Archive for Daily Fantasy Strategy

September call ups are almost here, so some new names will enter the daily fantasy pool. This is probably more true on other daily sites besides Draftstreet, but call ups tend to be undervalued. Because pricing models are based on previous statistics, it makes sense that guys without a track record would be somewhat conservatively priced. Here are just a few call ups that could be useful in the final month.

Nick Castellanos – OF – Detroit Tigers

Castellanos didn’t destroy Triple-A or anything, but he hit for a little power (.168 ISO) and displayed good plate discipline (16.4% K%, 9.3% BB%). He’s unlikely to see regular starts, but that’s the beauty of daily fantasy. We don’t need him to play everyday to have a use for him. He may take some starts from Matt Tuiasos0po against left-handed starters. He had a .852 OPS in 109 PA versus lefties in Triple-A, so if he’s cheap enough he could be an option when starting. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the time when I’m picking a daily lineup, I make a custom leaderboard of the starting pitchers for the day to see which starters are most homer-prone. But this can be a tedious task to do day after day. So I’ve created the chart you see below which shows the most homer prone starting pitchers. I had a post a few months ago where I had charts showing hitters with reverse splits and the splits of switch hitters that I still reference often. Hopefully this post will be a similar bookmark worthy tool.

There are three columns. One for starters that are currently in a major league rotation with at least 1320 career batters faced (which is the point at which HR stabilizes) against batters of any handedness . The players listed have a HR rate against all batters that is two or more standard deviations above the mean. And then there is a chart for starters with 1320+ BF against lefties and against righties. The players listed in those charts have a HR rate against batters of that particular handedness that is one or more standard deviations above the mean. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday I touched on the idea of examining how hitters have performed against specific types of pitchers to try and find good daily matchups. Because a batter’s performance against a specific pitcher is too small of a sample to be predictive, why not look at a batter’s performance against that pitcher and others like him?

Let me qualify everything I’m about to say by saying that this method of choosing batters is merely something I am exploring. Despite the increased sample size I can get by looking at a batter’s performance against similar pitchers, it’s still usually not a huge sample size. And I’m also doing a pretty crude job of finding similar pitchers. I’m considering strikeout and walk skills, groundball and flyball tendencies, frequency of fastball usage and velocity as my variables in finding similar pitchers.

It’s hardly scientific and nothing close to exact. But I’m almost positive it’s a better approach than just using simple batter-versus-pitcher data. But I’m not sure it’s better than just looking at how a batter has performed against either left or right handed pitching as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of factors to consider when picking hitters have discussed in this space this year. Weather factors like temperature and wind are more important than I realized at the beginning of the year. Park factors are a big deal. The extent to which the opposing starter is susceptible to the long ball matters. And on and on and on.

But before I look at any of those other factors each day, I start by looking at whether the batter has the platoon advantage. As both Blake Murphy and I have discussed, some guys have reverse splits when it comes to the handedness of the opposing pitcher. But, for the most part, having the platoon advantage should be requirement numero uno when selecting hitters. I know I’m not breaking any news by harping on the platoon advantage, but because it’s the first thing I look at, I wanted to give everyone a reminder of its importance. Below is a chart showing how batters have performed with and without the platoon advantage so far this season. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday I took a look at Paul Goldschmidt’s strange home/road splits. Despite a basic park factor of 105 in Arizona in addition to a 105 factor for home runs for right-handers, Goldschmidt has been noticeably better on the road. And as I was trolling around looking at numbers this week, I came across Joey Votto who has also been quite a bit better on the road despite a very favorable home ballpark.

So I decided to see what other players were seeing some backwards home/road splits. I took all players with 600+ PA both at home and on the road since the beginning of 2011. And I only included players that called the same ballpark home for that entire span. Below is a list of the players whose home wOBA is lower than their road wOBA despite their home park having an above average basic park factor. Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday Blake Murphy updated something I looked into awhile back, which was hitters with a reverse platoon split. This reminded me of another unusual split I came across earlier this season. Despite the fact that Arizona has a the 4th most hitter-friendly basic park factor and is the 8th most homer-friendly home run park for right-handed hitters, right-hander Paul Goldschmidt has been better on the road in his career. During his call up season and first full season (2011-2012), Goldy had a .338 wOBA at home and .382 wOBA on the road. Some of that was a strikeout rate that was 3% lower on the road, but that alone isn’t enough to account for a 44 point difference in wOBA.

He has been basically as good at home and on the road this season, but he has still been slightly better on the road. This just seems so strange because the average basic park factor for his road games (weighted for the number of games he has played in each park) is 99.27, and the HR as R factor for his road games is 99.17. That’s compared to a 105 basic park factor and 105 HR as R factor at home in Arizona. In other words, Goldy has had conditions 6% more favorable at home in his career, yet his wOBA is significantly higher on the road.

Read the rest of this entry »

We all know home runs are the best way to have a big fantasy day on the hitting side of things, but they’re really hard to predict. I have a little process I like to go through to try and identify the guys that are in the best situation to hit a home run, and it starts with park factors. Here on the site we have park factors broken down by handedness, which is a good place to start if you’re trying to pick home run hitters. Below is a chart showing which parks are most favorable to home runs for both left and right handed hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

I love the commenters on this site. I write elsewhere, and the audience is more interactive here than anywhere else I’ve seen. And it’s not just that they’re involved; it’s that their they’re smart. I’ve gotten several ideas for posts from commenters, and they frequently point out things that I miss. But I think they may have one thing wrong. Or at least there may be something upon which they’re placing too much weight.

When picking pitchers, the first thing I look at is the quality of the pitcher’s opponent against pitchers of the same handedness. Well, I take that back. The first thing I look at is whether the pitcher is any good or not. But I don’t usually have to look that up. After those initial hurdles are cleared, I look at conditions. I’m looking for cooler temperatures and winds blowing in (with a few exceptions). All of these factors generally go toward run prevention.

But commenters often point out a pitcher’s strikeout ability and/or the strikeout percentage of the opposing team. They note the importance of strikeouts on Draftstreet. I myself used to look at the opposing team’s K% as one of the more important factors, but I seemed to have more success when I placed most of my attention on run prevention. But was I right to favor run prevention over strikeout potential? Or are the commenters right? Is strikeout percentage the most important factor? Read the rest of this entry »

In the preseason, I took a look at the pitchers and catchers who are the best and worst match ups for base stealers. Today I want to update that piece. The home run is king in daily fantasy, but steals can help as well. Picking the best base stealers of the day won’t win you a lot of daily contests, but you can’t spend big on power hitters at every position. A steal will get you a couple of points on DraftStreet, plus it comes along with the point from the single or three quarters of a point from the walk that allowed the hitter to reach base.

Read the rest of this entry »

As Bryan Grosnick pointed out on Tuesday, the home run is king in daily contests. In Draftstreet scoring, a home run will get you a minimum of seven points (one point for each total base plus 1.5 each for the R and RBI). So I wanted to give y’all a list of the pitchers who allow the most home runs per plate appearance. The cut off for the reliability of HR/PA is 1320 batters faced (per @pizzacutter4) Here are the pitchers above that cut off that are on an active roster with the highest HR/PA (one or more standard deviations above the mean) against both left and right handed batters. Read the rest of this entry »