How Hot and Cold Streaks Should Affect Your Daily Fantasy Contest Lineups
How Hot and Cold Streaks Should Affect Your Daily Fantasy Contest Lineups
In addition to a full time job as a software product manager, Alex Zelvin works part time for Fanduel.com (Zoobird on FanDuel) and co-owns Dailybaseballdata.com
I’m expecting this article to generate some disagreement. That’s because I don’t really believe in hot and cold streaks. Actually, I should be more precise. I don’t believe that hot and cold streaks are extreme enough to be detected by reviewing recent performance. And I’m not totally convinced that they exist, except in cases where they’re the result of an actual change in a player’s ability. In any case, I’ve yet to see any convincing evidence that they have predictive value.
That said, I don’t ignore recent player performance entirely. When I review recent statistical performance, I’m looking for good or bad performances that indicate a medium or long term change in a player’s actual ability to play baseball well. That could be something like an injury or a major mechanical problem that hurts performance, or it could be a young player who has ‘figured things out’ and reached a new level of ability.
So how can you be sure that such a situation exists, rather than a player’s recent performance being the result of random variance? You can’t. But you can look for certain indications that there’s a better than usual chance that something has changed. If one or more of these exist, then it might be enough to favor a player with strong recent performance over a similar player who hasn’t been as hot. Or it may be enough to steer clear of a player who you rate more highly, in favor of a ‘safer’ player. Here are some of the signs that may indicate a player’s recent performance shows a true change in ability.
- Recent performance in statistics that are more reliable predictors may be meaningful, where random variance is much more likely to be the cause in less reliable statistics. For pitchers, the only common statistics that I place much stock in are strikeout rate and walk rate. Those tend to be very stable over time, and 3 or 4 sub par games in those statistics may indicate a problem, while statistics such as ERA (and especially wins) fluctuate so much that no conclusions can be drawn over periods shorter than a few months.
- When weak recent performance is accompanied by news or rumors of an injury.
- When weak recent performance is accompanied by news of a mechanical problem. I always find this more convincing when the mechanical problem is known to exist before it impacts the player’s statistics noticeably. Otherwise, I suspect that the player (or coach or analyst) is coming up with an explanation for a problem that may not exist.
- When weak recent performance is accompanied by a drop in velocity for a pitcher. This is especially meaningful if an injury or mechanical problem is involved.
- Surprisingly strong performance by a very young player is more likely to indicate an actual change in ability.
- Surprisingly poor performance by a very old player is more likely to indicate an actual change in ability.
- When several different statistical measures seem to provide confirmation of each other. For example, when a pitcher has an improved strikeout rate and walk rate. Or when a hitter hits more home runs and doubles.
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Evaluating Current Examples of Streaky Players
| Johnny Cueto |
|---|
| 2.01 ERA in July – Unfortunately, the 18 strikeouts and 13 walks in 31.1 innings pitched suggest that the strong ERA was something of a mirage. That’s not to say he’s a bad pitcher…just that his seemingly strong performance in July doesn’t suggest any kind of breakout. |
| Johan Santana |
| 2.06 ERA in July – Similar case to Cueto. 43.2 IP with only 28 strikeouts and 11 walks. The old Johan is not back. |
| Travis Wood |
| 2.87 ERA in July – This looks like a case where his performance indicates that he’s for real. I’m not saying that he’s going to continue to pitch to a 2.87 ERA, but I do think that his July performance suggests that he’s probably a lot better than expected prior to his call up from the minors. He struck out 33 batters and walked only 10 in 37.2 innings. And he’s at an age (23) where rapid improvement isn’t unusual. |
| Delmon Young |
| .434 batting average, 6 home runs, and 12 doubles in July – The strong numbers across the board, combined with his age (still only 24) suggest to me that some real improvement is taking place for Young. This isn’t the same player we saw in previous years. |
| Rickie Weeks |
| 9 HR in July – This doesn’t look like it indicates a move to a new level of ability. He hit a modest .292 in July and managed only 3 doubles. It seems as though he just got lucky with a few more hits that normally would end up as doubles clearing the fence. Weeks’ July was another solid month in a solid season, but not the kind of ‘hot’ performance that we should pay much attention to. |