SaberSim Daily Rundown: 4/14/16

Intro

Towards the end of last season, FanGraphs partnered up with SaberSim, a site that provides daily baseball (and hockey) projections fueled by a game simulator. While the raw projections available on FanGraphs and the SaberSim site itself are helpful in their own right, digging into some of the player and game projections, both for the current day and next, can help illuminate players to target for your season-long and DFS lineups.

The Process

SaberSim provides daily, matchup-specific baseball projections by running ten thousand simulations of each game every day, utilizing Steamer handedness-split rest-of-season projections as a base. The sim matches up the specific lineup of each team against the pitchers of each opposing team. The simulated games then operate as actual baseball games operate, and each individual plate appearance is simulated until the game is complete, at which point the process is repeated.

Once a team makes its lineup official for the current day, the sim automatically runs new simulations utilizing that specific lineup. Prior to an official lineup announcement, it utilizes that team’s most recently used lineup. In addition to specific pitchers and lineups, the sim also accounts for weather, park factors, umpires, handedness splits, home field advantage, and more.

SP Streamer Candidates for Tomorrow (with Projected Stats)

Jeff Locke – 0.41 W/G; 3.02 ERA; 5.72 K/G
Locke has a very favorable home matchup against the Brewers on Friday. The simulator projects the Pirates as favorites in the game, and therefore projects Locke to have a good shot at earning a pitcher win (41% as opposed to 34% for Brewers starter Jimmy Nelson). His projected run prevention and strikeout numbers are also above average, making him a very viable streamer option.

Rich Hill – 0.43 W/G; 3.33 ERA; 5.00 K/G
Hill is more highly owned than Locke and also projected slightly worse, but is still an adequate option as far as streamers go. He matches against the Royals at home in Oakland, a park favorable towards pitchers. The simulator favors the Athletics in that game, and thus Hill is projected for a good chance at getting a pitcher win (43% as opposed to 32% for Royals starter Edinson Volquez).

Chad Bettis – 0.29 W/G; 3.74 ERA; 5.39 K/G
If your fantasy league is exceptionally deep, Chad Bettis is a serviceable streamer candidate in his road matchup against the Cubs. The simulator doesn’t project Bettis for a good shot at earning a pitcher win (29%), but it does project him to do alright in the run prevention category while also likely accumulate a fair number of strikeouts.

Tonight’s Batters of Note

Manny Machado – (DraftKings $3,800; 8.57) (FanDuel $4,600; 10.91)
Machado might be slightly underrated tonight because he matches up against Rangers ace, Cole Hamels. However, the simulator still projects Machado highly, likely due to a favorable handedness split and right-handed park factor. He can be a great high-upside and low-owned play for DFS.

Kevin Pillar – (DraftKings $3,700; 8.21) (FanDuel $3,300; 10.33)
The simulator projects the Blue Jays to do very well offensively tonight at home against Nathan Eovaldi and the Yankees. The Jays’ 2-4 hitters (Donaldson, Bautista, Encarnacion) are all projected near the top of the SaberSim leaderboard for today. Because Pillar bats leadoff in front of that trio, he benefits as well. However, that also means that much of Pillar’s fantasy upside is reliant on the performance of his teammates, so you may not want to play one without the other in DFS tournaments.

Tonight’s Pitchers of Note

Jason Hammel – (DraftKings $7,900; 22.39) (FanDuel $7,900; 38.36)
Hammel is a fairly inexpensive option on both DraftKings and FanDuel today, and is projected as the fourth best option overall for both formats. He matches up at home against the Reds, and because the simulator projects the Cubs as 63% to win the game, Hammel has a high probability of earning a pitcher win (45%).

Ross Stripling – (DraftKings $6,000; 20.44) (FanDuel $7,600; 35.67)
Stripling starts at home against the Diamondbacks, a game that the simulator projects the Dodgers to win 57% of the time. Much like with Hammel, the strength of Stripling’s team and favorable home matchup make for a high probability of a pitcher win (42%). Furthermore, Stripling is projected for a 2.88 ERA in the matchup. This makes him a top ten projected starting pitcher play today.

Conclusions

While Toronto is unsurprisingly one of the top projected teams for tonight, you can still find value and lower ownership outside of the “Big 3” of Bautista, Donaldson, and Encarnacion. As far as pitchers go, there are numerous disagreements between the DFS pricetags and the SaberSim projections, which means you can find value in many places across the board. Keep in mind that lineup changes can have a slight effect on projections, so check back on the projections once all teams have released their lineups. Also, feel free to check out SaberSim.com for more detailed projections and distributions of each game and player.