Right now, the Rockies have an implied Vegas total of seven runs for tonight’s game. Yikes. Is there a way to fade Coors intelligently in tournaments? Let’s use the data in our free Trends tool to find an answer.
Where to Go Next
Setting up a simple trend, you’ll see that four other ballparks in play today offer a Plus/Minus of at least +1.04 on DraftKings when a team is projected to score 4.9 runs or more. The Great American Ballpark, Target Field, Yankee Stadium and the Chase Field all offer Upside. The Athletics, Red Sox, Yankees, and Diamondbacks are all projected to score at least 4.9 runs in these stadiums today, so they are the teams on which I will focus my trend-centric research.
Plus/Minus, Upside, and other premium exclusive metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
Our Park Factor metric measures the historic percentile rank of a ballpark’s hitter-friendliness, adjusted for handedness. Coors Field is ranked a ridiculous 100 for both right and left-handed hitters. The next best options tonight are New York lefties in Yankee Stadium with an 81 Park Factor and Oakland righties in the Great American Ballpark with a 67 Park Factor.
It’s worth noting that in games with a team implied at 4.9 runs, the Great American Ballpark, Chase Field, and Yankee Stadium rank directly behind Coors Field in terms of Plus/Minus on DraftKings:
Athletics Go Right, Yankees Go Left
Using the Trends tool once again, you will discover that batters from the left side of the plate versus a right-handed starting pitcher in Yankee Stadium have a Plus/Minus of +2.16 on DraftKings, averaging 9.19 points per game, when their teams are projected to score at least 4.9 runs.
Running a trend for right-handed hitters implied at 4.9 runs versus a starting pitcher with a WHIP greater than 1.35 in the Great American Ballpark, you’ll get a delicious Plus/Minus of +3.22 on DraftKings, with an average of 10.77 points.
The A’s
Oakland’s Danny Valencia and Khris Davis have the most attractive Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) and Isolated Power (ISO) numbers of any A’s right-handed hitters tonight . . . but neither of them has played since last Sunday and both are questionable.
Billy Butler (.332 wOBA, .171 ISO) and Stephen Vogt (.330 wOBA, .161 ISO) are next in line, and both players have seen an increase in their batted-ball distance, exit velocity and hard-hit percentage the past 15 days, per our advanced stats.
Historically, right-handed hitters A) who are playing in the Great American Ball Park with similar splits and B) who have seen an increase in all three of those advanced metrics have returned a Plus/Minus of +2.68 on DraftKings.
The Yanks
Carlos Beltran, who has homered in three of four games since I explored Park Factor in my Play of the Day, has the highest wOBA and ISO of any Yankee batting from the left side tonight at .376 and .243. Beltran has seen an increase of 15 percentage points in his hard-hit rate over the past 15 days.
Players with similar isolated power numbers A) who have increased their recent hard-hit percentage by 10 or more points and B) who are playing in Yankee Stadium have a Plus/Minus of +3.59 on DraftKings.
Finding Other Reasons to Fade
We still have the Diamondbacks and Red Sox to consider. Chase Field’s Park Factor isn’t great, but it’s not terrible. But Target Field is terrible, ranking at 40 for righties and 19 for lefties. So let’s put the Sox to the side. They’re not horrible — they and the Diamondbacks actually are both implied to score 5.2 runs tonight, tied for second behind the Rockies at Coors — but they aren’t in a particularly great spot.
The D-Backs
Paul Goldschmidt destroys left-handed pitching to the tune of a .439 wOBA and .224 ISO. He has also recently seen an increase of 15 feet in his batted-ball distance and 22 points in his hard-hit percentage.
Batters at Chase Field in the midst of similar recent batted-ball improvements have crushed it with an average Plus/Minus of +4.73 with an incredible 63.6-percent Consistency.
The Ultimate Coors-trarian Move
If you’re really looking to be contrarian and obliterate close to half of your opponents in one fell swoop, you could always take a starting pitcher from Coors . . . but today doesn’t look like the day to do that. Pitchers who are similar to Jon Gray and Andrew Cashner in terms of GB/FB ratio and Distance Differential have a negative Plus/Minus of -4.16 in 50 starts at Coors.
There are hundreds of ways to fade Coors in tournaments if you really want to win. Use our Trends tool to figure out which ways are intelligently contrarian, and which ways just might be stupid.
