FanDuel Daily Featured Tournaments

Daily Guarantees for Baseball on FanDuel

Now the basketball and hockey seasons have come to an end, baseball has the stage to itself until the NFL roars back into action in late summer. For the daily fantasy sports players there are three big guaranteed tournaments every day of the week for you to get your teeth into, and these tournaments cater for players with both small and large bankrolls.

There are three buy-in levels for the daily guarantees, and they are $2, $25 and $200.

• The $2 entry is called the MLB Squeeze and the guarantee on the event is between $12,000 and $18,000.
• The $25 entry is called the MLB Strikeout and the guarantee on the event is usually between $15,000 and $40,000.
• The $200 entry is called the MLB Monster and the guarantee on the event is usually between $30,000 and $75,000.

Each of these tournaments also have a late afternoon version, something for either the late sleepers or just people who want more action!

The MLB squeeze, having just a $2 entry, always features the largest number of players, with the Monster featuring the least number of players.

Strategy for Guaranteed Tournaments

The first thing to look out for when playing a guaranteed tournament is to see whether or not there is an overlay. An overlay occurs when the guaranteed prize fund of the tournament is more than the total amount of the entry fees. Take, for example, a $15,000 guarantee on the MLB squeeze, where the buy-in is $2. This tournament will need 7,500 contestants to meet the break-even mark. If there are less players than needed, then there is an overlay and you are gaining good value for your entry. In this instance, imagine if there were just 6,000 entries – here the prize pool should be just $12,000 but the site is guaranteeing $15,000 – as a potential winner you are gaining 25% more in prizes than you should be. Overlays are not very common, but they are worth looking out for, and if you can find them, then you’ll be gaining more for your dollar.

These multi player tournaments typically only pay out to around 10% of the field, so playing it safe with the popular picks may get you a decent finish, but will it give you a top 10% finish, or one of the huge prizes? The simple answer is no. You’ll need to increase the variance by making different picks to other players, and try to hit that player who has a good day, who nobody else has spotted. One other way to increase the variance is by going for an all or nothing strategy. FanDuel allows you to pick four players from the same team – so imagine if you have pinpointed a pitcher who you think will have a bad day. Why not pick four batters from the team the pitcher is up against, especially if they are cheap in terms of salary? If the pitcher has a good day, then your strategy has failed and you’ll have a terrible finish. If the pitcher does indeed have a nightmare, all of your batters might have scored good points for not too much salary – you’ll be in great shape, and if your more expensive players perform as well you might be near that elusive huge win.

Another thing you should bear in mind, especially in the cheaper tournaments, is that many players will pick big name players who play for the bigger teams. If you are picking a player that the majority of other contestants have picked as well you are giving yourself less chance of gaining that big win, and more chance of finishing in the pack (which gets you nothing!)

All of these guaranteed events on FanDuel feature multi-entry, so you can enter these tournaments more than once. This can help as you might have a number of players in mind who you consider to offer value for the day, but with just one entry you’ll have to leave some of those players out. By having a multi-entry you could have combinations of all your players covered in several entries.