MLB 2015 DFS Thread - Page 214 - Fantasy Sports -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

Two Plus Two Forums Sports and Games Fantasy Sports

MLB 2015 DFS Thread

Post Reply Subscribe

...

Page 214 of 264

First

14 114 164 194 204 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 224 234

Last

Page 214 of 264

First

14 114 164 194 204 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 224 234

Last

08-10-2015 , 07:14 PM

#5326

dkgojackets

DKGOAT

Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 86,123

checking random entries in the $5 yahoo gpp. first guy is starting jon niese and a 4-man rockies stack. bold.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:16 PM

#5327

ReliableSource

veteran

Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 2,282

Quote:

Originally Posted by Priptonite

Man, could I have used a better example???

Interesting as one of the Fangraphs fantasy writers has Kennedy as a potential stack target

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:30 PM

#5328

TheNonPareil

veteran

Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 2,035

You shouldn't be playing MLB DFS if that prip post was anything other than elementary.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:33 PM

#5329

Priptonite

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 17,204

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReliableSource

Interesting as one of the Fangraphs fantasy writers has Kennedy as a potential stack target

I think that's perfectly reasonable. Kennedy isn't anything special. I was just pointing out RG referencing his obviously inflated splits

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:35 PM

#5330

ReliableSource

veteran

Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 2,282

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheNonPareil

You shouldn't be playing MLB DFS if that prip post was anything other than elementary.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:40 PM

#5331

Priptonite

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 17,204

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheNonPareil

You shouldn't be playing MLB DFS if that prip post was anything other than elementary.

From what I've seen that would disqualify 90%+ of players lol

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:45 PM

#5332

TheNonPareil

veteran

Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 2,035

But like how are you supposed to project a players points if you can't understand what is predictive and what isn't?

I guess just look at wOBA over 100 ABs and BvP.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:52 PM

#5333

kingkang27

centurion

Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 161

Boy is CarGo locked in... line drive off a leftie. Just couldn't get to play him against a leftie.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 07:54 PM

#5334

kingkang27

centurion

Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 161

Quote:

Originally Posted by Priptonite

I'll walk through a basic example I guess. Let's take a look at Ian Kennedy:

We'll start at his standard pitcher stats page. Kennedy has enough major league playing time that we don't need to see his minor league data, so click "minor leagues" below the Dashboard and Customize buttons to get rid of that data and make the table more readable.

We'll start with ERA, FIP and xFIP on the right. FIP and xFIP are ERA estimators. Take a look at the Fangraphs library page for FIP if you're unfamiliar (whenever you come across a stat you're unfamiliar with you should do this). Basically, FIP says, "Hits other than HRs are highly variable depending on defense/luck/etc, I want to know how well a pitcher is pitching based on his strikeout, walk (and HBP) and HR rates."

So we have Kennedy's 4.49 ERA, 5.08 FIP and 3.86 xFIP. His FIP tells us he's actually getting lucky and that his ERA should be even higher! So what's the deal with his xFIP? xFIP is the same as FIP but assumes a league-average HR/FB%, the premise being that pitchers have little control over how many of the fly balls they allow go for home runs. Let's look at Kennedy's over the years. His career average is 10.6% (league average is around 9-10), and in full seasons it's fluctuated from 7.7-13.2. In 2015 he's sporting a monstrous 19.2%! So that explains the huge difference in FIP and xFIP.

So far we've got that Kennedy has a 4.49 ERA, but is likely pitching closer to his 3.86 xFIP, rationalized partly by how unlucky he's been with respect to HR/FB%. Now let's break down some of the components of that xFIP. The "Dashboard" shows K/9 and BB/9, how many batters a pitcher is expected to strikeout or walk per 9 innings. You'll see K/9 reference a lot in DFS literature. There's a problem with K/9 and BB/9 though. We'll take a little tangent to explore.

