In this weekly series, I’m going to target a contrarian pitcher, someone of whom the general public likely has a negative opinion. I won’t get into too much detail on why it’s important to be contrarian. If you want more information on the topic, read about chasing black swans or check out this strong video in which Jay Persson discusses how to build a contrarian lineup.
Being contrarian can be difficult. Often it means looking to play someone who’s not in the best position to hit value. There’s a reason many people don’t do it — it’s uncomfortable and often goes against your own best judgement.
The High-Ownership Pitchers
The first step I take when trying to find a low-owned pitcher is to think about who will be highly owned. Projecting what the public is going to do is always tricky. For example, right now so many people are trying to be contrarian by avoiding Coors Field games that playing Coors Field (especially the high-priced Rockies) has actually become the contrarian move.
With his recent form and sub-$10,000 salary on FanDuel, Kenta Maeda will likely be one of the higher-owned players on today’s slate.
Those willing to pay past the $10,000 threshold are going to go to the best pitcher in the game, Jake Arrietta, who is facing the team that strikes out the second most on the all-day slate — a good play, no doubt.
Also, with more people likely to flock back toward the Coors Field game (given the low-ownership levels so far and the 9-8 final last night), it’s my guess that Tanner Rourke will have high ownership as people look to save money.
My Contrarian Pitcher For The Day: Jose Fernandez
In his last outing, Jose Fernadez’s ownership percentage was about 10 percent, and he probably scared away even more DFSers with a 21-point Dud against the Giants.
His 4.00+ earned run average coupled with his $10,900 salary will give people plenty of pause. There are other causes for concern, but being contrarian means not taking the prettiest play of the day.
Fernandez is still one of the elite strikeout artists in the game. His 11.5 Ks per game is the highest on the slate. His underdog status plays into our advantage today and should keep his ownership levels down. Also, with Maeda likely to be one of the highest-owned pitchers on the slate, not many people will jump to the other dugout for their pitcher.
Using our Trends tool, we can see that small underdogs projected to get between seven and 10 strikeouts in a game have a Plus/Minus of +2.32.
We can go further with the trend by adding in the criterion that a pitcher must have a salary of at least $10,000. (Of course, if we do that the sample size gets really small.)
Looking at Jose Fernandez’s advanced stats gives me some hesitancy. His strike ratio is down two percent in the last 15 days. Also, his pitch speed is down 1.4 miles per hour and his opponents’ exit velocity is up three MPH. He’s likely trying to aim the ball, which always leads to lower velocity and tends to lead to control issues. Despite this, the distance batters have hit the ball is down nine feet and the hard-hit percentage is down five percent. Both of those stats rank fifth among pitchers in today’s slate.
As an underdog, Fernandez has a +8.5 Plus/Minus in 24 outings. To be fair, most of these performances came during his early days when his salary was lower.
Another positive for Fernandez tonight is umpire Bill Miller, whose presence has historically given pitchers an extra Plus/Minus of +0.4.
There’s not an exact percentage you need to stay under in order to call your play contrarian. Fernandez should see ownership levels below seven percent, though, and that’s low enough for me.
Another Guy I Like
Another pitcher I considered for this article was Aaron Nola. He has a good rating in my Player Model, but I can’t get my finger on where his ownership levels will be. My guess is around 12-15 percent.
Nola’s strike ratio is up and his opponents’ batted-ball distance, hard-hit percentage and exit velocity are all down.
