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: How Important Is Airtime?
In DFS, we’re always looking for an edge, some factor that other people are overlooking and/or undervaluing. Airtime (especially when combined with other statistics) seems like it could be one of the advanced stats that we can leverage.
How important is airtime? Let’s find out.
Step 1: Adv Stats – Recent > Airtime 15 > 3.5 to 6.23
Batters who have collectively had an airtime of at least 3.5 seconds have yielded a Plus/Minus value of +0.55 points.
Step 2: Adv Stats – Recent > Fly Ball % – 15 > 45 to 100
Adding a high fly-ball rate helps us narrow our field of batters while adding Consistency.
Step 3: Adv Stats – Recent > Hard Hit % – 15 > 40 to 100
Finally, we want to target batters who aren’t just popping up all the time. We want batters able to drive the ball with power. By adding a 40 percent hard-hit rate threshold, we see our Plus/Minus jump dramatically.
Results
Putting it all together, we get a trend that surpasses expectations by +2.72 FanDuel points with 46.7 percent Consistency.
Current Matches
Our trend matches several players for tonight’s slate.
In the all-day slate, Cleveland’s Mike Napoli fits our trend for today. Napoli has been doing quite well recently against lefties, with a .439 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA), .292 Isolated Power (ISO), and .615 slugging. Brandon Belt is another player worth investigating, with a nice matchup against Ryan Vogelsong and his 1.503 WHIP. Jett Bandy is on the other end of that spectrum with a tough matchup against right-hander Felix Hernandez, making him more of a tournament option, given his low wOBA but 41 percent hard-hit rate.
Michael Martinez and Jarrod Saltalamacchia also match our trend but aren’t slated to start as of now. Make sure to monitor our Lineups page closer to game time to see if they end up starting.
Good luck tonight!
Note: Our Player Models and Lineups page update in real time to give subscribers the most accurate information available. As Vegas totals change, the current player matches may also change after this article is published.