My favorite example to illustrate this is Carlos Rodon. Let's look at starting pitchers with a minimum of 50 IP this season, sorted by K/9. Rodon is ranked 8th @ 9.88. For comparison, Jacob deGrom is down at 20 with 9.15 K/9. Now let's sort by K%, the percentage of batters faced that a pitcher K's. deGrom jumps to 9th, and Rodon drops to 23rd.

So what's the deal? Take a look at Rodon's walk rate, 12.9%! That's obscene (use Fangraphs library to get a sense of what's good/bad). deGrom's is only 4.5%. Both pitchers might throw 6 IP with 6Ks, but over the course of those 6 IP, Rodon will have faced more batters because he's allowing more base runners. deGrom is a much more efficient pitcher and strikes out a greater percentage of batters faced, but Rodon faces more batters per 9 IP, so his K/9 makes him APPEAR to be the higher strikeout pitcher. There is also a contribution from their very large difference in their BABIPs (batting average on balls in play), which we'll talk about later.

Ok, so back to Ian Kennedy. We'll go to his advanced stats page to look at his K% and BB%. 21.7% and 6.5% are better than average, but nothing to get too excited about. For DFS purposes, we probably want to know about his L/R splits, so we can find out what handedness batters we want to target or avoid vs Kennedy.

THIS IS WHERE I FIND A LOT OF ERRORS FROM TOUTS. We'll start by looking at his wOBA (remember, Fangraphs library if you're not familiar) splits on the far right under "Standard." 0.348 vRHB and 0.367 vLHB. Those are bad, but THIS IS WHERE A LOT OF PEOPLE STOP AND IT'S A HUGE MISTAKE, AND THIS IS WHAT A BUNCH OF ROTOGRINDER TOOLS REPORT, JUST WOBA. Scroll down to advanced to take a look at his K%, BB% and xFIP. Thus far this season he's been better vs LHB, with a 6% higher K%. This is only half a seasons worth of data though, so let's look at his career numbers to get a larger sample. He does appear to have a slightly higher K% vLHB than vs RHB.

Scroll up and look at his career wOBAs, significantly lower than this years'. And we already know why, HR/FB%! Scroll to "Batted Ball" in his 2015 Splits page and you'll see his 18% and 20% vLHB and vRHB, respectively. We can dive deeper. Maybe the increase in HR/FB% is real. It's highly unlikely, but why not explore. Also in the Batted Ball section is Hard%, which tells you what percentage of balls in play were hit hard. Kennedy's career #s are pretty high, 33.2% vLHB and 31.3% vRHB. His 2015 #s are higher, 35.2% and 34.3%, but not enough to warrant an 8-10% jump in HR/FB%.

So all in all we know that Kennedy is a decently solid pitcher and that his ERA this year is inflated due to an extreme HR/FB%. On a full slate you can probably find better pitchers to target, but you also don't have to shy away from taking batters against him.

Our look into Kennedy didn't really give us a chance to look at a good BABIP example. Take a look at Lucas Duda's 2015 splits. You might conclude that Duda mashes lefties based on his triple slash line, wOBA or wRC+. Let's look at his career numbers to confirm, since he only has 110 PAs vLHP this season. Hmm... looks like he sucks vLHP. So what's the deal this season. Take a look at his 2015 BABIP vLHP, .426! That's .100 points higher than his career average*. So we can conclude that Duda is running hot in a small sample and that going forward we shouldn't expect him to continue mashing lefties. Further evidence that he hasn't made any real improvement vLHP is his K% and BB% are nearly identical to his career averages.

I think a lot of people find Fangraphs intimidating. Hopefully that walkthrough helps to make it less so. I can't stress enough using the library (or other resources) to make sure you actually know what a stat means.

*When using BABIP to evaluate a player's luck, ALWAYS look at their career numbers. Chris Young outperforms his ERA estimators year after year because he's shown the ability to sustain a lower than league average BABIP.

Edit: I did not dive into projection systems like ZiPS or Steamer because I don't feel I'm at the point where I can confidently speak to them.

