There was some significant shake up in week three. The top-3 for the hitters and pitchers didn’t show a ton of change but there was some moving about between those experts outside those top-3 slots. We did have one expert, FantasyTeamAdvice, make their debut on the hitter leaderboard. Be sure to check the MLB Expert Standings for the full look. The Industry Expert Consensus had a solid week in the pitching and hitting category. It’s worth keeping up with the Consensus and its standing among the others. Enjoy!
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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 expert, but produced an “A+” grade. We will also review the overall standings and highlight the top experts so far this season.
As a reminder, we are currently gathering selections and publishing the MLB Industry Consensus article each weekday 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. As an added bonus in 2017, we will publish the Consensus on weekends when we have a writer available. To begin the 2017 season, we will grade 20 experts that provide pitcher selections and 21 that provide hitter selections daily.
Leaderboard
The top-3 for both pitchers and hitters are below. Check out the full MLB Expert Standings to see how your favorite experts check out.
Pitchers
#1) DailyFantasySportsRankings (Score: 5.32) made the jump to the top spot with a big week. A jump of .08 coupled with the sharp dropoff in some of the other top experts puts DFSR out to a comfortable lead after three weeks.
#2) FanSided (Score: 4.74) hopped up a spot even while dropping .18 in Daily Overlay score.
#3) Rotoballer (Score: 4.69) tumbled out of the catbird seat but still clings to a spot in the top-3. It was a rough week on the pitcher side for Rotoballer but they’ll look to bounce back this week.
Hitters
#1) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 3.63) maintains a firm grip on the top spot in the hitter side of things. Brad saw his score dip once again but did not decline as sharply as some of his competitors.
#2) RotoGrinders 6-Pack (Score: 3.16) now stands alone in the 2nd spot. Beer had a sizable dip in his score and does not have a lot of cushion between himself and the #3 spot.
#3) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 3.09) makes a debut into the top-3 as the only other expert sitting above the 3.0 threshold. With Stephen’s Value Index chomping at FTA’s heels, it’ll be a race to keep an eye on.
Week in Review
Monday (April 17th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 3.57 (9th)
Hitters – 2.85 (4th)
A+ – Robbie Ray, Freddie Freeman, Matt Holliday, Marcus Thames, Robinson Cano, Starlin Castro, Michael Brantley, Aaron Judge
F – Sixteen of the 41 total selections finished in the failing category.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 7.50) started off the week on the right foot with an “A+” and an “A” to top the leaderboard.
#2) RotoGrinders – Lucror (Score: 5.33) used an “A+”, “A” and “D” to haul in the 2nd place finish on Monday’s pitcher side.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 5.38) blew the competition out of the water on Monday. Half of their eight plays scored an “A+” grade.
#2) DailyRoto (Score: 3.03) scored an “A” or better on ten of their 35 plays for a solid score and a top-2 finish.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – AJ Griffin (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – AJ Pollock (FantasyPros)
Tuesday (April 18th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 6.57 (7th)
Hitters – 2.86 (8th)
A+ – Max Scherzer, Luis Severino, Andrew Triggs, Shelby Miller, Edwin Encarnacion, Justin Bour, Joey Votto, Francisco Lindor, Adam Jones, Kevin Pillar, Kyle Schwarber
F – Nineteen of the 42 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1A) Daily Overlay – Value Index (Score: 10.00) used Luis Severino to score a perfect 10.0 on Tuesday.
#1B) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 10.00) paid up for Scherzer and down for Brian Johnson to haul in two “A+” grades.
#1C) Sportsline (Score: 10.00) played the same two as DailyFantasyNerd for their perfect Tuesday score.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) FantasyLabs (Score: 4.45) scored an “A” or better with five of their 11 plays on Tuesday.
#2) Daily Overlay – On the Hill (Score: 4.33) made 12 selections and scored an “A” or better on exactly half of those including four “A+” grades.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Mookie Betts (DailyRoto)
Wednesday (April 19th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 5.50 (T-10th)
Hitters – 2.51 (12th)
A+ – Clayton Kershaw, Jason Vargas, Amir Garrett, Jhoulys Chacin, Freddie Freeman, Evan Longoria, Bryce Harper, Kevin Kiermaier, Josh Reddick, Jay Bruce
F – Nineteen of the 47 selections finished with a failing grade (all failing grades were hitter picks).
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 10.00) used the high-priced/low-priced combo of Kershaw and Garrett to find the top spot.
#2A) DK Playbook (Score: 7.50) used Dallas Keuchel and Jason Vargas to score an “A+” and “A” on the way to a 2nd place tie for the day.
#2B) Rotowire (Score: 7.50) deployed the same Keuchel and Vargas plays.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 4.50) used their optimizer to bring home the bacon on Wednesday. Half of their six plays scored an “A” or better.
#2) RotoGrinders 6-Pack (Score: 4.00) scored two “A+” grades and three failing ones but still managed to find the top-2. He was the lone expert to deploy Aaron Judge.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Aaron Judge (RotoGrinders 6-Pack)
A+ – Jose Abreu (DK Playbook)
A+ – Erick Aybar (FantasyAlarm)
Thursday (April 20th)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 4.13 (7th)
Hitters – 1.73 (11th)
A+ – Stephen Strasburg, Wade Miley, Eric Thames, Ryan Zimmerman, Travis Shaw
F – Twenty-four of the 41 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1A) FantasyPros (Score: 8.33) used the under the radar combo of Miley, Clayton Richard and Patrick Corbin to haul in two “A+’s” and one “A” grade on Thursday
#1B) RotoGrinders – Lucror (Score: 8.33) used the exact same combo as above. They were the only two experts to play Clayton Richard.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 3.67) topped the expert list in what was a tough day on the hitter side. Half of their 12 plays scored an “A” or better.
