This week, we published a lot of content that will be applicable for a while. Within this FantasyLabs Friday Recap, you can find links to all of that content, for your weekend reading pleasure.
General
– Shakespeare’s Two Clowns and Working With What You Got, by Matthew Freedman
To be a DFS Shakespeare you need to know how to maximize your players. And here’s what I mean by that: You can’t treat every slate as if it’s the same. For instance, in MLB you can’t act as if the All-Day and Main slates are the same as the Early, Late, and Turbo slates. They’re not. Some of them might have more players who are better suited for cash games. Others might primarily house players who are better for guaranteed prize pools.
– Inductive Reasoning, Non Blondes, and Applying DFS Trends, by Matthew Freedman
You are always combatting the Problem of Induction. Are the trends that you create descriptive? Or predictive? Do they accurately signal actionable facts that you can leverage to your benefit? Or are they merely noise — the sound and the fury of randomness, signifying nothing? To use a trend that has significance, that trend should be intuitive. One should be able to understand why the filters used were applied collectively. Keeping in mind the limitations of our knowledge, one should employ trends that enhance our understanding but do not purport to be definitive representations.
– Personalization, Annie Hall, and Discovering the DFS Things That You Care About, by Matthew Freedman
If you want to become the outlier — someone who knows what is important and focuses intently on identifying players who match those personalized criteria of importance — then you absolutely must put in the time. If you aren’t treating DFS like a relationship that will help you learn about yourself and what you care about in other people (in this case, professional athletes), then you probably aren’t getting out of DFS (or your FL subscription) all that you could be getting.
PGA
– Exploring The Gaps In Strokes Gained Data, by Colin Davy
Why would you willingly exclude helpful additional information? It’s stuff that, by and large, other DFS players are not incorporating, making it very high-leverage information. It’s hard enough to find value plays in DFS golf — finding value plays that no one else knows about is even harder. Not only are other DFS players not going to include those results, but those high-value picks you find will be highly concentrated among non-household names, increasing the likelihood that those picks will have low ownership.
– The PGA Process: Shell Houston Open Review, by Graham Barfield
Sure, in hindsight I can decide that Brooks Koepka was worth fading and I would be remiss not to mention that I had 63 percent exposure to him this past week. Still, Koepka lined up beautifully with this course and came into the event with four straight finishes of T26 or better. The point here: Just because something — or someone — doesn’t go the way you expected (i.e. an unexpected missed cut), it doesn’t mean you were wrong per se.
MLB
– MLB DFS 4/8/16 Slate Breakdown, by John Daigle
When pitchers were priced at $12K-plus and included at least 10 Pro Trends last season, they produced a Plus/Minus of +5.44. Projected to allow the fewest opponent runs, Jacob deGrom is the best cash option in today’s slate.
– Video: FantasyLabs MLB Park Factors Tutorial
Jonathan Bales explain our Park Factors metric, which is based on historical handedness data and updated in real-time for pitchers based on opposing lineups.
– Video: FantasyLabs MLB Team Value Rating Tutorial
In this video, Jonathan Bales explains the concept behind the FantasyLabs Team Value Rating – located on the MLB Lineups page – and why I think analyzing overall team/stack value is underappreciated.
– The Daily Fantasy Sports Roundtable: #10 – Early-Season MLB
Matthew Freedman is joined by Mitchell Block, Matt Hunter, and Matt Brown, who discuss how to approach early-season MLB DFS.
– MLB Trend Testing: Bargain Rating and Vegas Score, by Bill Monighetti
During most of the NBA Season, I wrote a weekly series called “NBA Trend Testing,” in which I would use the FantasyLabs Trends tool to create a custom trend and then track the results of my matches for the week. The goal is to create trends with high Plus/Minus values and share them with our readers. I will be doing the same thing during MLB season and will be posting an article every Friday which will review the past week’s custom trend.
– MLB Recent Form Report: Introduction, by Bill Monighetti
This season, I’ll be releasing an “MLB Recent Form Report” on Mondays which will examine the players who have been playing well over the past week, compared to their average production. The hope is that we’ll be able to identify instances when someone is starting to play better before it shows up in other stats that people use.
NBA
The season is almost over. At some point, even an evergreen changes colors, know what we’re saying?
Trends
– MLB 4/4/16: Elite DraftKings Pitchers, by Jonathan Cabezas
– MLB 4/5/16: MLB Trend of the Day: Low-Priced Outfielders Who Excel — But Maybe Not Right Now, by Matthew Freedman
– MLB 4/6/16: Pitchers With a High SO/9 But High WHIP, by Bryan Mears
– MLB 4/7/16: Significant Line Movement for Batters, by Bryan Mears
– MLB 4/8/16: Pitchers with a High Strikeout Rate, but Unfavorable Vegas Conditions, by Mitchell Block
– NBA 4/5/16: Punt Plays With High Minute/Usage Projections, by Mitchell Block
– NBA 4/6/16: Late-Season Production By Win Percentage, by Bill Monighetti
– NBA 4/7/16: Plus/Minus Over the Last Month, by John Daigle
– NBA 4/8/16: DraftKings Players With Seasonal PPG Below 15 and Monthly PPG Above 20, by Jonathan Cabezas
