At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best tools and data available to 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 walk subscribers each weekday 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: Pitchers Facing San Diego in 2016
Did you know that pitchers who are on a team that is at least -300 to win have a Plus/Minus of +4.89? Were you also aware that pitchers with a K Prediction of at least 10 have a Plus/Minus of +9.96? Both of those trends have low counts, 29 and 16 respectively, and only a single current match: Clayton Kershaw.
However, if you want to go away from Kershaw tonight, the next pitcher to look toward would be Johnny Cueto, who has a slate-best Park Factor of 100 and draws the fortunate matchup against the San Diego Padres. With several DFS players likely to be torn between Kershaw and Cueto tonight, we should take a look at how beneficial a matchup versus the Padres has been this season.
Step 1: Time Filters > MLB Season > 2016
Having made our way through the first quarter of the MLB season, we can use the 2016 filter with more surety.
Step 2: Team Filters > Opposing Team > San Diego Padres
No team has allowed a higher Plus/Minus to opposing pitchers than the Padres this season, as pitchers are averaging 7.7 points above their salary-based expectations and meeting those expectations with 63 percent Consistency.
The Hypothetical Step 3
We could bring in another filter to see how pitchers of Cueto’s ability have fared in this matchup, but that could make our sample too small.
The current count of 44 is already low enough and might be a little noisy. For instance, Vincent Velasquez scored 59.3 points above his salary-based expectation in early April. At the same time, even if we did away with that result the Padres would still have allowed a Plus/Minus of +6.40 to opposing pitchers in 2016.
In fact, the Padres would still have allowed the highest Plus/Minus to opposing pitchers even if we eliminated the four best performances against them this season.
They stink.
Don’t Get Cute With Cueto
Cueto is likely to be one of the most popular tournament options tonight, as he dominated the Padres in his last start. So he might be a guy to fade in tournaments, from an ownership arbitrage perspective.
In cash games, though, I think that there’s no fallacy in starting a pitcher with a positive matchup versus San Diego, which I plan to target in cash games, at least until the Padres improve.
Kershaw is the slate’s 1A pitching option, but Cueto can be considered option 1B if you need some extra salary relief in your lineups tonight.
Good luck!
