For a true sports fan, every new season of any major sport in the United States isn’t just about the victory and the losses. These are teams we’ve invested in quite mentally and emotionally and while every season brings with it victory parties for the winning side, there are just as many disappointed fans vowing to avenge their side’s loss in the next season. But what if you didn’t have to wait till the next season?
Along with the blood, sweat, tears and the ticket sales that set the cash registers ringing, every new season of NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB brings with it a new wave of folks interested in the world of fantasy sports. Whether the topic came up casually at the workplace or someone genuinely sold the concept to someone else, the number of people wanting in on fantasy sports is only increasing, especially with excellent platforms such as DraftKings and FanDuel. Also, let’s not ignore the fact that fantasy sports also involve betting (completely legal, of course!) and the right moves could lead to some serious moolah-raking!
The Best MLB Lineup Optimizer
Draft Dashboard
Whether you’re the new kid on the block or one of the all-time favorites, Draft Dashboard has a little something for everybody. New players can improve their DFS skills quickly and easily while experienced players can manage multiple lineups with ease.
Not only does Draft Dashboard feature the best MLB lineup optimizer, but it’s also got a ton of other features that you’ll love, such as:
- A 30-day free trial with access to all their tools and without requiring any download ($39.95 per month after that)
- Great tools such as: Daily Fantasy Optimizer, Position Optimizer, 3D Visual Optimizer, Find DFS Sleepers, Find Week’s Studs, 24/7 Player News, The Team Browser, Top Weekly Players, Save DFS Lineups, Mass Lineup Generator, Watched Players
- Lineup optimizers for all available sports that produce almost immediate results
- Video tutorials and guides on using all their lineup optimizers, MLB lineup optimizer included
- A watchlist to keep track of players; you’re immediately notified when something’s up with any player on your watchlist
- A detailed display of data through comprehensive charts (clear visuals, color-coding and the like)
- Round-the-clock customer care
- Compatible with all screens, whether laptop, phone or tablet
- Quick identification of studs and sleepers through an in-built tool
- Great structure and user-friendly interface
- Statistics of games are recorded, processed and stored using temporary memory and are then presented to the user.
- A wide network of users who can interact and share ideas and strategies
- A 90-day money-back guarantee
- Continuous gathering of the latest data to ensure the best lineup at the least possible cost
- A wide range of other data such as depth charts, rankings, salaries and Vegas odds and spreads
Players on sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel can, therefore, use Draft Dashboard to improve their overall scores and see better returns for their investments. Statistics are literally available at your fingertips, saving a ton of time and effort. For the baseball fans, Draft Dashboard offers the ultimate MLB lineup optimizer.
How Draft Dashboard Works
Being a lineup optimizer, Draft Dashboard obviously creates winning lineups, giving you the most possible bang out of your buck. All the important and relevant data for a particular game are displayed to the user, with algorithms optimizing lineups with the best combination of players. Active players on any given day are sorted and displayed based on something known as their “Dash Rank”, a rank based on recent scores and matchups, among other statistics. This rank majorly represents the chance to earn higher points on the game day in question.
There is also something known as the “matchup rank”, with 1 being the highest rank. Players’ names will also have two dots next to them, with two green dots indicating no injury and home play, whereas a red flame symbol indicates that a player is performing well (an ice cube indicates the opposite). Users should also consider the Fantasy Points per Game or the FPPG, which is calculated based on a player’s 3 most recent matches and indicate how well the player is performing, along with other information on the site.
This is how Draft Dashboard’s lineup optimizer works for all the given sports, MLB lineup optimizer included. You can also opt for a randomized lineup, as well as enjoy access to an MLB cheat sheet and the “Perfect Lineup” tool.
For the newly initiated, fantasy sports have been around for quite some time now, with some believing that they go all the way back into the mid-1900s. The most popular instance though is that of sportswriter Daniel Okrent introducing the concept of fantasy football in his Manhattan hotel party to a bunch of dudes he was hanging out with. The concept further caught on with the rules of fantasy football being stated on paper in The 1984 Fantasy Football Digest by Tom Kane Jr. and Cliff Charpentier, with big names like “USA Today” even setting aside dedicated columns for the phenomenon that fantasy sport was. The game even has its own association!
Two major companies rule the fantasy sports space today — DraftKings and FanDuel. Both players have millions of members (8 and 6, respectively) and cater to a range of different fantasy sports fans, ranging from the major leagues to individual sports. Though both companies were in talks to merge, the move was blocked by the Federal Trade Commission on the grounds of market domination; combined, the companies would have dominated the market even more with a 90% share! Despite many debates raging around the legality of fantasy sports and whether it’s luck or skill that wins the game, the market for them still continues to thrive and sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel continue to exponentially expand and improve both their service and communities.
FanDuel
Based in New York City, FanDuel is a DFS provider and bookmaker. Established in 2009, FanDuel is second only to DraftKings in terms of its member base and entry fees. After the merger plans with DraftKings fell through, FanDuel was acquired by Flutter Entertainment (formerly Paddy Power Betfair), who then collated all their US operations under the name of FanDuel Group to break into the then-new betting market in the country, with help from FanDuel’s wide user base and brand power.
