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
For obvious reasons, the non-waiver trade deadline can be difficult to navigate when playing MLB DFS. Larger than that, though, the trade deadline usually leaves in its wake several teams that are clearly ‘all in’ and others that are also all in . . . on the 2017 season.
If you believe the narrative that has been making the rounds on Twitter, pitchers on teams who have already waved the white flag may be more likely to get pulled earlier in their outings than those who are still in the hunt. I’m not sure that I buy that idea as a whole, but I do think that there are individual pitchers on certain teams who may be at risk over the second half of the season.
In any event, what I’m looking for in this week’s trend is the opposite of those types of pitchers. I’m looking for guys who are starting for teams firmly in the playoff picture and who are also throwing the ball well (per our advanced stats).
The filters used to create his trend were as follows:
— The player averages at least six innings per outing.
— The player’s average velocity exceeds 92 miles per hour on the season.
— The player throws strikes at least 50 percent of the time.
— The team is at least .500.
8/1
Monday was the actual trade deadline, but that didn’t come into play as far as this trend was concerned. Neither Stroman nor Strasburg had the easiest matchup in the world, but each had enough going for him to fit the specified criteria.
Though outshined by Danny Duffy’s 16-strikeout night, Stroman had an excellent outing in his own right. His low ownership can likely be traced back to Vegas, which had projected the Astros to score 4.3 runs. Vegas wasn’t overly confident about Toronto’s chances to win the game either, listing Stroman as a -104 favorite. Had he been able to pick up a win, this would have represented his new career-high in fantasy points scored in a single game. Instead, we had to settle for a 57.
8/2
Cole’s performance against the Braves on Tuesday is one of the strangest examples of a player exceeding value in this series so far. In a seemingly easy matchup, Cole A) appeared on only six percent of teams entered in this tournament and B) barely exceeded value. I say “barely” (even though his actual point total bested his implied point total of 32.95) because had Cole not been awarded a win, he would have fallen short. In the end, Cole lasted only five innings and struck out only four batters. Still, he lasted just long enough to get the win.
Price was not so lucky. Costing $600 more than Cole, Price would have needed 34.45 fantasy points in order to pay off his $10,100 salary. Had Boston been able to push across a couple more runs to get Price the win, he actually would have hit value as well, but that was not in the cards. Instead, Price’s Plus/Minus in this game was -10.45, which speaks to the value of pitcher wins on FanDuel.
Coors was in play on this slate, which meant that many DFS players were unwilling to go the ‘good pitchers on good teams’ route. Those types of pitchers tend to be expensive, and people elected to pay up for bats instead, which led to the low ownership numbers you see above.
8/3
In a three-game slate, Scherzer’s ownership was shockingly low, despite the fact that he was rostered on over a quarter of the field. Many people elected to pay down for John Lackey or Junior Guerra while loading up on expensive bats from the Cubs and Nationals. Some of the alternatives did come through, but you can bet that those who paid up for Max were not disappointed by his 60-point performance. Scherzer was projected to record 10 strikeouts and Vegas expected Washington to allow three runs while winning the game, and those projections were very close to his actual performance.
8/5
Since there were no matches yesterday, let’s take a look at tonight’s matches.
Probably not any huge surprises, as Lester and Verlander are the second- and third-most expensive pitchers on FanDuel’s main slate. It will be interesting to see what ownership looks like on Verlander tonight because his Tigers face Noah Syndergaard, who is the slate’s most expensive pitcher. Since wins are so important on FanDuel, perhaps we will see Verlander’s ownership somewhat depressed. This trend, though, says that Verlander has the better matchup of the two, and Vegas agrees, listing Detroit as a slight favorite at the time of this writing.
Review
I created this trend with second-half performance in mind. Had I actually included a ‘second half’ filter on the original trend, the Plus/Minus would have been even higher. Here’s the trend when we look only at the months of August, September, and October:
Of course, the trade-off is that the sample size is now much smaller. Still, if you were to copy this trend for your own use, you would probably want to keep in mind that there may be a first half/second half split that you can further leverage to your advantage as you monitor results.
