At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best tools and data available to DFS users. We also realize that those tools and data are only as beneficial as our ability to communicate their functionality and worth to you.

With this in mind, our “Trend of the Day” series features articles that walk subscribers through an important trend each weekday, created by our Trends tool.

So we intuitively already know the value of pitchers with both a high SO/9 and low WHIP (good) and a low SO/9 and high WHIP (bad). But what about a pitcher who is elite in one category but awful in the other? We’ve done studies in the past that say that strikeouts are the most important factor for pitchers, but does the data reflect that when we examine pitchers who have such stark contrasts?

Let’s take a look at that, as we have a pitcher in today’s slate that matches these exact criteria.

MLB Trend of the Day: Pitchers With a High SO/9 But High WHIP

Step 1: Stat Filters > SO Per 9 > Set “10 to 13”

We’re looking only at the elite strikeout guys here, as anything over 10 definitely qualifies for that category.

Step 2: Stat Filters > Starter WHIP > Set “1.7 to 3.8”

You will notice a peculiar thing after Step 2: despite adding a negative filter (a very high WHIP), the Plus/Minus’ for players actually went up, from +2.61 to +3.02. What gives?

First, this situation just doesn’t happen that often, as you can tell by the count of 19 in the picture above. However, when it does happen, it’s typically a player priced very low. So even though their Plus/Minus goes up as a whole, their average expected points (11.19 vs 18.29) and average actual points (14.21 vs 20.90) both go down.

However, salaries and expected points matter because DFS is a game played with a salary cap. As such, even though these players do worse because of their high WHIP’s, their resulting pricing decrease more than makes up for the difference. It turns out, these players have been valuable.

And our match for today, although you probably already know because of the main picture for this article:

Good luck today!