MLB Lineup Optimizer

How the MLB lineup optimizer works

Ten slots, $50,000. The optimizer maximizes our projected DraftKings points under the cap and the Classic roster (2 P, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF), using each player's multi-position eligibility. The two arms always come from different games. A stack takes four or five hitters from one lineup and dodges the starter they're facing. Two ways to use it:

• Build your own — tap a roster slot, pick from the filterable player pool, watch the salary cap fill, then hit Fill the rest optimally to complete the lineup around your core.
• Auto-generate — choose Cash or Tournament, set how many lineups, stack size, and exposure, and generate a diverse set in one click.

The pool is the day's exact DraftKings slate — Main, Early, Night, or any single-game Showdown — with that slate's own salaries and its real game set. Pick the slate in the bar above and the whole tool re-keys to it. Scratched players drop out as lineups post, and a confirmed lineup spot is marked, so a lineup built at first pitch is built on the real nine.

Where the projections come from — and how they've graded

One model scores every hitter and pitcher from the matchup in front of them — the opposing arm and the bullpen behind him, handedness splits, park, weather, batting order, expected playing time — and rolls it up into DraftKings points. It's the same engine behind every board on the site, re-tuned each week against what actually happened.

Then we grade it. This season our top-five ranked hitters have cleared 6 DraftKings points 54% of the time over 760 graded spots. The full board — every hitter we score, most of them ordinary — clears it 43% across 30,915. That gap is the edge, and it lives at the top of the board, which is exactly where the optimizer shops. Every number is scored against the box score, the record locks at first pitch so nothing gets quietly rewritten, and the archive rolls back day by day on the DFS projections board. Most optimizers ask you to trust their projections. We'd rather you check ours — the full methodology is on how MatchWiz works.

DraftKings MLB scoring

Know what pays before you build. DraftKings Classic scoring, hitters and pitchers:

Notice the shape of it. A homer is +10 on its own, but it never comes alone — the batter gets +2 for the run, the runners on base get +2 apiece, and the hitter gets +2 per RBI. One swing can pay four players at once. That's why baseball scoring is bursty, why big innings belong to one lineup at a time, and why the optimizer stacks. A starter's points come from innings and strikeouts, which is why the two arms are where the salary goes. The MLB DFS guide walks through all of it.

Stacks, locks, and exposure

Stacks — the optimizer ranks every lineup by projected runs and can lock four or five hitters from one of them, skipping the opposing starter automatically. Tournament builds stack by default; cash builds don't have to.

Locks and excludes — pin the guys you want in every lineup, fade the ones you don't, and the solver works around your calls. A locked player counts against the cap like anyone else.

Exposure — building twenty lineups for a tournament? Cap how often any one player appears and the set spreads your risk instead of riding one bat across all twenty. Every lineup in the set is cap-legal and roster-legal on its own.

Showdown lineups (Captain Mode)

Pick a single-game slate and the tool switches to Showdown rules: one Captain at 1.5x points and 1.5x salary, five UTIL spots at any position, same $50,000 cap. The captain call is the whole slate — a $9,000 ace becomes $13,500 and has to earn it — so the solver picks the captain and the five flex spots together rather than guessing the captain first. Auto-generate builds a set of lineups each anchored on a different captain, which is the diversity Showdown actually rewards.

DraftKings today. FanDuel on the football side.

The MLB optimizer builds for DraftKings only. FanDuel MLB scores hitters and pitchers on a different scale and runs a different roster, so a DraftKings lineup carried across is rarely the right FanDuel lineup — and we'd rather not pretend otherwise. Our NFL lineup optimizer already solves for both books, each on its own salaries and scoring.

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