Strikeouts have been on the rise over the past decade in Major League Baseball. DraftKings has made them even trendier by awarding pitchers two points for every K while not penalizing hitters for the infraction.
Whether you chalk it up to drug testing or lefty specialists, the fact of the matter is that a strikeout is becoming the most frequent outcome for some of the game’s top pitchers. The league average in strikeout percentage has steadily climbed from 18.9% in 2006 to 22.3% so far in 2015 and has increased every year since 2005.
The question we ask ourselves as daily fantasy players isn’t whether strikeouts are valuable, but exactly how valuable are they?
The graph above shows the correlation between a pitcher’s strikeout percentile and his Plus/Minus rating. One look and you can see that the results become more favorable as you move right. However, there are a lot of peaks and valleys along the way that need some further examination.
This chart demonstrates how we arrived at the SO Percentage vs Points +/- graph and further breaks down the results by increments of 10. There is a noticeable correlation between strikeout percentile and expected points (based on DraftKings salary). When isolated from all other pitching statistics (ERA, WHIP, wins) we can see that strikeouts have an obvious influence over pricing. When we pay a premium for strikeouts, we are investing in a proven results model.
As further evidence, we take a look the 2015 statistics for Corey Kluber, Clayton Kershaw and James Shields converted into DraftKings points. Kluber has received 20x more points from strikeouts than wins.