#2) DailyFantasyNerd (Score: 3.57) scored an “A” or better with four of their 7 plays. The other three were failing grades or they would have had a really nice day.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Jedd Gyorko (FantasyAlarm, FantasyGuruElite)
A+ – Wil Myers (DK Playbook, FantasyGuruElite)
A+ – Clayton Richard (FantasyPros, RotoGrinders – Lucror)
A+ – Austin Hedges (FantasyPros, RotoGrinders – Lucror)
Friday (April 21st)
Industry Consensus Picks
Pitchers – 3.50 (11th)
Hitters – 2.29 (13th)
A+ – Cory Kluber, Sean Manaea, Anthony Rizzo, Brandon Belt, Corey Seager, Mike Trout, Ryan Braun
F – Twenty-three of the 41 selections finished with a failing grade.
Top Experts of the Day – Pitchers
#1) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 10.00) deployed only Kluber for a perfect score to end the week.
#2) Rotowire (Score: 7.50) played Kluber and Cole Hamels for an “A+” and “A” to round out the top-2.
Top Experts of the Day – Hitters
#1) FantasyTeamAdvice (Score: 4.45) made it a clean sweep on Friday as four of their 11 selections scored an “A+” grade.
#2) DK Playbook (Score: 3.73) finished the week strong with a top-2 finish on the hitter side. Three of their 11 plays scored an “A+”. They were the lone expert to recommend Jacoby Ellsbury.
Sleepers of the Day
A+ – Manny Machado (DailyRoto)
A+ – Eduardo Nunez (Fantasy Alarm)
A+ – Bryce Harper (Scout Fantasy)
A+ – Trevor Cahill (DK Playbook)
A+ – Jacoby Ellsbury (DK Playbook)
Ownership Percentage Tracking
Below is the current table showing the data we have tracked so far this season. 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 % chart shows the average ownership percentage of those players in a Cash game. The GPP % chart shows the average ownership percentage of those players in a GPP tournament.
Cash by Position
| Count | SP | C | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | OF | Total |
| 16 | 91.30% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 91.30% |
| 15 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 14 | 61.10% | 63.10% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 62.10% |
| 13 | 72.98% | N/A | N/A | N/A | 72.90% | N/A | N/A | 72.96% |
| 12 | 72.90% | N/A | 65.50% | 37.00% | 27.10% | 82.50% | N/A | 57.00% |
| 11 | 52.55% | N/A | N/A | 46.70% | N/A | 43.73% | 32.90% | 46.36% |
| 10 | 40.40% | N/A | 17.00% | 40.13% | 56.85% | 31.00% | 68.60% | 44.38% |
| 9 | 42.57% | 34.50% | 36.35% | 23.63% | 45.00% | N/A | 37.75% | 37.57% |
| 8 | 43.24% | 20.95% | 38.53% | 15.83% | 36.97% | 23.57% | 23.33% | 29.52% |
| 7 | 19.95% | 36.02% | 22.70% | 18.55% | 17.52% | 15.53% | 26.28% | 22.74% |
| 6 | 20.47% | 15.43% | 16.63% | 19.46% | 17.18% | 21.61% | 23.15% | 19.76% |
| 5 | 16.86% | 15.10% | 14.10% | 10.76% | 11.03% | 12.68% | 21.36% | 15.93% |
| 4 | 12.86% | 11.37% | 9.89% | 9.56% | 9.13% | 8.87% | 13.18% | 10.86% |
| 3 | 6.55% | 8.38% | 6.63% | 9.57% | 5.91% | 8.12% | 7.87% | 7.47% |
| 2 | 3.99% | 4.94% | 4.64% | 6.15% | 5.37% | 5.18% | 6.23% | 5.38% |
| 1 | 2.55% | 3.04% | 2.08% | 3.32% | 2.65% | 2.11% | 3.32% | 2.81% |
GPP by Position
| Count | SP | C | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | OF | Total |
| 16 | 67.00% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 67.00% |
| 15 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 14 | 42.30% | 40.40% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 41.35% |
| 13 | 49.33% | N/A | N/A | N/A | 36.40% | N/A | N/A | 46.74% |
| 12 | 48.50% | N/A | 30.20% | 20.30% | 27.10% | 43.30% | N/A | 33.88% |
| 11 | 35.82% | N/A | N/A | 31.30% | N/A | 25.28% | 23.10% | 30.27% |
| 10 | 31.16% | N/A | 14.00% | 36.33% | 38.50% | 21.60% | 48.30% | 33.86% |
| 9 | 33.97% | 28.10% | 21.55% | 15.23% | 19.70% | N/A | 20.57% | 25.91% |
| 8 | 34.74% | 17.40% | 20.28% | 13.63% | 26.17% | 16.13% | 19.58% | 21.80% |
| 7 | 19.75% | 25.32% | 22.05% | 11.98% | 16.06% | 13.18% | 18.85% | 18.81% |
| 6 | 19.49% | 13.99% | 12.95% | 15.97% | 17.35% | 15.17% | 16.47% | 16.02% |
| 5 | 16.18% | 11.79% | 11.42% | 11.34% | 12.16% | 12.55% | 15.25% | 13.48% |
| 4 | 15.28% | 11.39% | 8.28% | 7.97% | 8.65% | 8.85% | 10.22% | 9.95% |
| 3 | 9.13% | 7.74% | 7.26% | 7.82% | 6.20% | 8.47% | 8.59% | 7.97% |
| 2 | 6.74% | 5.12% | 5.89% | 6.47% | 6.39% | 6.17% | 6.17% | 6.17% |
| 1 | 4.61% | 4.06% | 3.37% | 4.09% | 3.50% | 3.56% | 4.54% | 4.05% |
