Archive for DFS

About three or four times each week I create projections and player rankings for DFS contests. As an example, you can find my breakdown of tonight’s DFS action here ($). My projections start with the rest-of-season ZiPS projections, which I break down to a per-game basis. I then adjust each projection for matchup and ball park.

For hitters, the matchup adjustment is based on the wOBA allowed by the starting pitcher they will be facing against hitters of the same handedness since the start of the 2014 season. When small sample sizes apply, I manually set the matchup adjustment. But it recently occurred to me that adjustments for matchup should probably include the strength of the opponent’s bullpen. To date, starters are pitching an average of 5.88 innings per game this year, meaning my matchup adjustment is ignoring roughly a third of each hitter’s plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »

Agenda

1. Wacha Worries
2. Daily DFS – Whitley, Chen(s), Hughes
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Buchholz, Vargas Young, Krush, Aybar
5. Factor Grid

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Last week, I identified potential stolen base streamers for daily fantasy leagues and weekly leagues with daily transactions and lineup changes. I used a pitcher’s career caught-stealing and pick-off rates as criteria to determine if a particular matchup was primed for streaming a speedster with the hope of him stealing a base (or two or four).

I like how it turned out, but it felt hastily constructed. A pitcher’s career rate seemed too broad a scope, especially considering the possibility that a pitcher can get better (or, perhaps, worse) at limiting steals and picking off runners over time.

With a little more time and care, I fleshed out everything a bit more and added an additional criterion: catcher effectiveness, which can be most obviously measured by caught-stealing rate. But I think there also is merit to calculating the frequency at which runners attempt to steal on a catcher. In a sense, it measure runners’ perception of a catcher’s skill, especially for those at the tails of the distribution.

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The 12:15 P.M. EST slot here on Mondays is supposed to have something to do with shortstops. Jhonny Peralta went 1-for-5 with two strikeouts last night, and Starlin Castro went 1-for-4 with a strikeout. Quota met?

I’ll get back to shortstops in short order, but without any 2015 results to parse or season long fantasy advice to give, I’m going to discuss some daily fantasy strategy. I typically play on DraftKings but have plenty of followers who play on FanDuel, and I’m taking part in an expert daily fantasy accuracy contest this season that will take place on FanDuel. For that reason, I wanted to take a quick look at how the scoring systems on each site differ. Read the rest of this entry »

Utilizing splits in DFS research is obviously a big part of the decision-making process. The platoon split is all too real, and we’d be crazy not to factor it in to our process. I would imagine the most common way DFS players consider platoon splits is by looking at something like wOBA or wRC+ versus left and right handed pitching to discern which players have pronounced splits or even reverse splits on occasion (cough Adam Jones cough).

But looking at stats like wOBA or wRC+ doesn’t exactly translate to a specific daily site’s scoring system. If a player has a wOBA of .360 against left-handed pitching and a wOBA of .340 against right-handed pitching, how does that translate to the counting stats he might put up on a given day? Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past two seasons (2013 – 2014), only nineteen qualified starters have posted a FIP lower than Lance Lynn’s 3.29. He’s been better than Gio Gonzalez, Kris Medlen, Doug Fister, and Homer Bailey, using FIP. I feel like most, if not, all of those men were/are viewed as better fantasy options coming into 2014. Maybe they were; in Medlen’s case, we’ll never know. I definitely had all of them ranked in front of Lynn, and I’ve been proven wrong.

My main reason for dropping Lynn in my rankings was his struggles versus left handed batters. Those concerns haven’t been abated, although, he has been better versus lefties this year: .345 career wOBA allowed versus .326 wOBA this season. His lack of a change-up still hurts, but .19 points of wOBA is nothing to scoff at. Granted, his career number still holds more weight, considering the larger sample. Still, though, progress is progress; this is the second year in a row that number has dropped, after all (was .366 in 2012).

Lynn’s season has been odd in the sense that he’s striking out fewer batters, while walking more. Yet, thanks to little BABiP and HR/FB help – more sinkers help, I’m sure; as has the Cardinals defense – he’s finally beating his peripherals for once. This game’s weird.

Lynn draws the Rays today, who, despite their struggles, have been better than average versus right handed pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

I feel like all I ever talk about when writing about daily fantasy is platoon splits. Last week I talked about the best and worst starters against batters of each handedness, and today I want to mention a few teams that have some weird splits.

