Traditional fantasy sports as we know it took years to develop into the cottage industry it is today. Even after the Internet became the medium that would launch fantasy to new heights in the ‘90s, it took a little while for the growth of that trusted friend known as the “fantasy guru.”

Suddenly, fantasy experts sprouted like weeds. Well, some were weeds; others were established veteran fantasy players who had the vision to break down the fantasy game and impart advice that could help anyone succeed.

“Traditional fantasy experts already have a font of knowledge when it comes to the player pool and the particular skills of players,” said Carty. “That's certainly not enough to succeed in daily, but it's a great start.

Now that daily fantasy is emerging as the next big thing in the industry, there is no such luxury of slow growth. DFSEdge.com is at the forefront of this new wave of fantasy games, but it won’t be long before more sites crop up focusing predominantly on daily fantasy. Which is why it was important for DFSEdge to feature established daily fantasy experts.

But in an industry that is so young, who are the daily experts? Of course, they are experts from the world of traditional fantasy – but with the vision and foresight to recognize the differences, some subtle and some not so subtle, that the daily game brings.

“The biggest difference is that, for traditional fantasy, you only need to concern yourself with a baseline projection for a player,” said Derek Carty, who is the head of baseball research at DFSEdge.  “In daily fantasy, however, that's just a starting point.  You have to have the same complete understanding of the player's skills, but you also have to know how to properly evaluate the slew of contextual factors that change from game to game and play a huge part in how a player performs on any given day.”

Carty was the youngest champion in LABR, the longest-running experts league in the business. Whether or not all the traditional fantasy experts get into daily, the competition in leagues such as LABR does provide good preparation for daily.

“Traditional fantasy experts already have a font of knowledge when it comes to the player pool and the particular skills of players,” said Carty. “That's certainly not enough to succeed in daily, but it's a great start.  Plus, there are traditional fantasy leagues that allow daily transactions, so most traditional experts are already familiar with certain contextual factors that are more relevant in daily leagues, like ballparks and such.”

I've become more interested in finding success here than in my normal leagues (and expert leagues). (David Gonos)

Those contextual factors are the big difference between traditional and daily. Opinions may vary on which of those contextual factors is more important, but the bottom line is that a great deal of detail goes into in the preparation.

“In traditional fantasy, it's all about the big picture,” said Doug Anderson, Executive MLB Editor at DFSEdge and one of its baseball experts. “You can overlook things like trouble with lefties, struggles on the road, and other imperfections. Those things can have an impact but in the end, all you care about is what the final numbers look like. In daily you have to take those into account every day, as well as pay extra attention to ‘day-to-day’ injuries and weather reports. There is a lot more research involved in daily ... of course, that's if you want to succeed.”

“We constantly talk about sample size in traditional fantasy, but suddenly 20 at-bats is acceptable to base a judgment on,” notes Anderson.

Todd Zola, another DFSE baseball guru, is a veteran of both LABR and Tout, another high-profile expert league for traditional fantasy. Zola has made a successful entry into the world of daily – but he’s not calling it a change.

“I'm not sure transition is the right word since that implies leaving one to do another,” said Zola. “But there are most definitely a bunch that are dabbling in daily or even supplementing their conventional play with daily.”

David Gonos, a DFSEdge baseball expert and veteran of Tout, admittedly counts himself among the traditional analysts who were slow to jump on the daily bandwagon… but it’s safe to say he’s on board now.

“I definitely see a lot of experts dabbling in daily now, many of whom are finding that they are late to the party -- like myself,” said Gonos. “It's a completely different game, and personally, I've become more interested in finding success here than in my normal leagues (and expert leagues). It's instant gratification for a society that has evolved into a ‘now, now, now’ culture. I can see daily fantasy baseball overtaking traditional play within the upcoming decade, just like head-to-head play overtook rotisserie play over the past decade.”

“The primary difference is making absolutely sure the player is in the lineup that day,” said Zola.

Having been involved in high-level expert leagues, traditional fantasy experts are certainly more familiar with the stats and tools needed for intensive daily research. The trick, however, is not to get too caught up in them.

“I'm going to be honest,” said Zola, “there are many in the industry that are as guilty as the mainstream in using batter versus pitcher and hot/cold players in their analysis, so I actually think they are using their standing in the industry to appear ‘in the know’ and they are actually doing the opposite. That said, the day to day awareness those in the industry have certainly helps when it comes to who is playing and who isn't.”

Carty agrees.

“The biggest mistake I see daily rookies -- and even a lot of veterans -- make is trying to make sense of data that is just noise and putting too much emphasis on splits,” said Carty. “Just because you have a lot of numbers to look at doesn't mean that those numbers actually mean anything.  A lot of times, they're just random.  Generally, a player's home/road splits, day/night splits, batter/pitcher matchup data, etc. are going to do you more harm than good.  Looking at these numbers gives daily players a false sense of security, a feeling that they're doing their homework, when in reality they're lowering their predictive accuracy.”

Simply put, said Anderson, many daily newbies – experts and every-day players – tend to over-think things, such as putting too much emphasis on a batter's numbers against that day’s pitcher.

“We constantly talk about sample size in traditional fantasy, but suddenly 20 at-bats is acceptable to base a judgment on,” notes Anderson. “You have to do the research, but honestly you're still really looking at a quality vs. cost situation.”

When it comes down to it, daily experts will tell you not to forget that the biggest difference between daily and traditional is really quite simple:

“The primary difference is making absolutely sure the player is in the lineup that day,” said Zola.

Who is playing and who isn’t means almost everything in daily. All the research in the world is worthless if you splurge for Buster Posey and he’s getting a breather because the Giants have a day game after a night game.

The interesting thing here is that some baseball fans will look at daily as an entry into traditional fantasy, because perhaps a season-long league never held their attention. On the other hand, some traditional players look at daily as a greater challenge.

“I think there are some aspects of the daily game that just won't appeal to certain traditional players,” said Carty, “but guys who are coming over from the traditional space certainly have a leg up on those who are just general baseball fans and use daily games as their entry point to fantasy in general.”

In the end, it’s no surprise that the first wave of daily fantasy experts comes from the existing roster of traditional gurus – even if, as Anderson pointed out, it’s taken a little longer than expected.

“There's such a fraternity in the fantasy industry, that in my opinion, sometimes people don't want to be the oddball,” Anderson said. “We now see some of the more well-known names in fantasy promoting daily sites, and we've got guys like Todd Zola and Derek Carty and David Gonos working with us right here at DFSEdge. I think daily involves many of the same skills as traditional. Most importantly, you need to love baseball. There's plenty of room in fantasy for daily and traditional formats to thrive. I think we'll start seeing more common ground as daily evolves.”