If you haven’t given daily fantasy sports (DFS), and specifically daily fantasy baseball, a try by now you are either new to fantasy sports, a veteran who somehow has missed the billions of dollars these companies have spent marketing, or a long time fantasy baseball player that believes DFS is indeed the devil.

There is a zero percent chance you fall outside of those three. Since you have, at a minimum, flipped to this page shows that you have at least some interest in what daily fantasy baseball is and why you really should be playing.

Please understand I am not here trying to talk you into giving up on your longtime rotisserie baseball leagues or to go on and on comparing the seasonal fantasy game to the daily fantasy game. I don’t ever want to be the guy shouting through a bullhorn that you can win SO MUCH MONEY playing DFS or telling you how life changing the experience has been.

No, I am here to inform and educate those of you who wish to give daily fantasy baseball a try in 2016. There is absolutely nothing wrong with seasonal fantasy baseball and I still play in far too many leagues myself every season. These days, however, I supplement those leagues with the daily game in order to take advantage of all this baseball knowledge and experience I have splashing around inside my otherwise stupid head.

At heart I am a baseball fan. I love just about everything about the game minus pitchers hitting and no salary cap. The fact that statistical analysis plays a huge role in the modern game shows that despite this being the national pastime, Major League Baseball is front and center in the modern age. It’s time for fantasy baseball to catch up to the actual game that we all know and love.

Playing seasonal fantasy baseball is like being the General Manager of your own personal MLB team. You draft your team, make waiver claims, trade players and monitor its performance throughout the season.

Playing daily fantasy baseball is like being the on-field manager of an MLB team. DFS MLB is so much more hands on because you are researching the matchups, setting a new lineup and swapping players in and out as needed throughout the day or night. Best of all is that you have the entire MLB player pool at your fingertips to do so. DFS MLB allows you to take advantage of a specific matchup on any given day. Imagine if you could build a lineup around A.J. Pollock, Carlos Correa, Paul Goldschmidt and Bryce Harper every single day?

A lot has changed in daily fantasy sports since last baseball season. Let’s run through some quick reminders of what exactly DFS is and the basics on how to play and win.

LEGALITY

Those who are familiar with my work know I am the furthest thing from an attorney that there could ever be. So in no way am I going to try and tell you all of what makes DFS legal in some states and currently illegal in some others. Because I am not an attorney I can also say straight out that DFS is only illegal in those states because they would like to charge DFS companies with mega dollars for gaming licenses and fees.

DFS is going to exist forever in one way, shape or form for the duration of our lifetimes. The days of million dollar contests every single week may be gone but that is actually a good thing. All of the Attorney General investigations and research being done on the DFS industry has already provided great change throughout the industry. I am very confident that as regulation takes shape here in 2016 we are going to be left with a significantly more level playing field and a much more player-friendly environment overall. The mega multi-entry contests are already being slimmed down and replaced by much more single entry tournaments. This will allow those of us with smaller bankrolls and more financial responsibilities to compete equally with those who can afford to sling around thousands of dollars on any given night.

So it is with great confidence that I can say go ahead and prove your baseball acumen by participating in the daily game this season. Changes are coming to the daily game but I can assure you that all of these changes are going to be for the good of the industry and for the longevity of daily fantasy sports.

MAKE A PLAN

Any time somebody asks me a general question about daily fantasy sports I reply with the simple question of, “what is your goal?” More often than not the person who asked me the question isn’t able to come up with a viable answer. This is troubling and thus is something I strongly encourage everybody, no matter how experienced or successful, to do right now.

Your plan needs to be unique to your individual goals for playing DFS. If it is simply to have fun or make money that is great. But how much fun and how much money are you really talking about? If you don’t have answers to these questions then it’s going to be impossible for you to choose where to play, how often to play and in which contests to play.

If you are a new player, set small attainable goals for yourself such as doubling your first deposit in a month. Keep in mind the more profound your goals are, the more detailed your plan should be. It isn’t adequate to just say you want to make it to a live final. You should have a particular live final event picked out, the qualifier contest that’s most reasonable for your bankroll and the amount of times you’re willing to enter that qualifier.

If it is a dollar amount you seek, map out a timeline of how you plan to acquire it. Be reasonable with yourself and not count on tournament wins to support it. If you seek a certain dollar amount this should only be done by playing what we call “cash games,” which basically amounts to 50/50 or double up contests. If your goal is to hit a big payout in a large field tournament, then decide just how much of your bankroll you are willing to sacrifice to see that through.

Trust me when I tell you these very simple steps can help you tremendously. You’d be surprised at just how many DFS players are going into each contest without any specific goal or plan of attack. These players usually wind up bleeding out their bankroll even if they are moderately successful because they are not insuring themselves properly.

WHERE TO PLAY?

A year ago in this space I mentioned how there was a new DFS company popping up every single day. We no longer have that issue as FanDuel and DraftKings have established themselves as the market leaders and commanders making it very hard for new companies to jump up and compete with them. There are a few other real good DFS sites out there too that offer different types of sports, games and contests. Just because the current market leaders offer mostly salary cap type games doesn’t mean that is all that is out there. Sites like Fantasy Aces offer a Salary Pro game in which you can buy points by using less salary. Fantasy Feud utilizes three pitcher lineup spots while both Feud and Draft Day offer live snake drafts for DFS play.

