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
– Video: Using FantasyLabs Free DFS Trends Tool
For a limited time, our powerful DFS Trends tool is FREE to FantasyLabs users. This video from FantasyLabs Cofounder Jonathan Bales walks through how to use the Trends tool for any daily fantasy sport.
– FantasyLabs Podcast: What to Do When Your Favorite DFS Sport Isn’t in Season
Bryan Mears is joined by Adam Levitan to discuss what DFS players can do when their favorite DFS sport is out of season, including following drafts, free agencies, and trying out other sports.
Golf
– Video: DEAN & DELUCA Invitational 2016 Model Preview
Watch as Peter Jennings (CSURAM88) breaks down his personal model for this week’s DEAN & DELUCA Invitational.
– Video: PGA Lineup Review for the AT&T Byron Nelson 2016
Peter Jennings (CSURAM88) breaks down his PGA lineup for the 2016 AT&T Byron Nelson.
– Video: Using FantasyLabs Tools to Multi-Enter Golf GPPs
In this screencast, Adam Levitan shows how he uses the FantasyLabs golf tools to create multiple lineups for GPP contests.
– FantasyLabs Golf DFS Tools Now Available for European Tour, by Bryan Mears
Yesterday, DraftKings posted — for the first time ever — DFS contests for European Tour golf. Fortunately, our PGA Director, Colin Davy, has been preparing for this moment his entire life (or at least the last couple of months). Moving forward, we will have dedicated weekly content for Euro Tour tournaments, starting with next week’s Nordea Masters in Stockholm, Sweden.
– Predicting PGA Salaries and Finding a Vegas Bargain Rating, by Bryan Mears
I’ve taken the Vegas implied odds for the 2016 DEAN & DELUCA Invitational and found a formula to “predict” what a player’s salary should be if we used only Vegas lines to create salaries. Basically, I’ve taken all the golfers in the D&D, predicted their salaries, measured the difference between their DK and predicted salaries, and used that difference to create what I’ll term a “Vegas Bargain Rating.”
– How To Measure Course History, by Colin Davy
I missed the entire debate on course history when it happened last month. For all I know, it might still be going on. Even hearing about it second hand, though, I’m honestly shocked that the split is even close to 50/50 on whether to incorporate it into building PGA lineups. Course history absolutely matters. The short version is that course history is in fact predictive. The long version will come in a future article.
MLB
– The Daily Fantasy Flex, MLB: 5/27/16 Main Slate
Bryan Mears breaks down the 5/27/16 MLB DFS main slate.
– MLB Plays of the Day: 5/27/16, Main Slate
Here are some things going for Trevor Story tonight: He is playing in Coors Field, he has the highest ISO among everyday shortstops, and he is hitting the ball, on average, 236 feet. Here is one thing that is going against Trevor Story tonight and will likely affect his tournament ownership percentage: His salary.
– MLB DFS 5/27/16 Slate Breakdown, by John Daigle
If you haven’t heard of [Julio] Urias, his hyperbolic-like numbers in the Pacific Coast League — 44 strikeouts in 41 innings pitched — might frighten you. If you have heard of him, his 1.10 ERA and 0.78 WHIP in that span probably still frightens you. And all at the age of 19. Needless to say, the kid is referred to as a phenom for a reason. And as it pertains to a night, Urias has been gifted a Mets team that’s tied for the highest strikeout percentage against lefties. He also has a 77-percent Bargain Rating at FanDuel.
– A Study on Fastball Velocity, Part I, by Bill Monighetti
Even based on the more general approach that we took here in Part I, we can begin to see that it would be a mistake to weigh all velocity changes equally. How heavily a pitcher relies on his velocity and at what point during the season velocity change occurs are two variables that substantially affect Plus/Minus and subsequently DFS viability.
– “I Don’t Want to Be Right”: Dual Eligibility and a Concrete Way to Be Contrarian, by Matthew Freedman
In guaranteed prize pools, it sometimes makes sense to sacrifice money, salary, value, etc., in order to do something that’s “wrong,” especially in MLB DFS, where volatility diminishes the importance of “lineup optimization” anyway. Using dual-eligible players at positions of scarcity is an optimal tactic intended to maximize a lineup and the salary used. That’s why it’s a horrible idea. It’s clearly optimal, and lots of people do it. But GPPs aren’t about optimization. They’re about individuation.
– More on Starting Pitcher Wins and Innings Per Game, by Matthew Freedman
On FanDuel, where wins provide a 12-point windfall, it makes sense to chase wins to a degree. At the same time, even if a team is favored by Vegas, DFS players would do well to remember that starting pitchers win only one-third of the time. Too many DFS players automatically assume that when a team is favored, the pitcher for that team will pick up the win. It often works out that way — the correlation between team wins and starting pitcher wins is very high — but not every favored team wins and not every winning team has a victorious starting pitcher.
– State of the Stacks, Vol. 5, by Mitchell Block
We’re looking at Ortiz, Xander Bogaerts, and a whole lot of “meh” consisting of players who are generally uninspiring options. But, as the advanced stats indicate, they may warrant some consideration if you’re looking to fill a hole in your lineup when stacking this roster. There’s risk to rostering bottom-of-the-order players, but taking a calculated risk can differentiate a popular stack such as Boston and pay big dividends in larger tournaments.
– MLB Trend Testing: Positives & Negatives, by Bill Monighetti
In this week’s Trend, I wanted to go a little bit contrarian. I wanted to start with one or two filters that will somewhat obviously lead to positive values and then I wanted to apply a couple of negative filters to that. The idea is that, overall, the trend’s Plus/Minus will remain above zero, but the presence of the negative variables will scare others off of these players, allowing me to roster them at lower ownership levels.
– MLB Recent Form Report: 5/23/16, by Bill Monighetti
Usually, when I look at batters who are hitting the ball much harder over the past couple of weeks, I’m looking at power hitters. I wouldn’t put Denard Span in that category, but we can see that his recent numbers are greater than his yearly averages. Over the past 14 days, Span has increased his hard-hit rate by an impressive 24 percentage points. That is by far the highest mark among regular starters and his 51 percent hard-hit rate over that same timeframe is tied for the highest mark overall.
Trends
– MLB 5/23/16: Pitchers Facing San Diego In 2016, by Jonathan Cabezas
– MLB 5/24/16: High-Strikeout Underdog FanDuel Pitchers, by Matthew Freedman
– MLB 5/25/16: Stacking the Tail, by Jay Persson
– MLB 5/27/16: High-Strikeout Pitchers with a Low K Prediction, by Mitchell Block
