The MLB Ownership Review is a regular series in which we review the ownership dynamics of a previous slate.
On Thursday, June 8, the main slate consisted of eight games headlined by Lance McCullers, who was accompanied by a number of lineups with respectable implied totals. At $11,200 on DraftKings, McCullers was $1,500 more than the second-most expensive pitcher, while the Cubs led the slate with 5.3 implied runs (per our Vegas Dashboard). None of the games had weather concerns (per our MLB Lineups page).
On a slate with just one pitcher priced above $10,000 and eight teams implied for more than 4.5 runs, how did the ownership shake out?
June 8th Ownership Analysis
Pitchers
The following ownership data is courtesy of our DFS Ownership Dashboard, with which Pro subscribers can review ownership trends across guaranteed prize pools of all stakes shortly after lock:
McCullers was far from faded, but his average ownership of 32.09 percent was just the third-highest mark among all pitchers in the slate. Jon Lester and Jake Odorizzi were the highest-owned pitchers, and it’s easy to see why. Both were at home, and their teams were favored by more than a run. Meanwhile, with his severe home/away splits, McCullers was in a suboptimal spot in Kansas City. Averaging 23.63 DraftKings points per game at Minute Maid Park throughout his career, McCullers has managed just 14.36 DraftKings points per game on the road (per our MLB Trends tool).
David Price, Michael Pineda, and Joe Ross were the only other pitchers with ownership rates above 10 percent. Ross and Pineda were home favorites while Price has historically thrived on the road and was facing a Yankees lineup implied for a modest 4.3 runs. Additionally, all six pitchers led the slate in K/9 rate over the past 12 months (per our Player Models). The matchups helped, but strikeout upside was an important driver of pitcher ownership in the slate.
Hitters
Fourteen batters in the slate had ownership rates above 15 percent:
All 14 batters were on the Cubs, Astros, Nationals, Phillies, Braves, and Twins. Not coincidentally, all six of those teams had implied totals of at least 4.5 runs.
Additionally, there was something of a premium on hitters with short-term Statcast studness, as eight of the 10 highest-owned hitters had batted ball distances of at least 220 feet over the previous 15 days. Historically, hitters with comparable recent form and similar implied totals have posted a +1.11 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with a 44.4 percent Consistency Rating.
Takeaways
On a slate with no weather concerns, one high-priced pitcher, and multiple high-scoring offenses, pitcher ownership was driven by strikeout upside, while hitter ownership was spread out among the lineups with the highest implied totals. Here are some specifics:
- Four of the six highest-owned pitchers were home favorites; all six had elite strikeout upside.
- All 14 of the slate’s hitters with ownership rates of at least 15 percent were on teams implied to score a respectable 4.5 runs.
- The highest-owned hitters were primarily big names, but they also had strong recent Statcast data.
Moving forward, be sure to use the FantasyLabs Tools to monitor the ownership patterns of slates.
