The MLB Ownership Review is a regular series (out on Mondays and Fridays) in which we review in-depth the ownership dynamics of two slates from the previous week.
On Sunday, May 21, the main slate consisted of 10 games headlined by aces Chris Archer and Stephen Strasburg. Additionally, the Cubs’ lineup was implied to score a slate-high 6.3 runs – 0.9 runs higher than the next closest team, per our Vegas Dashboard.
The Cubs lived up to their lofty implied total, hanging a slate-high 13 runs and 15 hits on the Brewers. Archer and Strasburg recorded 12 and 11 strikeouts, respectively, but Strasburg was the only one to walk away with a win. On a slate with two pitchers priced higher than $10,000 on DraftKings, and one offense projected for six-plus runs, how did the ownership distribution shake out? Let’s find out.
May 21 Ownership Review
Pitchers
Archer was the chalk for slates of all sizes Sunday, while Strasburg posted a negative Volatility Rating and was just the seventh-highest owned pitcher in the $119k Gold Glove. The following ownership data is from our DFS Ownership Dashboard (Pro Subscribers can review ownership trends across guaranteed prize pools of all stakes shortly after lock):
Danny Salazar, Wade Miley, and Adam Wainwright were all heavily owned, likely in part due to their statuses as favorites with SO/9 rates over the past 12 months that ranked among the top-10 pitchers in the slate (via our Player Models). Meanwhile, high chances of rain in the Phillies-Pirates (83 percent) and Rockies-Reds (67 percent) matchups drove down the ownership levels of all pitchers involved.
This latter point appears to have been what likely drove down Strasburg’s ownership. Per our Lineups page, there was a 41 percent chance of rain with winds gusting to left at five miles per hour in the Nationals-Braves matchup. Rostering pitchers with any chance of rain carries some risk (especially in cash games), but it’s important to consider the exact likelihood of rain.
As touched on in this MLB Weather Factors piece, pitchers have failed to live up to their salary-implied expectations in games with a chance of rain greater than 20 percent. But their performance has really suffered with a chance of rain greater than 60 percent. Consider rostering pitchers with high strikeout upside in games with a small chance of rain to help build contrarian lineups.
Hitters
Vegas was right on with the Cubs’ offensive explosion, and the public was happy to bask in the benefits:
Six of the 13 highest-owned players were Cubs hitters. A 1-5 stack featuring Ben Zobrist, Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Ian Happ appeared to be especially popular. This wasn’t particularly surprising, as the exact same five players made up the top-five hitters in projected ownership for Sunday’s slate. Targeting teams with implied totals above six will inevitably come with an ownership premium, but they’ve historically produced top-tier Plus/Minus and Consistency Ratings during the rare occasions they’ve occurred.
The Cubs in particular have continued to smash at home with lofty implied totals. Per our Trends tool, they’ve averaged 9.01 DraftKings points per game with a +1.14 Plus/Minus in their 104 games at Wrigley Field with an implied total over six since 2014.
Takeaways
Given the two expensive pitching options and one high-implied lineup, the public focused on favored pitchers with good weather, along with the Vegas-friendly Cubs lineup. Here are some specifics:
- Archer’s status as a home favorite against a Yankees lineup with the second-lowest implied total earned him the highest average ownership on the slate.
- Strasburg posted lower ownership than numerous arms with worse matchups – but better weather. Consider rostering elite pitchers in games with just a mild chance of rain.
- The Cubs’ ridiculously-high implied total of 6.3 runs earned high ownership that was fulfilled during their 13-run explosion. Remember: Games with implied totals over six don’t come around very often.
Moving forward, be sure to use the FantasyLabs Tools to monitor the ownership patterns of slates with minimal high-priced pitching options and one game with the potential to post an outlier run total.
