How to build winning tournament lineups in daily fantasy sports (DFS). Good lord. Even writing that makes me cringe. Why? Because I know myself and thus I know that there is no way to tap dance around the elephant in the room.

You are not supposed to win DFS tournaments.

Wait, what? If we are not supposed to win then why bother playing or even more so, why have you taken up so much space that could have been used for more Ray Flowers complaints on investing in prospects.

Here are the brass tacks when it comes to DFS tournaments.

First of all, if you think that I am going to write out “tournaments” 211 times here, you’re nuts. Another name for DFS tournaments is “guaranteed prize pools” or GPP’s. Secondly, there is an art to profiting in DFS GPP’s (so much better!) which I will map out for you in a little bit. But I need you all to understand that despite a lot of the previous advertising for DFS companies, not everybody is going to win a million dollars or even a five or six-figure payout by playing DFS. You must come to grips with this realization or you will simply never be happy and eventually come to be one of those dorks who scream that this is gambling or random. If you’d like to have that discussion with me I am game anytime, Pony Boy, so just hit me up on Twitter (@Jeff_Mans) and we can have it out.

Winning a GPP is something that very, very few DFS players will ever do. That is just basic math. Surely you understand that there are maybe 2-to-4 big GPP’s per day on each site and over the course of an entire MLB season, let’s call it 200 days, that is only about 600 winners per MLB season. Again rough numbers but you get the idea. Meanwhile there are about 2 million people playing on the larger DFS sites. So, it would take about 3,000 MLB seasons for everybody to come around and eventually take down a GPP.

Why do I burst your bubble this way? Because it’s vital to the very first step that I outline in my “Intro to MLB DFS” piece in this guide: Make A Plan. You can’t create a realistic plan that involves you winning GPP’s every other week. You’ll get pissed off and eventually quit the game altogether. As we all know, every time anybody quits something that becomes too difficult for them a small puppy dies in a garbage can fire. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY had better do that to those cute, small beautiful creatures.

Now for the good news. Just because I am telling you that it is unlikely that you will ever win a GPP, it doesn’t mean that you can’t become incredibly successful or win a lot of money by playing in them. The problem with GPP’s is that the payout structures are very top heavy. The top prize in many of these tournaments are 20 percent of the entire prize pool. Second place is about 10 percent and it drops down into far less than 1 percent outside of the top 10 finishers. Still, if you pay an entry fee of let’s say $10 into a GPP of let’s call it $100,000 and you are able to cash out just .001 of that prize pool you are still profiting 10x. That is a heck of a return on your investment and thus worth learning the skills and techniques needed to catapult as high up on those leaderboards as possible.

So let’s get to it.

BANKROLL MANAGEMENT

Ted Schuster has already outlined how to win money playing cash games in this Guide. This is an important GPP strategy as well, believe it or not, because you absolutely must be investing more in cash games than you do in GPP’s. A good rule of thumb is to never have more than 20% of your bankroll in play at any given time. Of that 20 percent less than half should be played in GPP’s. Yeah, this will not be a lot of money if you are just starting out but as your bankroll grows, so will your investment in GPP’s.

WHICH CONTESTS TO CHOOSE

Well obviously this has a lot to do with the size of your bankroll. If you have $100 in your account, then you are likely playing around $20 per night of which just $5 is going into GPP’s. Now you might think that this doesn’t leave you with a lot of options but it really does. You can choose to diversify this $5 into either one $5 GPP lineup or maybe five $1 GPP lineups. This is a decision that you’ll have to make and one we will discuss a little later in this article. Being a disciplined player is absolutely paramount in order to succeed over any length of time playing DFS. The more you succeed in cash games the bigger your bankroll becomes and thus you are able to play in the higher priced GPP’s. These should be everybody’s target to get to as they feature substantially fewer overall entries and far less mega multi-entries as well. It’s the trick that few will tell you but it’s actually quite easier taking down a $535 GPP than it is taking down a $1 GPP. The only hard part is being able to afford those larger entry fees which is why your cash game play and cashing in GPP’s is so important.

