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Daily Fantasy Baseball: Quantifying the Importance of Batting Order

Batters at the top of the order see more plate appearances than their counterparts in the bottom half. How does this affect daily fantasy baseball scoring?

Because I have essentially negative basketball training, my three-point shot could use some work. That's being generous, but let's just start there.

If I had to describe my form, it would be this. Imagine yourself holding a basketball at your chest, just beanth your chin (again, it's not pretty, bruh). Now, have the strongest member of your family punch you in the crotch. The reaction should be pretty on point.

The launch angle is roughly that of a Miguel Cabrera line drive with the exit velocity of a Yordano Ventura fastball. I'm really taking advantage of the full surface area of the basket here.

Most of the time, when I unleash my top-notch fundamentals shot, that puppy's not going in. If Stephen Curry's shooting 45 percent from beyond the arc, I could settle for 0.45 percent. We're establishing a high standard.

If you give me one shot to make a basket, I'm probably not going to make it. If you give me two shots, the same is likely true.

However, with each opportunity you give me, the odds that I eventually splash one start to increase. No matter how bad you are at shooting three pointers, given a large enough sample, you'll eventually get one in.

This is why batting order is important for daily fantasy baseball.

The only true source of volume we get in MLB DFS comes from plate appearances. We know to emphasize this in other sports, yet it can easily go overlooked in this arena. However, it does need to be considered, and not just as an afterthought or a tie-breaker.

Let's take a look at how scoring is distributed throughout the batting order to show the importance of this. After that, we'll go into some implications of what the data shows and how we should implement it into our day-to-day lineup building.

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