ESPN Daily Notes)
Friday (April 29th)
A good week bookended by two sub-par days. Five of the experts finished with a sub-2.0 score on Friday.
Industry Consensus Picks
A solid end to the week for the Consensus with a 3.0 score and a 6th place finish.
A+ – Aaron Sanchez, Adam Conley, Stephen Strasburg, Juan Nicasio, Jason Kipnis, Trevor Story, Josh Donaldson, Matt Kemp
F – Nineteen of the 40 picks finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day
#1) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 6.25) finished off his surge this week in the top spot. Two of his four picks finished with an “A+”.
#2) DK Playbook (Score: 4.61) makes an appearance on the daily leaderboard for the first time this week. Seven of the 18 selections finished with an “A+” grade.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Victor Martinez (DailyRoto)
A+ – Evan Gattis (DailyRoto)
A+ – Yoenis Cespedes (DK Playbook)
A+ – Alex Wood (DailyFantasyCafe)
A+ – Nick Hundley (Fantasy Pros)
Consensus Lineup Construction Review
Things were brutal on the FanDuel side of things this week. Stephen and I managed to only cash one time in ten total games. On the other side, Brad had a successful week on DraftKings. Brad finished in the money in four of his eight total games. Things have become increasingly difficult on FanDuel to field a high-end pitcher in the Cash game while only using Consensus players. Look for a small change coming this week in the flexibility we allow ourselves in the Cash format. Brad will explain in his Lineup Construction article tomorrow.
Here is a list of the “rules” we are following when constructing lineups:
- Matt will make two separate lineups for FanDuel and Brad will do the same for DraftKings, one for Cash games and one for GPP tournaments. Stephen will bookend the week by providing a FanDuel lineup on Mondays and Fridays..
- For Cash games, we will build our entire lineup from the Consensus list using any player listed regardless of what tier they are in. This was a bit difficult this week with some of the split slates. If we have to go off the board for Cash, we will make sure to use a player that was picked by at least one expert.
- For GPP games, we are allowed to choose up to two players that are not on the Consensus list.
- We can modify any lineup as we see fit for any late-breaking news updates that open up good options even if they are not on the Consensus list.
Weekly/Overall Results
FanDuel
That grid below is not pretty…not pretty at all. No money was had at all in the GPP format and we managed to only finish in the money once on the Cash side. I took the collar for the week and really didn’t even come close to finishing in the money at all. Let’s see if our slight adjustments for the next week make any difference.
| Day | Cash Score | Cash Place | Profit (Loss) | GPP Score | GPP Place | Profit (Loss) | Picks By |
| Monday | 60 | 97/100 | ($1.00) | 112 | 9,369/23,121 | ($1.00) | Stephen |
| Monday | 83 | 83/100 | ($2.00) | 90 | 39,262/57,803 | ($2.00) | Matt |
| Tuesday | 141 | 76/100 | ($2.00) | 57 | 70,317/72,254 | ($2.00) | Matt |
| Wednesday | 143.8 | 72/100 | ($2.00) | 136.9 | 25,055/57,803 | ($2.00) | Matt |
| Friday | 154 | 8/100 | $0.80 | 129 | 5,843/23,121 | ($1.00) | Stephen |
DraftKings
Brad’s grid looks a little better. He finished the week strong by finishing in the money on the Cash side the last three days of the week and found the money on GPP side once. The ball is rolling downhill for Brad so let’s hope he can keep it up.
| Day | Cash Score | Cash Place | Profit (Loss) | GPP Score | GPP Place | Profit (Loss) | Picks By |
| Monday | 78.9 | 79/100 | ($2.00) | 89.9 | 9,908/17,647 | ($1.00) | Brad |
| Tuesday | 145.65 | 33/100 | $1.60 | 95.3 | 11,265/17,647 | ($1.00) | Brad |
| Wednesday | 150.8 | 19/100 | $1.60 | 151.55 | 1,041/11,764 | $2.00 | Brad |
| Friday | 124.7 | 13/100 | $1.60 | 111.8 | 2,745/11,764 | ($1.00) | Brad |
The grid below shows a recap of the results so far this season. I’ve fallen off the map these last two weeks but I’ll get things going again this week. Brad is slowly creeping back towards the black numbers. Overall, we are sitting at -12.4% for the season after one month. We will look to build on that and hopefully these April showers will bring May flowers for our Lineup Construction.
| FanDuel | Cash Entry Fees | Cash Tot Winnings | Cash ROI | GPP Entry Fees | GPP Tot Winnings | GPP ROI | Tot Entry Fees | Tot Winnings | Tot ROI |
| Matt | $28.00 | $21.60 | -22.9% | $28.00 | $17.51 | -37.5% | $56.00 | $39.11 | -30.2% |
| Stephen | $9.00 | $12.60 | 40.0% | $10.00 | $8.50 | -15.0% | $19.00 | $21.10 | 11.1% |
| FD Overall | $37.00 | $34.20 | -7.6% | $38.00 | $26.01 | -31.6% | $75.00 | $60.21 | -19.7% |
| DraftKings | Cash Entry Fees | Cash Tot Winnings | Cash ROI | GPP Entry Fees | GPP Tot Winnings | GPP ROI | Tot Entry Fees | Tot Winnings | Tot ROI |
| Brad | $34.00 | $25.20 | -25.9% | $17.00 | $25.00 | 47.1% | $51.00 | $50.20 | -1.6% |
| DK Overall | $34.00 | $25.20 | -25.9% | $17.00 | $25.00 | 47.1% | $51.00 | $50.20 | -1.6% |
| Overall | $71.00 | $59.40 | -16.3% | $55.00 | $51.01 | -7.3% | $126.00 | $110.41 | -12.4% |
Ownership Percentage Tracking
We had a hypothesis at DailyOverlay that we could utilize the Industry Consensus list to help predict ownership percentages with the assumption being that players who were selected by more experts would likely be higher owned picks in Cash and GPP tournaments.
Below is the current table showing the data we have tracked this first two weeks. Results are using DraftKings Double-Up or 50/50s for Cash and large field multi-entry tournaments for GPP. The Count column shows the number of times a player was selected by the experts for a given day. The Cash % column shows the average ownership percentage of those players in a Cash game. The GPP % column shows the average ownership percentage of those players in a GPP tournament. The Total column shows the number of occurrences that a player was selected that many times.
| Count | Cash% | GPP% | Total |
| 13 | 49.60% | 28.40% | 1 |
| 12 | 82.30% | 49.65% | 2 |
| 11 | 60.25% | 33.80% | 2 |
| 10 | 55.53% | 41.23% | 4 |
| 9 | 46.91% | 29.86% | 9 |
| 8 | 37.13% | 24.64% | 22 |
| 7 | 36.40% | 23.45% | 30 |
| 6 | 24.52% | 17.23% | 49 |
| 5 | 23.47% | 16.85% | 85 |
| 4 | 16.78% | 12.61% | 126 |
| 3 | 10.53% | 9.78% | 180 |
| 2 | 6.85% | 7.59% | 338 |
| 1 | 2.95% | 3.91% | 650 |
Once again this week, I think we are sitting about where we thought we would with the ownership percentages. As expected the higher count picks have provided higher ownership percentage in the both formats. Lower ownership in the GPP format, as expected, where it pays to fade some of the overwhelming expert plays. We will keep tracking this as long as it keeps providing us with useful insights
.
