Being able to pinpoint potential indicators of future regression is an attribute that can be incredibly profitable in the world of daily fantasy sports. Fading a high-owned player on a hot streak or targeting a struggling low-rostered option can make or break your night. With The KBXE Review, I’ll do my best to identify pitching options who are due for regression, both positive and negative, with the use of KBXE.
KBXE is a statistic that I created earlier this year in the hopes of quantifying many of the components we put into consideration when rostering a pitcher each day. The formula itself is as follows:
K/9 — BB/9 — ((xFIP — ERA)/2)
For further reading on the subject, be sure to check out the introductory article. Additionally, I’ll be incorporating advanced stats from our Trends tool to test the validity of our findings.
The Review
Because the intention of this article is to help in forecasting regression, I believe it’s important to take a moment to look back at the prior results to determine if we are in fact doing so. Because neither you nor I likely have time to review all of the pitchers on the list, I’ll focus on how the top and bottom 10 from our last article (May 12th), have performed (in terms of their average Plus/Minus) in their starts since then.
The Top 10
Two things: (1) Very solid returns all-around from this group and (2) Is it weird that I perceived Kershaw’s Plus/Minus of +21.2 to be a “solid” return?
Have I become so numb to Kershaw’s greatness that a ridiculous Plus/Minus of +21.2 over the previous two weeks elicits nothing more than a “solid” return? Yes, I suppose it’s possible. But regardless of my initial reaction to the above figures, I think the ridiculous Plus/Minus just reinforces the idea that no matter the price, he’s still going to be a viable option on any slate.
One of the most noteworthy pitchers from the above list may actually be Eovaldi though. Along with teammate Michael Pineda, Eovaldi is an example of the exact profile of pitcher we’re attempting to uncover with the KBXE process. He doesn’t necessarily have elite, ace stuff, but he was hemorrhaging runs in a matter that — due to his comparatively low xFIP — appeared to be at least partly attributable to a string of poor luck. Coming in ninth in both Vol. 1 and 2 of this series, Eovaldi has hit a couple of bumps in the road — as the interactive widget below illustrates — but the results appear to be normalizing.
His hard-hit differential has shown marked improvement over the previous month, with his hard-hit differential score rising from the depths of the league (a score landing him in the 16th percentile) to the top (after his last start he now places in the 95th percentile). Your time to buy low on him may have passed though, as his price has risen over $2,000 on DraftKings in the previous month.
The Bottom 10
A bit of a mixed bag results-wise here, with 60 percent of this group actually producing positive results over the two week period.
Becoming a consistent thorn-in-the-side of the KBXE rankings, Felix Hernandez continues to be an outlier in terms projecting negative regression. Because KBXE is still in its infancy, outliers like Hernandez can provide us with useful information in terms of identifying variables that could perhaps signal blind spots in terms of the metric’s ability to identify regression. So let’s dig into his situation further.
With a SIERA and xFIP both above 4.0, it’s tough to imagine Hernandez continuing to string together such productive outings. We can look to his extraordinarily low BABIP of .239 — for reference, only two starters posted a BABIP lower than this figure all of last year — for an explanation as to how he’s maintaining his production. But is this sustainable? Last season we had four pitchers (Dan Haren, Hector Santiago, Marco Estrada, and R.A. Dickey) post comparable SIERA, xFIP, and BABIP numbers over the course of the year. And per our FREE Trends tool, they were actually able to produce consistent fantasy statistics throughout the season.
So again, is this sustainable for Hernandez? I’d hesitantly say yes, assuming he can continue to keep his BABIP among the league leaders. He’s done it before, posting a .258 BABIP two seasons ago, so it’s not unheard of. But as we can see from our trend above, despite the small sampling of comparable pitchers managing to produce a positive Plus/Minus, their average actual points scored is not overwhelming. If he manages to sustain his ability to keep his BABIP low enough, Hernandez will continue to have value, but more so as a cash option due to his limited strikeout potential and thus Upside (particularly on DraftKings).
Projecting Forward
In the space we’ll look at the players who are trending up and down: Those who have a KBXE score at least one standard deviation from the mean.
Trending Up
Notables
New entrant to the upper echelon of the KBXE ranks — and thus a candidate for positive regression — Jeremy Hellickson has actually produced acceptable results over his previous 10 starts, posting a +2.75 Plus/Minus, but there may still be room for additional production. Not only does he score well on the KBXE scale, but his recent advanced stats indicate his on-field play has been on point. With a hard-hit differential score in the 87th percentile and an exit velocity in the 98th percentile, he’s in good company.
Also, if we haven’t established it already, Kershaw (who ranks first on the KBXE scale) is really, really good.
Trending Down
Notables
Is it possible to be fantasy relevant with a K/BB ratio of two or lower? I present this question as the majority of our population at the bottom of the KBXE scale fall into this category. And if we look at the five qualifying pitchers from last season that fell below this mark, the outlook isn’t great.
Outside of rare circumstances, it’s unlikely you’re rostering many within this population, but you may want to give additional consideration to targeting them with opposing offenses, despite many of them having respectable ERA’s at the moment.