SINGLE VS MULTI ENTRY

My recommendation for anybody who is a lower stakes player is that if you had trouble cashing in GPP’s prior to reading this or are very conservative in nature, you want to play in single-entry tournaments. Now these are going to have significantly smaller prize pools so you are not going to win life-changing money. But you also have a significantly better chance at, not only cashing, but also winning the single-entry GPP’s than you do the multi-entry variety. I always compare tournament play to a street fight. Do you want to take on the entire T-Birds gang (for all of you Grease fans out there) or better yet the entire government all at once or do you think it’d be a better idea to matchup one on one against them?

This is the same reasoning for single-entry GPP’s. If you are only going to play one or two lineups in a contest, then you need to understand that others will have anywhere from 10 to 100 times the entries you do on any given night. Now on the surface this may seem impossible to compete against, but it isn’t nearly that bad. Most of the multi-entry players are honestly not very good at DFS. Instead they make up for their lack of talent by blasting entries into large-field GPP’s in hopes that one lineup hits for them. Don’t get me wrong, as this is an art form in and of itself, but I’m not going to necessarily call that talent either. I’m sure most of you would agree with that.

BEING CONTRARIAN

The phrase “being contrarian” is a DFS term that signifies a player who will use a particular ball player or build a lineup that is outside the popular train of thought for that given slate. You see, in this day and age there is really no such thing as a sleeper anymore. They simply don’t exist, especially in the DFS community. Good DFS players do so much homework that they know who the great plays of the day or “chalk” plays are.

As we mentioned, the payout structure of GPP’s is such that every spot you move up in the standings brings a fairly significant monetary increase as well. One of the worst feelings in DFS is when you have a similar or even the exact same lineup as somebody in a large field tournament. I recently had this experience during the NFL season when I knew after the first set of games that I could not win because another player had all but two of the same players in his lineup and had outscored me by 20 with his defense. Thus, I was playing for second the entire time (which I took down BTW).

So being different is a real good thing in MLB DFS. You will notice a very sheep-like mentality for a lot of players who’ll gravitate toward all of those obviously safe, good plays on a given night. While that is all well and good, to build a foundation around which you have your lineup, you are going to have to separate from the pack at some point in order to gain ground in the standings. This is what we talk about when we discuss being contrarian.

BEING CONTRARIAN VS. BEING STUPID

I don’t know if there is a more important lesson in all of DFS than this one right here. Unfortunately, I cannot take sole credit for this phrase as my partner on the SiriusXM Daily Fantasy Sports Show Tommy G was the first to coin the phrase.

Let’s be clear. Just because you are using a player who is outside the traditional grid does not mean that he is a contrarian play. You have to get it through your thick skull that some players just plain suck and should never grace your lineups no matter what the contest may be. Yeah, I am looking at you Alejandro De Aza!! What you’re looking for in a contrarian play in GPP’s are those who grade out just outside of your ideal value model, are overlooked because of another player at the position or they have a teammate who is technically in a better spot. A common contrarian play that I like to make is a value play who hits in front of a known stud that day. Let’s say for example Aaron Hill was hitting in front of Paul Goldschmidt in Arizona facing Tim Lincecum. We all know Goldie is a premium play in this spot and thus his ownership could exceed 50 percent even in GPP. Yet, since I am sure the Lincecum is quite aware of how much Goldie has crushed him in the past and will not want to put any runners on base ahead of him. Thus, fastball city for Hill, against which he has a great history of doing damage.

Many DFS players think of a contrarian play as one that is always a low-priced option or value play. This is simply not true. One of the great strategies in DFS is paying up to be contrarian. Let’s say Ryan Braun is just coming back from his latest suspension or injury or whatever he is doing these days. Most DFS players shy away from using a player fresh off an injury and that makes a ton of sense in cash games. But in GPP, being able to lock down a big talent like Braun and a high yet discounted price while at under 5.0-percent ownership is a huge advantage. If Braun starts out hot you’ve just smashed 95 percent of the field on that play and thus even having a very similar lineup as anybody else you are coming out ahead.

