Maybe it’s because today is Friday and I was feeling a little freaky. It might be because Prince is dead. It could even be that I was inspired by reading Matthew Freedman’s cannabis consumption piece. Regardless of its genesis, I decided to build a new MLB model today. A model for batters really, because I already have one that I really like for pitchers and it’s been smoking hot lately so I really don’t want to “sweat the technique” of picking pitchers. Batters on the other hand – I’m ready to do something different.
I’m a tournament player. I don’t play cash games. The hardest part about being a successful tournament player for me is being contrarian in the correct way. Like when I stacked the Reds last night. Oh, that didn’t work? Well, never mind then. But seriously, a lot of times my brain doesn’t allow me to make contrarian decisions because, well, they are contrarian. But FantasyLabs has a huge amount of data that other people aren’t using, so they make it easy for us to build a contraiarian model with advanced data others aren’t using. So today, I decided I would do just that.
I built a model ignoring the conventional metrics like wOBA and ISO. Opponent’s WHIP or Strikeout Percentile? I don’t care. Everybody is using this stuff, and I don’t want to be like everybody. Everybody can see Bryce Harper and David Ortiz destroy right-handed pitching with wOBAs above .400 and ISOs above .300, but what can’t they see?
I want me some Hard-Hit Differential, Distance Differential, Exit Velocity Differential, Groundball Score, and throw in some Park Factor. If a dude is hitting the ball harder and farther in a friendly ballpark, it should stand to reason that he would be a good play, so that’s what I’m concentrating on. I’ll even sprinkle in some Stolen Base Prediction… nobody is doing that. And what happened? I just made myself a functional contrarian model to win all the money! Yeah for me! And this is how the model has performed historically, which looks pretty good for the guys on the top end:
And who does this magnificent model have rated at the absolute top? Logan Forsythe, who checks in five points ahead of Jose Bautista, Scooter Gennett and Jose Altuve. Let’s take a closer look at Forsythe and see why he’s our top play:
Well, I’m no Albert Einstein – in fact I’m not even an amateur physicist – but it appears that Mr. Forsythe is absolutely crushing the ball right now. His recent average batted-ball distance is up a whopping 53 feet over the past 15 days, and an average of 273 ft. is pretty freaking far. His recent hard-hit percentage has nearly doubled when compared to his past 12 months! And Forsythe had a pretty solid season last year, so the fact that he’s stroking the ball nearly twice as hard right now is quite impressive. And somewhat obviously I would suppose – his recent exit velocity is also way up and approaching 100 mph. I’m pretty sure that if the ball is coming off your bat around 100 miles per hour that’s a good thing. He’s hitting less ground balls and more line drives – these are all really amazing signs that the conventional stuff doesn’t show us.
My advice? Put on some “Let’s Go Crazy,” build a model in the Lab and figure out a way to get Forsythe into your lineups tonight. I’m pretty sure Albert Einstein would.
