At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best tools and data available for those who play daily fantasy sports. We also realize that these tools and data are only as beneficial as our ability to communicate their functionality and worth.
With this in mind, our Trend of the Day series features articles that each weekday walk subscribers through an important trend, created with our Trends tool. Also, shortly after you create a trend, you will be able to see it under the “My Trends” column in our Player Models.
Baseball statistics can sometimes be a little tough to analyze. Take pitchers throwing strikes — a low strike percentage likely means that a pitcher has bad control, although a high strike percentage also gives much better pitches on average for hitters to hit. A stat like that is incredibly noisy for those reasons, and to find any value in it, we need to add in other stats to the analysis. If only there was a way to add multiple statistical filters to create a trend . . .
MLB Trend of the Day: Combining Strike Percentage and Hard-Hit Rate
Step 1: Adv Stats – Recent > Strike Ratio – 15 > 55 to 85
In today’s trend we’re going to look at pitchers who have been throwing a lot of strikes vs. pitchers who have been throwing a lot of strikes and limiting hard-hit batted balls.
Historically, pitchers who throw a large percentage of strikes have been valuable, as shown by their +0.73 Plus/Minus at DraftKings. Both Rich Hill and Justin Verlander qualify for this trend for tonight’s Main slate.
However, what happens when we add a filter for pitchers who have allowed a low hard-hit rate recently?
Step 2: Adv Stats – Recent > HH % – 15 > 8 to 20
The Plus/Minus jumps to +2.73 and we have a high Consistency mark of 57.5 percent as well. Rich Hill, who has a crazy-high 60 percent strike percentage and low 15 percent hard-hit rate, is the only current match after this filter. He also leads the slate with an 8.5 K Prediction, making him a very solid cash-game option in tonight’s Main slate.
