Why It Should Have Never Came to the Latest FanDuel MLB Scoring Change

Starting April 27th, FanDuel’s MLB scoring format surrounding hitters will change, and most can agree that this change is for the better.  Here is the current format for hitters:

• Single- 3 points
• Double- 6 points
• Triple- 9 points
• Home Run- 12 points
• Run Batted In (RBI)- 3 points
• Run Scored- 3 points
• Walk- 3 points
• Stolen Base- 6 points
• Hit by Pitch (HBP)- 3 points

The problem with having so many whole numbers is that this can lead you susceptible to a lot of ties, which has been an issue, especially in Guaranteed Prize Pool (GPP) formats.  I’ve experienced this issue in league play as well.  To combat this, FanDuel has decided to change the scoring for RBIs from 3 points to 3.5 points and runs scored from 3 points to 3.2 points.  This should help out with a lot of ties but I believe that it should’ve never come down to this.  I think FanDuel should bring back their scoring system for hitters they ran with last year, which went this way (scoring that was removed for this year is noted in BOLD)

• Single- 1 point
• Double- 2 points
• Triple- 3 points
• Home Run- 4 points
• Run Scored- 1 point
• RBI- 1 point
• Walk- 1 point
• Stolen Base- 2 points
• HBP- 1 point
• Out-  (-.25)

I’m pretty sure I can say this without being in the minority, but THIS is the scoring system that made the most sense.  It was simple and balanced.  Under the new scoring system, the glaring issue I have is that you are not penalized for having low average hitters in your lineup.  The old system also completely separated FanDuel from its rival Draft Kings in terms of scoring format.  But let’s get back to the glaring  issue:

Not Being Penalized for Low Average Hitters

When running a fantasy site, whether it be season-long or daily, you want to get as realistic to the feel of the game as possible.  This is why it was extremely disappointing to me when FanDuel decided to remove the fractional out this season.  There were very few ties last year because of it.  It also allowed a more “team” feel to your roster.  You couldn’t look at your pool of players and just think, “who’s most likely to hit a homer today”.  You needed to really research who can get you hits at an efficient rate.  Let’s say you have two people who’re only hit was a solo homer. Player A went 1-3 on the day and Player B went 1-5 that day.  Under last season’s scoring, Player A would have netted 5.5 points while Player B would have only netted 5 points because they produced more outs.  Under this year’s scoring, even with the scoring changes added, these players would still have identical scores of 18.7.  I see this from time to time and it upsets me that someone who produced more outs will get the same score as me.  If Player B gets more at-bats, they should be expected to produce more and be penalized when they don’t.  It’s the same in real baseball, a team that hits for the higher average generally fields a higher scoring team.  This new scoring system not only takes that away, but the changes to run scored and RBI don’t really fix the tie issue.

How to Approach the New Scoring

With the changes added to RBIs and runs scored, a good strategy to use it to further utilize “stacking” of players.  This means get three batters from the same team that are near/next to each other in the batting order so you can increase your scoring on a given play. If you have Player and Player B on the same team, and Player B gets an RBI single with Player A on base, you get an extra run scored for your hit instead of hoping another player in a completely different game gets a run scored at some point of their game.  But in my opinion, the best way to run scoring on FanDuel was the old way.  It was a more pure aspect of the game.

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