DFS Baseball 101: Bullpen Report: April-June

DFS Baseball 101: Bullpen Report: April-June

This article is part of our DFS Baseball 101 series.

About one month ago, I wrote an article looking at bullpens and their impact on daily fantasy baseball. There are so many things to take into consideration when playing daily fantasy baseball and we keep adding more to the mix each season. Barrels and exit velocity are two that are making a huge impact lately, but I feel there is one very overlooked part of DFS baseball and that is bullpens.

When doing your initial hitting research, how often do you consider the bullpens? Are you just basing your decisions on the starting pitcher? The same goes for your starting pitching decisions. The win is still important, so you want a pitcher from a team that will nail down the win if he goes six or seven innings.

How much of an impact does the bullpen make? Well, bullpen innings represent about 38 percent of the total innings pitched in baseball.

Elite bullpens: Indians, Diamondbacks, Astros, Dodgers, Cubs, Yankees
Bullpens to target: Giants, Tigers, Twins, Nationals, Mets, Reds, Orioles
Most improved from April to June: Cardinals, Royals, Pirates, Blue Jays
Biggest decline from April to June: Reds, White Sox, Rockies, Giants
Teams that use their bullpen the most: Reds, Marlins, Orioles, Twins, Blue Jays
Teams that use their bullpen the least: Nationals, Giants, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Tigers

The author(s) of this article may play in daily fantasy contests including – but not limited to – games that they have provided recommendations or advice on in this article. In the course of playing in these games using their personal accounts, it's possible that they will use players in their lineups or other strategies that differ from the recommendations they have provided above. The recommendations in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of RotoWire. Michael Rathburn plays in daily fantasy contests using the following accounts: FanDuel: burnnotice, DraftKings: burnnotice, Yahoo: burnnotice, Fantasy Aces: burnnotice, FantasyDraft: burnnotice.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Rathburn
Known as “Rath” in the Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) community, he has helped run operations for two prominent daily fantasy sports startups. Michael has taken his insider knowledge and expertise in daily fantasy sports to the content side. Rath won the 2016 FSWA "Baseball Article of the Year, Online" award and was a finalist for the FSWA Best Baseball Series in 2011.
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