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.
Description
The vast majority of my batter trends attempt to identify players who (for whatever reason) have increased odds of hitting a home run. This trend is no different in that regard.
Where this particular trend differs from others is in the approach we’ll take in trying to find these home-run hitters. FantasyLabs Co-founder Jonathan Bales has written at length about “home run weather,” a concept that informs our unique Weather Rating metric.
We know that home runs are more likely to occur in certain types of weather. We also presume, based on our collection of advanced data, that there are some batted-ball statistics that lead to more home runs — or at least highlight the existence of power that often correlates with home runs. This trend is an intersection of those two ideas.
I used the following filters to create this trend:
• Weather Rating is at least 70.
• Batted-Ball Distance is at least 220 feet over the last 15 days.
• Exit Velocity is at least 95 miles per hour over the last 15 days.
Results
The following screenshots are pulled from entries into FanDuel’s $5 guaranteed prize pools throughout the week.
6/13/16
Well then.
The forecast in Atlanta called for an 89-degree night with 48-percent humidity and a 55-percent change of rain. Add it all together and the result was a Weather Rating of 76 for batters in this game, which had the highest Weather Rating of the slate.
As luck would have it, three of the most talented bats came into this game in good form. Bruce, Votto, and Freeman all had increased their batted-ball distance by at least 20 feet over the last 15 days while maintaining an exit velocity above 95 MPH over that same timeframe.
While Bruce’s price feels a tad high here, neither Freeman nor Votto had seen their recent hard contact lead to big hits, which kept salaries — and, in Freeman’s case, ownership — very reasonable. In a 17-run game, I was able to capture 84.5 FanDuel points by rostering these three players.
6/14/16
On Tuesday, we ran the full spectrum of results: Salvador Perez crushed expectations, Tyler Naquin met expectations, and Matt Carpenter underperformed. The ownership levels are particularly interesting on this night.
For Salvador Perez, his excellent recent stats had led to surface production. He brought a five-game hitting streak into Tuesday’s game, homering twice during the streak. There were catcher options aplenty on Tuesday, with Derek Norris and Josh Phegley both on the right side of their splits, Buster Posey available, and a game at Coors. Still, 12 percent of the field chose to continue riding Perez’s hot hand and was rewarded with a homer.
On the other hand, Matt Carpenter had received a day off in the Cardinals’ previous game but had been hitting the ball well prior to that. He had exceeded double-digit fantasy points in five straight games coming into Tuesday’s matchup against Colin McHugh. Despite Carpenter’s recent performance and the fact that he had the platoon advantage against an average pitcher, he was rostered in only 5.6 percent of teams. It looks to me as though people were just not willing to pay more than $4,000 on a non-Coors bat on a slate that also featured a few expensive pitching options.
Finally, Tyler Naquin’s ownership surely was hurt by “Not-sure-if-the-new-guy-is-actually-good” syndrome. Despite showing some silly advanced stats, Naquin’s lack of past results and his spot in the batting order (eighth) scared away most DFS players.
6/15
On Wednesday, we had the exact same players match. Awkward. Interestingly enough, the results were also very similar. Salvador Perez’s ownership and price both took small dips, which are attributable to a matchup against Corey Kluber.
6/16
Without looking at the numbers, I’d guess that the Braves scored more runs this week than in any other week of theirs to this point of the season. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they scored more runs this week than in the previous month combined, given the way their season has gone. Part of their recent production has been due to Cincinnati’s (awful) pitching, of course, but the favorable weather conditions certainly didn’t hurt. Freeman continues to be available on FanDuel at reasonable cost and ownership, even in a short slate.
Votto posted an okay fantasy score, but it’s hard to claim that the weather was directly related to three singles and a walk. And, finally, Salvador Perez came back to earth a little on Thursday. He had a good run.
Review
What intrigued me most about this trend was pricing and ownership levels. When you think of a player who has been hitting the ball hard lately, you’d assume that his price will be elevated and he’ll be heavily rostered.
As we saw above, that was not always the case: We even saw a couple sub-$3,000 guys and a few who were hardly rostered.
This trend boasts a very nice Plus/Minus at the moment, but the sample is rather small. That’s mostly a function of the advanced stats, which are new and not available dating back to prior years. If you do copy this trend yourself, make sure to monitor the Plus/Minus value closely as the sample grows with new results.