The flip side of this is having Clayton Kershaw, Felix Hernandez, Chris Sale and Jose Fernandez on the hill tonight and deciding that you want to be “contrarian” and go with C.C. Sabathia on the road against the Blue Jays. Sure nobody else will be on him but that is because the Blue Jays crush left-handed pitching, the Rogers Centre is a bandbox of runs scored and oh by the way…Sabathia is horrific these days. Starting Pitcher is absolutely not the place to be stupid (aka contrarian). Let’s say you had those four arms I mentioned before on the hill on a given night and it was obvious that Kershaw had the best matchup going against the Braves. Since he’ll be crazy-high owned, you could go contrarian and use Felix Hernandez who is going up against a tough Rangers club. In this instance you may get King Felix at around 7-to-10 percent ownership which is a very calculated, contrarian play.

STACKING

Stacking in MLB DFS is a very unfortunate necessity in GPP’s. I say unfortunate because for some it takes some of the skill out of the game. I am talking, of course, about the multi-entry suck wads who will basically bludgeon every conceivable stack into a large field GPP hoping that just one of them goes off that night. DraftKings still allows six players from a team into a lineup on their site which is really a travesty in my opinion. FanDuel only allows four which is not great but at the least, manageable.

Stacking is the use of three or more players on a team, game or slate. This usually entails using hitters who are all close or directly next to one another in the batting order that night. The idea behind stacking is that if a certain team goes off, those players will each rack up the hits, runs, runs batted in and most importantly more at-bats. It’s the pinball machine effect that we are looking for where you stack a team and they explode for 10-plus runs that night and you simply watch as your score leaps up the leaderboard.

Let’s get one thing straight here though. Don’t ever stack in cash games. There is a ton of risk that comes with stacking a team or a game and that is very unnecessary in cash game type contests. Stacking is a better strategy for when you are putting in multiple lineups into a large field GPP. Personally, I believe it to be too risky for a single entry in a GPP on most nights as well.

The teams that will be the highest stacked of the night are almost always the team with the highest expected run total of that night. DFS MLB players are very Vegas reliant which in my opinion is a mistake. Sure Vegas can give us some great hints and ideas about the expected outcome of a particular game. But when I tracked the Vegas over/under throughout the entire 2014 MLB season I found that they were consistently off on actual results by quite a bit. So be careful about using Vegas as your only prognosticator for determining which team(s) to stack.

MINI-STACKS

My favorite thing to do in GPP’s nowadays is something that I call “mini-stacks.” I’ve been known to build my entire GPP lineup around these mini-stacks and have been quite successful in doing so.

Mini-stacks are basically just two players who hit side by side in a lineup that day. What this does is instead of using the traditional four or six player stack, it takes a lot of the risk out of the equation while also preserving the possible upside. Let’s face it, very rarely do four or more players each reach base consecutively even in high run total games. So why rely on all of that when you can instead select two or three player combos who are in a good spot that can each do quite a bit of damage.

My favorite mini-stacks are those that involve a stud player such as Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout. In Miggy’s case last year, there were times when we had a minimum priced Todd Collins hitting in front of him. This was a great mini-stack because not only did it balance out the price of Miggy, but it also provided my lineup with the extra points whenever Cabrera would do something because Collins was likely on in front of him. Thus, I’m getting that desired pinball effect but without having to hope and pray through a succession of three or four more hitters.

Stacking is all about maximizing your production. We all love it when our first baseman drills a three run homer because that means big points for our lineup. But if you had both of the runners on base ahead of him., now you are getting the points for them getting on base and the runs scored from your 1B hitting the longball. Those few extra points could signal a leap of 20-100 places in the standings in a large field MLB GPP.

As you could probably tell, I can go on and on forever about different strategies for winning DFS tournaments. But unfortunately there is only a limited space here from which to work. But fear not because throughout the MLB season I and our amazing team of DFS analysts will be posting all kinds of DFS Strategy articles. If you are serious about becoming a productive DFS MLB player I would strongly recommend becoming a subscriber of our DFS Playbook PRO service that we offer here at Fantasy Alarm. We’ve got everything from strategy articles to tools to our own personal optimal lineups each and every day.

Short of that though remember that you can hit me up on Twitter (@Jeff_Mans) anytime with your questions, comments or just to yell at me about how dumb my face looks.

Best of luck to all of you in 2016!!