It is imperative that you try out several of the daily fantasy sites in order to properly gauge which one suits you the best. It is very important that you feel comfortable with the design, layout and feel of a site before you deposit any of your hard earned money. Take your time in learning the ins & outs of whatever site that you choose also. Trust me, there will be plenty of contests to join once you are comfortable.

PLAY FOR FREE

Speaking of not depositing your hard earned money, most sites offer a variety of contests that you can play for free. Some free rolls you can even win money despite not ever paying an entry fee. FanDuel, for instance, has leagues you can set up yourself and play for free amongst friends, relatives or your seasonal league members. This is part of the feeling out process to get familiar with the layout, structure and scoring of a site before you put your plan in motion.

INITIAL DEPOSIT

How much to deposit is completely up to you and what you are comfortable with financially. I do recommend making a commitment to yourself and to the site however. In my mind a $100 deposit is the perfect place to start. Even if you only plan on playing in $1 contests, having a substantial bankroll will take the pressure off you.

If you put in $10 and play in a couple $1 contests, you will put pressure on yourself to win right away. We all get nervous when our bankroll drops and there is no sense in putting any more stress on yourself as you start out in Daily Fantasy Sports.

BANKROLL MANAGEMENT

Managing your bankroll is the single most important part of being a winning DFS player. A simple rule of thumb is to never have more than 10 percent of your total bankroll in play at one time. Obviously the more comfortable you are with risk, the higher percentage you could set.

But this is something that even the very best of the best DFS players struggle with. Even if you are comfortable with losing 25 percent (or more) of your bankroll in a single day of play, that doesn’t make it a good idea. In fact, it is quite terrible. Setting rules and restrictions for yourself is a very good habit to form right from the beginning.

CONTEST SELECTION

The place to play is 50/50 contests often referred to as “Double Ups.” In these contests half of the entries will double their entre fee for doing nothing more than finishing in the top half of the league. Seems pretty easy, right? Truth be told, it is. Double Ups are the Basic Training of the DFS game. If you can’t finish in the top 50 out of 100 entrants (for example) on a regular basis, then maybe you aren’t cut out for DFS play. Very few DFS players win right from the start so don’t get frustrated. Honestly, I went through a few hundred dollars before I found my way playing Daily Fantasy Baseball. We all get into DFS with the hopes and dreams of a massive windfall right away but the fact of the matter is you will have to grind it out if you wish to be profitable.

Another tip for the newer player is to look for “overlay.” During the course of an MLB season there will be many days where guaranteed contests do not fill up. This is what we call “overlay” and it is your best friend in DFS. If there is a $10 Double Up with 100 entries guaranteed that means the top 50 scores will walk away with $20 apiece. Obviously you have a 50 percent chance at doubling your money. Now if that same contest only has 74 participants entered when it closes, each player now has a 68 percent chance at doubling their money. This happens almost every day on DFS sites and it is vital to be on top of these situations as they arise.

GAME PLAY BASICS

The single most important player in your lineup is almost always starting pitchers. It is tempting to pay for the Clayton Kershaw’s and Zach Grienke’s every time they step on the mound but a little research can save you a ton of money on starting pitching. Things to take into consideration when selecting a starter are opponents’ lineup, ballpark, weather, time of game, recent performance, history versus opponent and bullpen. You can find value with pitchers but understand it is quite difficult to win in daily fantasy baseball if your starting pitcher(s) fail you.

Remember how we stress multi category impact in the early rounds of your season-long leagues? Well, since every day is a draft in DFS, the same logic applies. The more category impact we can put into our lineup, the better our chances of having a huge day. Players like Nelson Cruz are tempting because in the right matchup they can go yard multiple times and generate a bunch of runs. However, they can also strike out four times and leave us empty. A player like A.J. Pollock, though, can also hit the long ball but he can also get on base, swipe a couple of bags and score runs. Thus, Pollock presents a lot more fantasy upside than Cruz on any given day at a very similar, if not discounted, price point.

Depending on which site you chose to play on, chances are that a walk is as good as a hit in many of these contests. FanDuel specifically is what they call an efficiency site, meaning you get not only the value of a hit or walk, but also don’t lose the 0.25 for an out either. Therefore, players with poor batting averages but who take a lot of walks are still quite useful. Carlos Santana is the new poster boy for this value since he gets on base at a 130-plus point clip than he hit for. He has the upside of being able to hit the ball over the wall, or he could take a couple of walks and score more runs which returns value as well.

ADVANCED STRATEGIES

So, are you still with me? If so, then young Jedi you will need to continue with me through the rest of our DFS coverage here in the draft guide. When Ted and I discuss how to build cash game and tournament lineups we are going to get into more super advanced statistics and splits such as park factors, wOBA, GB/FB rates and so much more.

When I research the DFS Playbook on Fantasy Alarm every day, I literally pour over 20 split categories including home/away, ballparks, day/night, groundball/fly ball ratios and more. The more research you do the more likely you will uncover the right mix of players to win your daily fantasy baseball contests.

So if you want to continue this journey with us and uncover which stats and metrics to use in order to build winning DFS MLB lineups, keep flipping pages. If you should ever have any questions whatsoever about starting out playing DFS MLB please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly on Twitter @Jeff_Mans anytime.