Clayton Kershaw took the mound for the Dodgers in their matchup against the Giants this past Tuesday. He was dominant, allowing just one run over seven innings and recording seven strikeouts on his way to a +3.89 Plus/Minus performance on DraftKings. On the same night, the Nationals took on the Rockies at Coors Field. Per our Vegas Dasboard, both teams were implied to score at least 5.2 runs; they combined for 27 runs.
A slate that involves both Kershaw and a game at Coors Field is notable, but it’s not especially unusual. Per our Trends tool, eight of Kershaw’s 21 starts last year occurred on days when a game was also played at Coors Field. Let’s review some ownership data from our most recent Kershaw-Coors Field slate.
April 25th Ownership Review
Clayton Kershaw
Pro subscribers can review ownership trends across guaranteed prize pools of all stakes in our DFS Ownership Dashboard. The screenshot below shows the five top players in the 4/25 slate sorted by Volatility Rating, which reflects the difference in ownership at various stakes. A positive Volatility Rating means the player was owned more in high- than low-stakes contests; a negative Volatility Rating, vice versa:
Despite sharing a slate with a Coors Field game, Kershaw was the cream of the chalk as the highest-owned player in all four GPPs we track. Additionally, he had the highest Volatility Rating and GPP Grade on the slate, meaning that — as popular as he was in the low-stakes contests — he was even more popular among the sharps. His 55.83 percent average ownership was his second-highest mark of the season, behind only his 57.25 percent from 4/19.
On the season, Kershaw has a 47.9 percent average ownership, which is 5.2 percentage points higher than any other pitcher’s mark. Given that he topped his seasonal average on 4/25 and that his ownership was highest in high-stakes contests, DFS players seemed to prefer Kershaw over Coors Field stacks, even with his season-high $14,300 price tag on DraftKings. He was the highest-rated pitcher in our Player Models.
Coors Field
Let’s take a look at the ownership and Volatility Ratings of each member of the Nationals and Rockies. The ownership figures reflect ownership in the $156K Gold Glove contest:
Trea Turner was the only hitter with a positive Volatility Rating, and 14 of the 16 hitters had less than 10 percent ownership. Clearly, sharp players were willing to fade Coors to load up on Kershaw.
Any slate with a game at Coors Field deserves extra attention. It’s the one park in the league where any two teams could score 20-plus runs and no one would bat an eye. Nevertheless, in the 4/25 slate the sharp move was to limit exposure to Coors. Nationals 1-5 stacks weren’t uncommon, but by no means did Coors stacks dominate the slate.
Takeaways
Kershaw won the ownership battle against Coors Field on 4/25. Here are some specifics:
- Despite having a season-high salary and playing in a slate with a Coors game, Kershaw had higher ownership than he usually has.
- The Rockies and Nationals hitters were mostly ignored by high-stakes players with the exception of top-of-the-order studs Turner and Bryce Harper.
- Only one of the 16 hitters in the game had a positive Volatility Rating, indicating that high-stakes players largely faded the Coors Field game. Instead, they focused on building rosters around Kershaw.
Be sure to monitor the ownership patterns of future Kershaw-Coors slates with the FantasyLabs Tools. Also, it’s probably worth researching whether other pitchers have exhibited the power to suppress Coors ownership.
