Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Daily Fantasy Contests: Calculating The Value of Early Games

One of the keys in daily fantasy baseball contests is making sure that all of your players are actually playing. Because of that, I always keep a close eye on injury news and weather reports. However, sometimes players are given a day off even if they're healthy and their team plays. Starting lineups are typically available anywhere from half and hour to an hour before gametime. That means that if your players are from teams that have early games, you can check if they're playing and replace them if not. If they're from teams with late games, you won't have that option.

Yesterday I was faced with a situation where I had McCann and Martin ranked almost exactly even at catcher. The only difference was that McCann had an early game, while Martin didn't. I also knew that there was a good chance that I would be around to check lineups before my team 'locked in' at 7pm, so I picked McCann. How much more valuable do you think McCann's being in the early game made him? What if they had each played several days in a row? How about for players at positions that get less days off than catchers? What about a superstar like Pujols? A guy who is sometimes benched like Nelson Cruz? I'd like to get everyone thoughts on how to go about trying to calculate the incremental value of a player being in an early game.

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