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: FanDuel Home Run Hitters In Favorable Situations
The benefit of the home run in daily fantasy baseball is no secret, and I spend a great deal of my tournament research attempting to predict who is going to be supplying dongs to DFS lineups in any given slate. For today’s Trend of the Day, we will look at players with home-run potential and add some filters to help us quickly identify which of them is in a plus position tonight.
Step 1: Player Filters > Player Name > Home Run Hitters
You may be wondering how I came up with this list, so I will explain before going forward.
I wanted three things out of this group:
- For it to go deeper than the obvious players, who are in play on almost any slate.
- For it to include those who have been hitting home runs in a somewhat recent timeframe.
- For it to be absent of any biases I may have.
In an effort to accomplish this, I set two measurements:
- Players who have gone yard at least 10 times this season (ranking in the top 50)
- Players who have hit at least 30 dongs combined through the 2015 and 2016 regular seasons.
As I intended to do, I think that I’ve created a sufficiently-sized list of players with home-run potential.
Step 2: Adv Stats – Recent > HH Diff (Beta) > 0 to 67
As I build the rest of this trend, I want to focus less on Plus/Minus and more on the filters, selecting those that point to players who are in solid spots.
This filter was just to make sure that our players are hitting the ball at least as hard as their year-long averages. I’m wanting to avoid batters who are in a slump. Also, I like to employ these advanced statistics in my trends because they are unique to FantasyLabs and thus provide me with an edge.
Step 3: Weather Details > Weather > 50 to 100
By utilizing Weather Rating, we are able to eliminate those players who are projected to play in suboptimal conditions.
Step 4: Trends > Park Factor (Beta) > 50 to 100
Our Park Factor filter allows us to narrow our player pool down to those who are also in a favorable ball park (adjusted for handedness). At this point, with a count of 1,253 batters, we have a cohort of players who have averaged 1.84 FanDuel points more than their salary-based expectations.
We could stop here, but let’s throw the old Pro Trends filter in there, just for the fun of it.
Step 5: Trends > Pro Trends > 7 to 13
With a count of 349, this trend probably shouldn’t be made any smaller. With a +3.43 Plus/Minus, it’s quite satisfactory.
Current Matches
Please forgive the grainy photo: I had to work a little magic to fit all of the information into the single screenshot. Click to enlarge.
This is a perfect example of a trend that I would build and use on a regular basis. By selecting a pool of players, and applying four additional filters (all of which are unique to FantasyLabs) I am able to streamline a portion of my daily research.
After opening this trend, I would quickly see that Evan Longoria, whom I already know has home-run potential, also has a Hard-Hit Differential of +13 percentage points, Weather Rating of 79, handedness-adjusted Park Factor of 50, and 13 Pro Trends. In a matter of seconds, I know that I should take a closer look at Longoria when I crack open my Player Model to research the day’s slate.
There are nearly endless options and filters we could apply to this pool of players, so maybe I will examine them further in a later Trend of the Day. For now, good luck!
