As daily fantasy sports players, we typically want to be on the same side as the sharps. FantasyLabs helps us do that by charting reverse line movement on the Vegas Dashboard.
What is reverse line movement? When Team A garners most of the betting action but the line moves in favor of Team B, that’s reverse line movement. It usually signifies that sharp (albeit ‘unpopular’) money likes Team B. This information can be valuable in guaranteed prize pools because (per Labs Co-Founder Jonathan Bales‘ new book) there’s a correlation between the popular Vegas teams and DFS ownership. Historically, rostering players on the ‘correct’ side of reverse line movement allows exposure to sharp teams at low ownership, which Pro subscribers can review across tournaments of all stakes in our DFS Ownership Dashboard after lineups lock.
Reverse Line Movement for Hitters
Using our Trends tool, I created this matrix of FanDuel Plus/Minus values for hitters whose teams experience reverse line movement:
There’s a large edge when the lines move at least 0.4 implied runs and the percentages of public bets on the teams are 31-49 percent. Under those conditions, the FanDuel Plus/Minus for batters is +1.13 with a Consistency Rating of 43.8 percent, an Upside Rating of 18 percent, and an average ownership of 7.4 percent.
For comparison, let’s look at the opposite end of the percentage spectrum. With the same line movement of 0.4 implied runs or more but the percentage of moneyline bets at 51-100 percent, the Plus/Minus and Consistency Rating are similar (+1.02 and 43.1 percent), but the ownership is significantly higher at 9.7 percent.
When the implied total moves at least 0.4 implied runs for a team, 24.8 percent of the time the percentage of moneyline bets is 31-49 percent. Positive line movement is reverse line movement a substantial percentage of the time.
Reverse Line Movement and Lineup Order
Since teams with reverse line movement tend to be less popular it might not be necessary to stack them in contrarian ways, but we can likely still do so if we want to and get positive results:
In general, it’s rare for a No. 8 hitter to have a positive Plus/Minus under any circumstances.
Reverse Line Movement, Favorites, and Underdogs
Of the teams with hitters who match for the reverse line movement matrix above, 56 percent are favorites. The primary difference between the favorites and underdogs is that favorites have higher Consistency and lower Upside Ratings by one percentage point.
Reverse Line Movement and Implied Runs
By screening for teams implied to score more than 3.9 runs, we’re able to improve our Plus/Minus while still having a good sample size:
As contrarian as we want to be, we still want hitters in good spots.
Reverse Line Movement and Time Filters
As of Saturday, a team has matched for the reverse line matrix 16 times out of the 22 days of baseball this season. While positive, this year’s trend is underperforming its long-term marks with a +0.62 Plus/Minus.
While the season is still young, the performance of reverse line movement hitters will be a trend to track in 2017, as the DFS market is always changing.
Labs and Reverse Line Movement
To spot reverse line movement, keep an eye on our Vegas Dashboard. The “RLM” column to the right shows a check mark when a team has positive reverse line movement. An “X” means that a team is getting more of the bets but experiencing negative line movement — hence, negative reverse line movement (which isn’t good).
Also, reverse line movement can be spotted and researched in our Trends tool. Once you’ve made your trends, they’ll be available in our Player Models, where you can use our Lineup Builder to construct DFS rosters with hitters who benefit from positive reverse line movement.
