Throughout the season, I am using our FREE Trends tool to create a custom trend, and then I am tracking the results of my matches for the week in this article. The goal is to create trends with high Plus/Minus values and share them with our readers every Friday.
Although I don’t know that trends necessarily need to be divided into “cash-game” or “tournament” categories, I would probably agree that some trends do lean one way or the other. Further, when I am creating trends for this series, I almost always have guaranteed prize pools (GPPs) in mind. Part of that has to do with the nature of this series: I measure player success in FanDuel GPPs that I enter throughout the week.
But also, creating trends for GPPs is just more fun than it is for cash games. We all want to uncover that minimally-owned batter with crazy Upside who homers twice in a game. However, a strong cash-game trend can be just as profitable, if not more so, over the long run.
This week, let’s resist temptation and create a cash-game trend that will help us make the safe picks at pitcher that are necessary to grind a profit playing cash games in MLB DFS.
Description
What are we looking for in a safe pitcher? On FanDuel, we want one who is favored to win. The 12-point bonus pitchers are awarded for winning a game is crucial and we want to put ourselves in the best possible position to capitalize. We’ll also want to do our best to minimize variance. Here, I’ll target pitchers who throw a high percentage of strikes, which may make them less prone to a big inning due to sloppy control. Finally, we want strikeouts, so I’m going back to K Prediction once again.
I’m pretty satisfied with those results. You could also consider adding screens for Park Factor or Home Plate Ump. But in the interest of preserving a reasonable sample, I’m going to forego those options here.
The filters used to create this trend were:
• Strike:Ball Ratio is between 50-67
• K Prediction is above 7
• The team is the favorite
Plus/Minus and other premium exclusive metrics are accessible via our free Ratings page.
Results
The following screenshots are pulled from entries into FanDuel’s $5 guaranteed prize pools throughout the week.
6/20/16
I had started the day with quite a bit of Bumgarner then slowly moved off of him as the Vegas line continued to move in Pittsburgh’s favor. If I recall correctly, the Pirates added 0.6 runs to their projected total by the time lock rolled around. That’s a pretty significant swing, particularly when a pitcher the caliber of Bumgarner represents the opposition. Of course, line movement is not accounted for in this particular trend, so Bumgarner remained a match here.
Kershaw appeared on approximately three times as many teams as Bumgarner despite costing $1,000 more. Both pitchers exceeded expectations, though Bumgarner’s owners likely felt a little jilted here. Bumgarner actually outperformed Kershaw, but was unable to pick up the win due to the Giants offense’s ineffectiveness. Had San Francisco been able to push a couple runs across, Bumgarner would have outscored Kershaw while costing less and appearing on fewer teams, which could have been big in tournaments.
As stated in the intro though, this trend is mainly geared towards cash games and both pitchers did well to keep their DFS teams in contention tonight.
6/21/16
Everything worked to perfection on Tuesday night. Both of the above matchups outpaced their salary-based expectations and the trend made one very notable omission — Jose Fernandez:
Though a partial match for this trend, Fernandez’s lower-than-expected K Prediction prevented him from qualifying for this trend. Kluber and Sale allowed one run between the two of them and the extra savings allowed me to squeeze in another chalk hitter. Based on ownership numbers, the chalk seemed to be Colorado righties facing CC Sabathia at Yankee Stadium and Baltimore against Luis Perdomo. Those two teams scored seven and eight runs respectively, which made it very difficult for Fernandez owners to make up for being outscored by Kluber/Sale with cheaper bats.
6/22/16
I really am not a fan of short MLB DFS slates (Early-Only, Turbo, etc.), so the ownership numbers above are from the All Day slate.
I’m not sure we can really judge Syndergaard based on his last start, depending on what you make of his elbow issues. All things considered, his score could have been a lot worse. I’m going to choose to disregard this start because I think it’s likely that health was a prominent factor here, even if a long-term injury is avoided.
I won’t make similar excuses for Arrieta. The Cardinals have been a very tough matchup for righty pitching all year, and that, combined with Arrieta’s salary, accounts for the difference in ownership percentages here.
Cole Hamels and Trevor Bauer turned out to be the correct choices at pitcher, scoring 51 and 66 points respectively. Though both were favorites, neither met the minimum threshold set on K Prediction and consequently did not match the trend. Had I lowered the K Prediction threshold to five in order to include both Hamels and Bauer, almost three points would have been lost from overall Plus/Minus and the trend’s Consistency Rating would have also dropped six points. Sometimes, you just have to trust the long game and roll with the punches.
6/24/16
In the absence of any player matches yesterday, let’s take a look at tonight’s matches within the trend. Keep in mind that the projections in our models update throughout the day. That means the players who match this morning will not necessarily be the same players who match around lock tonight. That said, looking at the numbers, I think it is more likely that a third match is added at some point during the day than it is that one of these two pitchers falls below the qualifying threshold.
Max Scherzer (@ MIL)
• Team is the favorite (-164)
• K Prediction of 9.3
• Strike:Ball Percentage of 55
Steven Matz (@ATL)
• Team is the favorite (-164)
• K Prediction of 7.6
• Strike:Ball Percentage of 54
Review
This week, I set out to make a cash-game trend for pitchers and I think I was largely successful in doing so. We didn’t find any double-digit strikeout games from elite pitchers nor did we find any 50-plus point nights from value pitchers. That means we didn’t win any GPPs thanks to the pitcher spot. But, importantly for a pitcher trend, we didn’t lose any contests based on the pitcher either. I’m probably even underselling this week’s performance here: Taken as a whole, the results were pretty good and the overall performance to-date has been even better.
