At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best tools and data available for those who play daily fantasy sports. 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 each weekday walk subscribers through an important trend, created with our 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: Negative Pitching Trends
In most of our MLB Trends of the Day pieces, we highlight a positive trend for batters and pitchers. That is a great use of the Trends tool: It can help us identify hidden edges that can prove very valuable in both cash games and tournaments. However, not everything is positive in DFS and MLB. Sometimes, it is just as useful to identify negative trends.
In tonight’s 15-game Main slate, we have seven pitchers over $9,000 on DraftKings. Pitchers are usually expensive for a reason: They’re pretty good or in good situations. We can make cases for rostering any of them. Perhaps negative trends can help identify which of them to fade.
In this trend, we’re going to look at recently negative advanced stats. Specifically, how have the best pitchers fared historically when they have a high recent hard-hit rate and have been giving up a lot of fly balls? Giving up hard-hit balls in the air is not a recipe for success, so let’s see if we can use this negative trend to weed out pitchers for tonight.
Step 1: Player Filters > Salary > 9000 to 15100
We could restrict the range a bit more, but we do have a large range in tonight’s slate, headlined by Max Scherzer’s $13,900 salary.
Pitchers in this salary range have historically exceeded their expectations.
Step 2: Adv Stats – Recent > HH% – 15 > 35 to 50
Hard-hit rates this high are not good for any pitcher, including our top-priced options. Pitchers allowing high hard-hit rates have seen marked drops in both their Plus/Minus values and their Consistency ratings.
Plus/Minus, Consistency, and other premium exclusive metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
Step 3: Adv Stats – Recent > FB% – 15 > 45 to 57
We could definitely extend the range of this filter: It’s not very common for a pitcher to get up in this higher range. It’s a small sample admittedly, but we do have a current match for tonight’s slate, so I’ll show the trend this way. Feel free to play around with the trend yourself and extend parameters either way to see what you can find.
Ouch. And our match today, if you couldn’t guess by the article picture:
Scherzer is very expensive and has troubling recent advanced stats — but he has an excellent matchup and K Prediction. Which set of factors will you trust?
