The MLB Ownership Review is a regular series in which we review the ownership dynamics of a previous slate.
On Wednesday, May 31, the main slate consisted of nine games and was headlined by two pitchers priced over $11,000 on FanDuel: Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. One of them, however, carried a lot more ownership than the other.
In high-stakes contests, deGrom was over 65 percent owned on DraftKings and over 40 percent owned on FanDuel. He was $1,300 cheaper on DraftKings than Scherzer, and most users elected to roster him and still get in decent batters. On FanDuel, the discount from Scherzer to deGrom was only $300, and ownership reflected that dynamic.
Pro Subscribers can review ownership across various buy-in levels on our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after lineup lock.
May 31st Ownership Review
Pitchers
Despite the similar prices, deGrom was much higher-owned than Scherzer. Other high-end pitchers such as Chris Archer, Carlos Martinez, and James Paxton had ownership levels in the low single digits, as everyone gravitated to the $11k-plus pitchers.
After analyzing the moneylines of the games (via our Vegas Dashboard) it became apparent as to why deGrom’s ownership was so high. As a -192 favorite, he was significantly more likely to pick up the win compared to Scherzer. However, there may have been reasons to believe Scherzer was the better play. On the season, Scherzer owned a +11.70 Plus/Minus (+5.60 for deGrom) and 72 percent Consistency Rating (63 percent for deGrom), per our Trends tool. Scherzer also had a SO/9 advantage of 11.53 versus deGrom’s 10.67 mark.
From an ownership standpoint, fading both Scherzer and deGrom was an intriguing strategy in tournaments. Other high-end pitchers like Martinez, Archer, and Paxton had ownership levels under seven percent, which provided some leverage. By simply pivoting away from Scherzer and deGrom, you could create unique lineups that still possessed GPP-winning upside.
Hitters
The Tampa Bay Rays had the highest-implied total in the main slate at 5.2 runs. Let’s see what their ownership looked like:
Five of the top-10 highest-owned hitters were Rays. As it turns out, four of the top-eight batters in the Bales Model were Rays as well. Per our Lineups page, the Rays had a Team Value Rating of 82. That was second only to the Kansas City Royals, who had several high-owned batters such as Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar. Although the Royals had a 4.7 implied run total — the third-highest mark on the slate — their implied total dropped 0.4 runs throughout the day. They finished with five runs, but significant drops like 0.4 runs should be noted.
Takeaways
It seems as if DFS players strongly weight moneyline odds when selecting starting pitchers. Despite the similar prices and matchups, the discrepancy between the ownership of deGrom and Scherzer was significant. In similar situations in the future, it might be possible to gain an ownership edge by paying up to be contrarian. An alternative strategy could be to use top hitters instead of a top pitcher to differentiate lineup construction.
Moving forward, be sure to use the FantasyLabs Tools to monitor the ownership patterns of slates with multiple stud pitchers and high-implied teams.
