In the comments of my first MLB DFS strategy article of the year, my buddy Marty raised some interesting questions for possible future strategy articles, and I chose to combine two of them for today’s exercise. Marty and I spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating DFS strategy and philosophy, so I will probably never have a shortage of strategy topics, but I want to hear yours. Please leave a comment or find me on Twitter if there is anything you would like me to explore in a future strategy article.

For this article, I decided to tackle the twin questions of “how do you decide how many lineups to make?” And “how do you decide how to determine your exposure to certain pitchers? On the face of it, these questions may seem unrelated, but I believe they are intertwined.

The short answer to “how do you decide how many lineups to make?” is: as many as I need to play all of the guys I like. There are few things I hate more than when I fail to play someone who I really like for a particular slate and he goes off for somebody else’s lineup. I have gone so far as to make an entirely new lineup just because I get to what I thought was the end only to realize I don’t have Anthony Rizzo in any of my lineups. That is a bit of an extreme example, but in general I do try to make sure I have exposure to all of the guys I like in a given slate.

This is another one of the reasons I don’t tend to stray too far from the optimal lineups on the days I write them. Between cash and GPP lineups for DraftKings, FanDuel and FantasyDraft, I usually manage to get the vast majority of the players from my Playbook into at least one optimal lineup. When I don’t write the optimal lineups, I might top out at five or six lineups. I usually only make one or two lineups, but I may do more if there are a lot of pitchers I want to try to squeeze in. I may add a couple of stacks if whoever wrote Stack the Deck was particularly persuasive that day.  

Sometimes I may play lineups in the same contest where all of the hitters are the same and only the pitchers are different. Other days, I may have the same pitcher in all of my lineups. To answer Marty’s original question, I base my exposure to certain pitchers on my own confidence and a little bit on projected ownership. Pitchers tend to be far more predictable than hitters. That is why I have no problem playing one in all of my lineups, especially if we are talking about a stud like Max Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw. I probably wouldn’t want that much exposure to a cheaper pitcher. No matter how good I feel about Trevor Bauer for any given start, I doubt I will ever trust him enough to have him in every lineup.

Position players are a bit trickier. I tend to have the most exposure when it comes to punt plays, because the risk is the lowest. If you are wrong about Mookie Betts and he is in all of your lineups, you may not win anything that day. If you pay near the minimum for Jon Jay and you are wrong, it doesn’t hurt you a whole lot.

I tend to have a lot more exposure to certain catchers as well. If I think Wilson Ramos is the only good value at catcher in a given slate, I’m fine putting him in all of my lineups. There is more risk there than if I simply punt the position, but not too much. Odds are most of my opponents aren’t getting a ton of points from their catchers, either.

A good rule of thumb when you are trying to decide if you have the right amount of exposure to a given player could be to look at the optimal lineups. If a player is in 60 percent of the optimal lineups, you can probably play him in 60 percent of your own lineups with reasonable confidence. At the end of the day, though, it does come down to your confidence and comfort level. If a player hits two home runs you will wish you had more exposure and if he goes 0-fer you will wish you had faded him. It is far better to just do whatever you feel confident in.