At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best daily fantasy sports tools and data available. We also realize that these tools and data are only as beneficial as our ability to communicate their functionality and worth.
With this in mind, our Trend of the Day series features articles that walk subscribers each weekday through an important trend, created with our free Trends tool. Also, shortly after you create a trend, you will be able to see it under the “My Trends” column in our Player Models.
MLB Trend of the Day: Should a Below-Average Umpire Scare Us from a Stud?
My aim for today’s trend is to see if we should be scared off of a heavy favorite pitcher such as Jake Arrieta based solely on a sub-average umpire.
Step 1: Trends > Home Plate Umpire > the head official is Bob Davidson or Bruce Dreckman or Gary Darling or Jim Reynolds or Lance Barksdale or Mike Estabrook or Nic Lentz or Ted Barrett or Tim Timmons or Tom Hallion
Arrieta’s umpire for today is Nic Lentz, who isn’t friendly to pitchers but who is still relatively new to MLB with only 36 games behind the dish, so what I did was sort the Average Plus/Minus column and select all the umpires with an average of -0.2, -0.3, and -0.4. Lentz is at -0.3.
For this cohort, the average at FanDuel is -0.32 with a 50 percent Consistency.
Step 2: Vegas Filters > Moneyline > -270 to -170
Here we put in a filter to see how huge favorites do with the sub-prime umpires behind the dish, and the numbers are markedly better.
We’re now at a +2.78 Plus/Minus with a Consistency of 58.5 percent and a Count of 200.
Step 3: Stat Filters > SO Per 9 > 8.4 to 10
Arrieta currently has a K Prediction of 9.2.
This filter causes another huge jump. The cohort now has a +5.25 Plus/Minus and a 70.5 percent Consistency.
Results
The conclusion this trend has brought us to is that we shouldn’t write off a stud pitcher based solely on a below-average umpire such as Lentz. If the stud has the ability to rack up the Ks (see Arrieta) and he has a heavy Vegas moneyline on his side (see Arrieta), he’s worth a strong look.