Thanks for this. It was helpful. To your point, I was found Fangraphs a bit intimidating just because there was so much to it and the interface isn't the most friendly but I'll play around with it.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 08:16 PM

#5335

Priptonite

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 17,204

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingkang27

Thanks for this. It was helpful. To your point, I was found Fangraphs a bit intimidating just because there was so much to it and the interface isn't the most friendly but I'll play around with it.

One thing you can do is create customized tables to filter out some of the stats that you're uninterested in. Once you get the hang of what you're looking for you can navigate the default tables pretty quickly, though.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 08:39 PM

#5336

kingkang27

centurion

Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 161

Quote:

Originally Posted by Priptonite

Oh sweet. Thanks again for sharing.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 09:42 PM

#5337

lebron_cramps

adept

Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 970

lots of Cueto/escobar/cain tonight. not looking so bad so far.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 10:49 PM

#5338

TasteIsKing9

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 1,360

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkgojackets

checking random entries in the $5 yahoo gpp. first guy is starting jon niese and a 4-man rockies stack. bold.

BeepimAjeep had a. Full Rockies 6 man stack with Niese. In the perfect game 300$. Must be nice to burn money for fun

Quote

08-10-2015 , 10:50 PM

#5339

fkjlhfdkjhkj.

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2013 Posts: 11,270

Here are some Dfs strats. Stack parra, sano, cola bello

Win every timid

Quote

08-10-2015 , 10:51 PM

#5340

TasteIsKing9

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 1,360

Cueto owners luckboxing hard. Sale phantomly hits Calhoun and Ventura ****ing takes him out. Cueto then strikeouts the side. 10 point swing

Quote

08-10-2015 , 10:52 PM

#5341

TasteIsKing9

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 1,360

and now see Cueto gonna get cgso on 120+ pitches. ****ing a

Quote

08-10-2015 , 10:57 PM

#5342

BillyPhelan

grinder

Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 630

Both RW and DK had F Guttierez as a non starter.Gooty just went deep (2nd inn) wtf.I derostered in a bunch of lus ffs.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 10:57 PM

#5343

lebron_cramps

adept

Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 970

Sale pitched better then I thought he would. Still wasn't nearly as crisp as Cueto. Absolutely beautiful gem of a night for that man.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 11:08 PM

#5344

lebron_cramps

adept

Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 970

I really liked Van Slyke coming into tonight. Have to get better and realize that for .2 more I could have had Adam Jones who slays LHP. Guess @SEA scared me off. How do you best gauge how a park shift will help/hurt a batter?

Quote

08-10-2015 , 11:19 PM

#5345

kingkang27

centurion

Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 161

Quote:

Originally Posted by lebron_cramps

Sale pitched better then I thought he would. Still wasn't nearly as crisp as Cueto. Absolutely beautiful gem of a night for that man.

yeh i feel dumb for having zero cueto tonight... woulda crushed tonight with Cueto. Instead went Sale / Gray and Dbacks stack. Sitting at 140 right now.

Quote

08-10-2015 , 11:23 PM

#5346

StoppedRainingMen

Player Hater of the Year

Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 53,670

i think when you go with ian kennedy in DFS you get what you deserve

(went with kennedy. fml)

Quote

08-11-2015 , 12:01 AM

#5347

ballin4life

veteran

Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 2,121

Priptonite,

Can you please stop educating people on RG and reddit comments.

Thanks

Quote

08-11-2015 , 12:05 AM

#5348

ChiefBlackfoot

grinder

Join Date: Jul 2014 Posts: 561

Elite pitcher owning everyone at home goes 120 PC and TIK goes ape. Sale was likely the better pick at SP but c'mon why are you not griping about Niese getting that W down 2-1?

Quote

08-11-2015 , 12:08 AM

#5349

SA16

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 6,972

Quote:

Originally Posted by lebron_cramps

I really liked Van Slyke coming into tonight. Have to get better and realize that for .2 more I could have had Adam Jones who slays LHP. Guess @SEA scared me off. How do you best gauge how a park shift will help/hurt a batter?

This isn't true.