The thing I’m most excited about with our 2016 MLB tools is undoubtedly the advanced filtering that users will be able to leverage via our Trends tool. Already a powerful tool in 2015, it has reached another level this season. I can go on and on, but let’s get right down to business and I will use a couple of the new filters in this week’s MLB Trend of the Week.
Trend: Recent Hitting Performance
In the screenshot below, you’ll see several new filters that look at a handful of advanced stats over the past year.
I’m going to skip over all of this because we have many of these same filters available based on data from the “Last 15 days” as well. Note that if you are using one of these filters, it isn’t necessarily looking only at data within the last 15 days from the time you apply the filter. The “Past Results” section will consist of anyone who matches the criteria over the past 15 days leading up to that particular game.
I’ve always been interested in just how much recent production matters in MLB DFS. While surface-level stats like “two homeruns over the past three games” or “batting .400 over the past week” can be greatly skewed, looking at things like Exit Velocity or Average Distance of batted balls provide a better insight into how a batter has actually been making contact with the ball recently.
Step 1: Stat Split Filters > wOBA Diff > Set “0 or more”
Let’s start by only looking at players when they are on the right side of their wOBA split. This can be accomplished by setting the wOBA Diff to any number above zero.
Next, let’s look at recent production. Let’s say we want to try to locate hitters who have been replicating top-30 production over the past couple of weeks. In 2015, you needed to post a LD% above 23 in order to rank within the top 30 among qualifiers. Let’s apply that criteria as a filter.
Step 2: Adv. Stats – Recent > LD% – 15 > Set “23 to 100”
We’re starting to move in the right direction. While still keeping the sample size high, we’ve doubled the Plus/Minus. The +0.17 score isn’t all that impressive though, so let’s see if we can add to it by applying the next filter.
In order to rank inside the top 30 in Hard Hit Percentage (HH%) in 2015, you needed to post a score of 35 or better in the category. Let’s use that to set up our next filter.
Step 3: Adv. Stats – Recent > HH% – 15 > Set “35 to 100”
When we start combining recent Line Drive Percentage with players who have been hitting the ball really hard, we find the Plus/Minus rises to +0.41. To put that into perspective, batters playing on offenses that Vegas projects to score above four runs in a game have a Plus/Minus of +0.44 (still looking at positive wOBA matches only).
Finally, let’s compare the recent data to the overall season long data.
Step 4: Remove previous LD% – 15 and HH% – 15 filters
Step 5: LD% – Adv Stats – Year > LD% – Season > Set “23 to 100”
Step 6: HH% – Adv Stats – Year > HH% – Season > Set “35 to 100”
When we look at the same filters over the course of the season rather than just the past 15 days, the Plus/Minus is cut in half and we lose a point from the Consistency Rating.
Using our new advanced filters, you can come up with all kinds of ways to compare season-long to recent data. In this one example, players who have been hitting the ball hard recently and producing a high number of line drives have added a notable amount of value. More value was generated by batters who have been hitting the ball hard “lately” than by ones who just hit the ball hard in general.
