5/22: Lots of Words About a Roof
On Monday, the DFS community debated the topic of stadium roofs at length, specifically the one in Phoenix, AZ, at Chase Field. The local forecast called for 100-plus degree heat at the time of first pitch, but the Diamondbacks had listed the roof at Chase as open all day leading up to the game. The difference between the anticipated extreme heat versus a climate-controlled enclosed environment is drastic given that batted balls tend to carry farther in warm climates.
Diamondbacks pitcher Zack Greinke was the most expensive pitcher on DraftKings, facing a White Sox lineup that has struggled against right-handed pitching all year. Per our ownership projections, he was forecast to be the most popular pitcher on the slate (projected ownership can be found each day in our Player Models). Closer to lock, there was speculation that Chase Field would be closing its roof after all, but in the end that did not come to fruition:
To demonstrate why this issue was such a big deal, I’ll refer to our Weather Rating filter, which can be accessed via our Trends tool. Weather Rating is graded on a 0-100 scale and is based on factors like temperature and humidity. In a controlled environment, the Weather Rating is 50 for both batters and pitchers.
At Chase Field, when the roof is closed pitchers have exceeded salary-based expectations, accumulating a +0.19 Plus/Minus with a 54.6 percent Consistency Rating. That’s surprising, given that Chase is historically a hitter-friendly venue. Of course, most of the time the roof is open, in which case the Weather Rating drops below 50 and the Plus/Minus drops to -0.96. And the lower the Weather Rating is, the more extremely negative the historical Plus/Minus for pitchers becomes. In other words, the roof at Chase is usually worth one point in DraftKings pitching performance and sometimes more depending on the outside conditions.
Since 2014, pitchers have played only seven games at Chase with a Weather Rating above 50 (when the roof was open and conditions were favorable to pitching).
Results
We know how important the climate at Chase Field is, but on some nights the matchup will outweigh the conditions, and that’s what happened on Monday. Greinke performed well, and his ownership was high:
5/23: Statcast Tendencies
We spend a lot of time talking about Statcast data here at FantasyLabs, for good reason. One concept that probably doesn’t get talked about enough is batted ball tendencies. For example, if a batter has a 40-plus percent fly ball rate (FB rate), it’s probably not a good sign if his ground ball rate (GB rate) is significantly higher over the past 15 days. Some batters can have success hitting ground balls, but that’s probably not true for power hitters.
Batters whose FB rates exceed 40 percent have collectively averaged a +0.14 Plus/Minus over a large sample. When these same batters have recent GB rates of 50 percent or higher, their Plus/Minus drops to -0.34. We’re losing around half a fantasy point per game right off the bat (literally).
A traditional fly ball batter, Giancarlo Stanton on Tuesday had an elevated GB rate. Overall, Stanton has matched this trend 10 times in his career, with a -1.35 Plus/Minus in those games. Although Stanton had a beatable matchup against A’s righty Jesse Hahn, his Statcast tendencies suggested that he was likely to struggle.
Results
Stanton did pick up three hits against Oakland pitching, but he finished with ‘only’ 11 fantasy points. His home run drought continued, as Tuesday’s game marked 15 days since his previous homer.
5/24: A ‘Lucky’ Tournament Trend
Our Recent Batted Ball Luck metric on its own provides an edge. On Wednesday, I wanted to take it a step further, using Recent BBL Luck as the basis for a trend meant to identify overlooked tournament plays.
In addition to using the Recent BBL Luck filter, I applied a “Month Count” filter of 10-30. If a player has great batted ball data based on only a few batted balls, I’m not interested. I want players who bat at least semi-regularly.
Recent BBL in part is so powerful because batter salary and ownership are usually depressed due to recent bad luck. To ensure I was targeting players with lower salaries, I used a Monthly Salary Change filter to screen for players with price decreases. Finally, I excluded batters in completely terrible matchups via a Vegas filter. All together, the trend had a +1.34 Plus/Minus with a five percent ownership rate.
Results
Was this trend a roaring success on Wednesday? Based on these three matches, you tell me:
(Ignore Carlos Beltran.) You tell me!
Per our DFS Ownership Dashboard, Bregman and Souza had wonderfully low ownership rates. I think the trend was a roaring success.
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Thanks for following along with my three custom trends this week. As always, there’s plenty more left to be explored via the Labs Tools.
