One of the reasons that examining hot and cold streaks in MLB is so challenging is that, due to variance in the sport, it’s hard to really control for luck. One hitter may be smoking the ball off the bat, but if those hits are finding outfielders’ gloves, even “advanced” stats people like to use, like ISO, will look bad.

FantasyLabs is debuting a series of new advanced stats in 2016 which we believe will give us a better indication of what players have been playing well lately. If a batter has added a few miles per hour to their recent Exit Velocity compared to their season average, for example, they are probably seeing the ball well and making solid contact regardless of where those balls end up.

This season, I’ll be releasing an “MLB Recent Form Report” on Mondays which will examine the players who have been playing well over the past week, compared to their average production. The hope is that we’ll be able to identify instances when someone is starting to play better before it shows up in other stats that people use.

Since today is Opening Day, we obviously don’t have any recent data to examine at this point. Instead, let’s setup a couple of general Trends using this data to give you an idea of what we’ll be looking at.

 

Trend: Pitchers Who Have Lost Velocity

Adv Stats – Recent > Pitch Velocity Diff > Set “-2 or lower”

 

 

When pitchers have lost two or more miles per hour from their average velocity, that has meant nearly a full fantasy point’s decrease in production. As we’ll likely see as the season goes on, it can also be an indicator that a pitcher is hiding an injury.

 

Trend: Pitchers Allowing Fewer Hard Hit Balls

Adv Stats – Recent > HH Diff > Set “-10 or lower”

Likewise, a pitcher who has allowed a smaller percentage of hard hit balls over the past two weeks gains about a quarter of a fantasy point without considering any other factors.

 

Trend: Batters Who Have Raised Their HH%

Adv Stats – Recent > HH Diff > Set “15 or higher”

Now on the batter side, when one has increased their Hard Hit Percentage by at least 15 percent, that has equated in about a third of a fantasy point difference in production per-player, per-game.

 

We are really just scratching the surface here just to give you a preview of what’s to come this season. If you want to play around with this data for yourself, head on over to MLB Trends and take a look at all of the new filters listed under the “Adv Stats – Year”, “Adv Stats – Recent”, and “Adv Stats – Opp” headings. Be sure to check back for the next installment of MLB Recent Form Report, where we will be looking at data from the first handful of games this season.