The MLB Ownership Review is a regular series in which we review the ownership dynamics of a previous slate.
On Thursday, May 25, the main slate consisted of five games and was headlined by several big-name pitchers. Justin Verlander, Robbie Ray, Michael Wacha, and Kenta Maeda were all at least $8,000 on DraftKings, while Drew Pomeranz wasn’t far behind at $7,600. Meanwhile, four teams were implied to score at least 4.7 runs (via our Vegas Dashboard). One other variable stuck out its ugly head: weather.
Per our Lineups page, both the Padres-Mets and Rangers-Red Sox matchups had forecasts with an estimated chance of rain higher than 50 percent. This weather proved to be especially problematic on a small slate, as fading both of the matchups with poor weather wouldn’t leave much salary room for offense if you chose to roster two of the better pitching options available.
On a small slate with severe weather concerns and plenty of offense available, how did the ownership shake out? Let’s take a look.
May 25th Ownership Review
Pitchers
The public chose to roll the dice on Pomeranz, as his average ownership of 46.81 percent was the third-highest mark in Thursday’s main slate. The data below is courtesy of our DFS Ownership Dashboard (Pro Subscribers can review ownership trends across guaranteed prize pools of all stakes shortly after lock):
While Verlander, Maeda, and Wacha weren’t exactly low-owned, Ray and Pomeranz were clearly the two best (and chalkiest) options. They posted the two highest scores on the slate and were owned in over 50 percent of lineups in the $102k Gold Glove.
Ray didn’t have a great matchup on the road against the Brewers, but he wasn’t at risk for any type of delay, and he’s proven to be more than capable of producing away from Chase Field. Per our Trends tool, Ray has averaged 19.03 DraftKings points per game with a +4.70 Plus/Minus on the road since 2015. This historical success on the road, along with his slate-high 8.9 K Prediction, helped give Ray a higher ceiling/floor combination than your typical road underdog.
The upside of starting Pomeranz at home against a Rangers lineup with the second-lowest implied total on the slate appeared to have outweighed the risk of a rain-out. The Rangers-Red Sox matchup was delayed shortly after the game started, but Pomeranz still managed to pitch six uninterrupted innings. As touched on in this MLB Weather Factors piece, pitchers have failed to live up to their salary-implied expectations in games with a chance of rain greater than 20 percent. Still, pitchers have posted a nine percent Upside Rating with a chance of rain less than 20 percent compared to a 10 percent Upside Rating with a chance of rain between 40 and 60 percent since 2014. This increased upside has come with a lower Consistency Rating but also with lower average ownership.
Hitters
Hitter ownership appeared to focus on a multitude of players from Detroit, Arizona, Houston, and Boston:
Jake Lamb‘s strong ISO and wOBA splits, combined with his six home runs in his last nine games, helped make him the highest-owned hitter in Thursday’s main slate. All four of the aforementioned teams had at least two players among the top-10 highest-owned hitters in Thursday’s main slate. All four offenses ended up scoring at least four runs, but there’s a case to be made for Houston as the night’s best stack.
George Springer, Carlos Correa, and Jose Altuve were the top-three hitters in Volatility Rating and had top-eight GPP grades among all players in Thursday’s main slate. Their high-implied total, combined with a matchup against Verlander, who has posted slate-high marks in average batted ball distance and fly ball rate over the past 12 months (per our Player Models), made the Astros a slightly contrarian stack that paid off in a big way Thursday.
Takeaways
Given the solid pitching options and high-implied lineups, the public focused on upside from their pitchers along with bats against some of the slate’s weaker pitching options. Here are some specifics:
- Bad weather wasn’t enough to scare the public away from Pomeranz. His status as a heavy home favorite against the Rangers outweighed the risk for a rain delay on a small five-game slate.
- Ray’s strikeout upside and historical success on the road made him a high-upside option on a small slate, even in a sub-optimal road matchup against the Brewers.
- The public was split on which hitters to focus on given the high totals. The Astros were a smart stack in hindsight, as their high-implied total at home outweighed the perceived poor matchup against Verlander.
Moving forward, be sure to use the FantasyLabs Tools to monitor the ownership patterns of small slates with multiple solid pitching options and several high-implied lineups with poor weather.