In 2018, the company went on to become the NHL’s first official DFS and betting partner, while a book on the company, authored by Albert Chen and titled “Billion Dollar Fantasy”, was released in 2019.
DraftKings
Despite a 3-year jumpstart that FanDuel had, DraftKings overtook FanDuel to become the biggest DFS provided in America, today. Users can take part in daily and weekly fantasy sports competitions in a range of events such as the NHL, NFL, NBA, PGA, MLB, Premier League, UEFA Champions League, CFL, AFL, MMA, tennis and NASCAR racing. DraftKings became the first company to launch an online sportsbook (Nevada excluded) in August 2018; by the beginning of the next month, the sportsbook already had a million placed bets.
DraftKings also has exclusive partnerships with a range of sports and sports-related entities, such as MLB, ESPN, Fox, Bleacher Report, NASCAR and UFC promotional bodies and even two venues — the Staples Center and the Madison Square Garden.
Today, anyone can get in on fantasy sports, building their dream teams using real-life players to participate virtually in real-life leagues based on real-life statistics. Apart from soothing the burn of your favorite team’s latest loss and letting you make up for it, players can also make money by winning events through something known as daily fantasy sports (DFS). Where generally you’d have to wait a whole season for results, with DFS, leagues are compressed into a day and winners emerge on a daily basis. And this is where our topic for today takes centerstage — the best MLB Lineup Optimizer.
What is an MLB Lineup Optimizer?
Let’s take a second to ponder what one of the biggest defining factors of a team’s performance is. If the word “lineup” came to mind, you’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head. A good lineup is one of the most important factors in any given team sports. Look at this way — would you rather have a combination of Bill Bergen, Juan Castro and Dan Meyer on the field or Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Hank Aron? (Provided you could have them all in the same team, of course).
The point being, a good lineup is essential and it is important to put together the best combination of players for the best shot at victory at the least possible cost. But how do you zero in on this combination? Does this mean sleepless nights of research, updating yourself on news, statistics, trends and players?
At one point, it did. But not anymore, thanks to lineup optimizers. These tools do all the dirty work for you, digging up and analyzing data that is then presented to you so you rack up a pretty awesome lineup. After all, with possibly millions of dollars at stake, most of us would resort to just about any tool that improves our chances of victory. With a lineup optimizer, you won’t really need any of these other tools; it’s a one-stop-shop!
Still not convinced and think you can do this on your own? Well, maybe if you’re The Hangover’s Alan Garner, you could, but for the rest of us normal mortals, we’d need more than a little help. The world as we know it today, undeniably, runs on algorithms. Whether it’s Google Maps, Facebook, or any site online, algorithms are no longer restricted to The Matrix alone (ever noticed how Facebook eerily springs the advertisement of those shoes the very next minute after you were checking them out on a completely different site? Algorithms).
Therefore, it only makes sense that lineup optimizers also work on algorithms, more specifically the “Knapsack Problem”. Think of a knapsack that has a limited capacity, surrounded by different objects with different properties, values and weights around it. Which ones would you choose to put in the backpack so as to fill it to its maximum capacity?
Well, that’s exactly what a lineup optimizer figures out for you. The team’s knapsack, the players are the different objects and the money you pay for them (salaries/buying and trading) are the different values of the objects. Even when you have to choose players with uncertain values to play in pre-defined positions and field a range of rules, such as stacking rules, that will influence your lineup, lineup optimizers save the day with mostly accurate estimations — “mostly” being the operative keyword; after all, no technology is perfect though we fool ourselves into thinking so. Lineup optimizers such as MLB lineup optimizers, overcome unpredictable factors such as injuries and weather that impact sports events and still give you the best lineup possible in the scenario — in our case, for Major League Baseball.
If you’re interested in learning more about MLB lineup optimizers, be sure to read our follow-up articles below:
Final Words
Draft Dashboard is a great lineup optimization tool for all sports, let alone MLB lineup optimizers. It’s easy to use nature makes it a great pick for both amateurs and experts, as mentioned earlier, with the latter group seeing better payouts and bigger scores and the former getting a great starting point in their DFS journeys. The platform has frequently updated statistics and news and is a great tool to have in any DFS player’s arsenal.
Of course, no one wants to be taken for a ride, so, is Draft Dashboard really worth it? Does it work well and is it legit? Well, considering that they’re the recommended lineup optimizer for DraftKings and FanDuel, only two of the biggest DFS sites out there, we’d say their reputation speaks for itself. Though they may seem like the new kids on the block, entering the DFS scene only in 2015, they’ve managed to attract DFS players, both old and new, to their platform. While it may not be that impressive that they’ve attracted the new crowd, it is something when you consider that they’ve attracted experienced players who know the ins and outs of the DFS world like the backs of their hands. Whether it’s NBA, MLB, NHL or NFL, Draft Dashboard is a worthy companion to have by your side for its optimized and superior features.