Stokastic has a new tool on the site: The MLB Contest Sims Tool. And since its inception, the No. 1 question people have asked is, “How do you build lineups? Do you upload into the Sims tool?” Well, here we will walk through the process and show some of the features of the simulation tool to help increase your ROI when playing MLB DFS.
How to Use Fantasy Cruncher to Maximize Stokastic’s MLB Sims Tool
Build Lineups in Fantasy Cruncher to Resemble the Field
The No. 1 thing to understand when building lineups in Fantasy Cruncher is you are not trying to build the best lineups imaginable to upload into the MLB Sims Tool. Rather, the goal is build a set of lineups that closely mirrors what you think the field is going to do. The reason is that the MLB Sims Tool is simulating a contest with however many lineups you upload, so you want those lineups to mirror the field so that you can identify the best spots are on the slate — what stacks are over-owned, what stacks are under-owned, what individual pitchers look like the best leverage plays.
For example, imagine the Atlanta Braves are expected to be a really popular stack. However, when building lineups, you believe that the Braves are too highly owned for the slate. If you put Braves stacks in 1% of lineups because of your opinion on their popularity, the MLB Sims Tool is going to see the Braves as way under-owned as a team because it’s going to think they are only going to be 1% owned. Instead, we will show you how to use Fantasy Cruncher to build a set of lineups that closely resembles the field — at least as closely as possible.
Start in Fantasy Cruncher by choosing how many lineups you want to build. The options in the MLB Sims Tool are building 250 lineups, 500 lineups, 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000. You want to build the number of lineups that most closely matches the field you are playing. That would be, for example, 500 lineups for single-entry contests, compared to the 15,000-entry Relay Throw contest on DraftKings, for which you would want to build the max number of lineups (2,000).
Now, to make your lineups resemble the field, the No. 1 thing to do is to set your exposure (green circle) to match Stokastic’s projected ownership (red circle). It is also smart to build this with a little bit of a buffer because, if you make it the exact same number, you are going to run into some sticking points where it gets too restrictive and Fantasy Cruncher is not able to build out the 2,000 lineups. Add about a 1.5-percentage-point buffer on top of the ownership percentage for every single player in order to account for this. To avoid having to input all of these by hand, go to the tab at the bottom of the screen that says “actions” (blue circle), download to a CSV and then copy the ownership column into the exposure column. Then add the buffer (+1.5 percentage points) and upload back to Fantasy Cruncher.
That is important when setting team stacks as well. For example, when building a five-man stack, add 0.02 to 0.03 percentage points onto the team’s aggregate ownership so that Fantasy Cruncher does not run out of potential lineup combinations.
Crunch Lineups and Simulate Them in Stokastic’s MLB Sims Tool
Then you just need to crunch the lineups. For the purposes of this tutorial, we are using 2,000 lineups to simulate a large-field tournament like the DraftKings Relay Throw, but the process also works for FanDuel.
Export the lineups, then head over to Stokastic’s Pre-Contest Simulator. Select the file for the crunch you just ran and upload it, then click “Run Contest Simulation.” It will take about 30 to 60 seconds to simulate, as your lineups are all playing against each other — in this case the 2,000 lineups are simulating 40,000 times. As the bar on the screen reaches the end, it reveals information to help you decide which lineups you want to play. The thing to focus on most is the simulated ROI column because that shows which lineups are projected to be the most profitable among those you have built based on a number of factors, including:
- How often the lineups cash
- How often the lineups win the contest
- How often they finish towards the top of the contest
All of these are important when determining profitability. It is not just about cashing, as the lineup that wins the minimum amount may not be as profitable as one that has a chance to finish top 10 in the field. So once the simulations are finished, look at the simulated ROI first (this is the default sort in the MLB Sims Tool).
However many lineups you are entering into a given contest, you can select the highest-ROI entries by clicking “Quick Favorite” at the top right of the screen — the top 20, 50, 100, 150 or 300. If you are playing a different number of lineups from those options — say 25 instead of 20 — you can simply choose five more lineups to export by clicking their heart on the right side of the screen.
Here are all of the columns in the Lineups table shown after simulating:
- Simulated ROI
- Projected fantasy points
- Ownership sum
- Team being stacked in the lineup
- Stack type (five-man, four-man, etc.)
- Simulated win percentage
- Simulated top-10 percentage
- Simulated cash percentage
- Players in the lineup
- Salary used
You can also look at exposures of players and stacks by clicking the “Exposures” tab, which will show you how often you are using a player or stack in these simulated lineups. Once you are happy with all of the lineups, simply click “Export Favorites” and you are ready to go!
Now that you know how to use Fantasy Cruncher to get the most out of Stokastic’s MLB Sims Tool, the only thing left to do is get simulating. And of course, if you have not signed up for a Stokastic Sims membership, click this link and get in on the action with Stokastic’s latest ROI-maximizing offering!