No team has a bigger difference in their performance versus left-handed and right-handed pitching than the Braves who are 30% better than league average against left-handed pitching and 22% below average against right-handed pitching. To be fair, we’re still dealing with some really small sample sizes. Justin Upton and Evan Gattis are leading the way against left-handed pitching as they each have a wRC+ vs. LHP north of 300 but each have less than 50 PA against LHP. That can’t keep up, and the gap will certainly narrow as the season goes on, which is something that can be said for any teams discussed below. But only pick on the Braves with right-handed pitchers.

The Cubs are another team you might like to pick on, but they’ve got a wRC+ of 112 against left-handed pitching. Against right-handed pitching, they’re the worst team in the league with a wRC+ of 73. The Phillies are also much worse against righties. As are the Rangers. In years past you were probably avoiding the Rangers offense on most days, but right now you only need to avoid them with left-handers.

On the flip side, the Indians and Dodgers are tied for the fifth best wRC+ in the league, but they’re doing their damage against right-handed pitching. If you’re going to dominate pitchers of one handedness, right-handers are the ones to dominate since about two-thirds of pitchers are right-handed. But avoid them the third of the time when they face lefties. The Reds offense is another that might have been avoided in the recent past, but they’re the fourth worst offense in the league according to wRC+. You can use pitcher’s of either handedness against them, but their 71 wRC+ vs. LHP is the worst in the league.

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We all know how important the platoon advantage is to daily fantasy. It can be important for those who platoon slots on their roto rosters as well, but it’s a part of almost all decisions made in daily fantasy. We almost always want our hitters to have it with the exception of the elite hitters who can handle pitchers of either handedness and a weirdo here and there with reverse splits like Adam Jones. There are also some pitchers who have reverse splits, and there are some pitchers who follow the traditional split to an exaggerated degree. Below is a chart showing the best and worst pitchers against batters of each handedness from 2012 to May 31. After the chart and the jump I’ll discuss some of the names.

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Let’s talk about the fact that Draftstreet doesn’t allow late swaps. In a minute, how to prepare for it, but first, how to potentially take advantage of it.

On weekends and on travel days there are usually early contests encompassing all games and late contests that only consist of the late games. In the early contests, rosters lock when the first game starts. When someone in your lineup playing in a late game isn’t in the lineup, there’s nothing you can do about it. As a result, I’ve generally tended to avoid early contests all together and just play the late contests so that all lineups are usually posted before rosters lock. Or if I play in early contests, I’ll skew towards teams playing in the early games and avoid stacks for teams playing late games.

Yesterday I did things different. I entered the early contests and used plenty of hitters and stacks in late games because I liked the matchups and values, the A’s and the Dodgers in particular. In the GPP I entered, the four Dodgers I used all had an ownership percentage of 3% or less, and Josh Donaldson was the only Athletic that was widely owned.

I have the suspicion that this is partly due to other players sharing my aversion to the risk of using players that can’t be confirmed in their team’s lineup before rosters lock. It’s also possible that enough people just didn’t think the Dodgers/A’s stacks had as much upside and/or value as I did. But I’m thinking this may be a situation where you can zig when everyone else zags. And zigging with good players is a strategy I can get on board with.

If you’re going to use players in late games, you’ve got to do all you can to avoid players who are left out of the lineup. First things first, avoid any guys who have any sort of injury concern at all. I usually just check each player on the ESPN fantasy page and see if any recent updates mention anything about an injury.

Second, you should be aware of how teams use platoons. Some players are obviously part of a platoon and should be avoided in matchups where they don’t have the platoon advantage. But teams often order players differently against lefties than they do righties. Be aware of that when using stacks so you can be reasonably certain that the players you stack will be hitting next to or at least near each other in the lineup. The best way to see how teams usually order their lineup is to take a look at their most recent lineups, which can be found at MLBDepthCharts.

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I’ve mentioned this before, but each week I take the updated Steamer rest-of-season projections and run them through the Draftstreet scoring system to get per game projections for each player. Every day I’ll compare those projections to cost to determine value plays for the day. After the jump I’ve embedded a couple of charts with the updated per game projections for the rest of the season. When preparing each day, you can export the prices from Draftstreet and put them in a column next to each player’s projection (use the vlookup function in Excel to do this). Then just divide cost by points, and you’ve got value for all players.

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