MLB DFS: Respect Your Elders
One of my go-to strategies as a season long fantasy player is to sit back and wait for value late in drafts with underappreciated veterans. I call this my BOG strategy, “Boring Old Guys”. I have found that the same bias exists in DFS; everyone wants the exciting young player who has this mythical “upside” that is so enticing. And the fact that the upside does show up for some players makes the strategy even more prevalent. When Bryce Harper or Joc Pederson goes on a home run binge, it gets talked about non-stop, because it is new and exciting. When Adam Jones gets hot, nobody really cares. Do you even know that Adam Jones has homers in three of his last five games? If Pederson did, that would be the lead story on Sportscenter, but we’ve seen what Adam Jones can do, so it’s not worth talking about. The thing is, being consistently really good over a proven period of time is incredibly valuable.
Another bias that exists with older players vs young players is people are very willing to ride out a slump with young players. But when an older player goes into a slump, they get written off and people tend to assume their entire career is just drawing to a close. Very few players just fall off a cliff and go from being All-Stars to unplayable overnight.
I’m going to look at some of the boring old guys who are struggling to start the season, and have seen their salaries drop, to determine who is still worth playing in the right matchups. It is generally easier to play these BOGs on FanDuel as their salaries tend to remain low for a period of time regardless of matchup.
David Ortiz
2013 – 14.7% K, 12.7% BB, .321 BABIP, 17.9% HR/FB
2014 – 15.8% K, 12.5% BB, .256 BABIP, 17.9% HR/FB
2015 – 15.8% K, 10.4% BB, .234 BABIP, 10.7% HR/FB
Ortiz has a $2,500 salary on FanDuel as of June 10th. The plate discipline is holding up fine, even if his career low BABIP from 2014 was real, he should get up to at least that level. The HR/FB could start to fall from its very consistent 18-20%, but he will end up above 10.7%. Against right-handed pitching, he has a 14% K rate with 15.3% BB rate to go with a .371 wOBA and 138 wRC+. This is still a very good hitter against right-handed pitching.
Yonder Alonso costs $3,100 on FanDuel thanks to his.398 BABIP. Ortiz has a .234 BABIP. Who do you really think is a better hitter, 28-year old Yonder Alonso or 39-year old David Ortiz?
Chase Utley
2013 – 14.9% K, 8.5% BB, .305 BABIP, 10.6% HR/FB
2014 – 12.8% K, 8.0% BB, .295 BABIP, 5.9% HR/FB
2015 – 13.7% K, 8.5% BB, .196 BABIP, 6.3% HR/FB
I talked about Utley in my piece about BABIP outliers, but I’ll say it again; there’s no way this guy is going to have a BABIP under .200. I still view him as a .300 BABIP hitter, but even if you want to assume he’s started falling off the cliff, it’s still going to come up from where it is. Joe Panik sits at $3,200 on FanDuel to Utley’s $2,500. Panik has almost identical peripherals as Utley, but he has a .346 BABIP. I’m not going to call for Utley to match Panik’s BABIP the rest of the way, but these are really very similar hitters. If I can still play tennis at age 40, Utley can still BABIP over .250 at age 36.
Robinson Cano
2013 – 12.5% K, 9.5% BB, .327 BABIP, 17.3% HR/FB
2014 – 10.2% K, 9.2% BB, .335 BABIP, 10.7% HR/FB
2015 – 16.9% K, 5.0% BB, .285 BABIP, 4.4% HR/FB
I am less sure on what to make of Robinson Cano because of the increase in strikeout rate and the drop in walk rate. His plate discipline has always been his biggest strength, and if he doesn’t have that, he’s not going to be the same guy. I am optimistic based on his Hard Hit Ball % on Fangraphs being at 34.6%, after a 28.5% number in 2014. Additionally, his line drive rate is holding steady at 23.9%, which is above league average, as it has always been. His strikeout rate against RHP is at 14.6% which is still very good, just not what it has been in the past for him. Bottom line on Cano is I am not going to try to talk you into playing him, but he will be showing up in my cash game lineups against below average right-handed pitchers with his salary at $2,300 on FanDuel. Seriously, $2,300. And, in what kind of world is 32-years old over the hill?
Pablo Sandoval
2013 – 13.5% K, 8.0% BB, .301 BABIP, 8.3% HR/FB
2014 – 13.3% K, 6.1% BB, .300 BABIP, 8.6% HR/FB
2015 – 14.4% K, 6.0% BB, .260 BABIP, 11.4% HR/FB
Glancing at the numbers above, I wouldn’t even guess that Sandoval was having a bad year. Everything looks fine, and I’d expect a bump in BABIP. A deeper look shows that Sandoval has fallen off the map against left-handed pitching, but is as good as always against righties. Against RHP, he has a .361 wOBA and 131 wRC+ with an 11.8% K rate and 7.6% BB rate. Because his bad numbers against lefties are factored in, he is minimum salary on FanDuel at $2,200. I went to my thesaurus to find a word besides silly to describe that salary against RHP; I’m going to go with “nonsensical”, although I like the word “tomfool” quite a bit too.
Everybody loves Manny Machado, because as you know, he’s young. Here are his numbers that cost you $3,300; 18.7% K, 7.9% BB, .293 BABIP, 13.4% HR/FB, 44/17/39 GB/LD/FB. Don’t get me wrong, Machado is a better hitter right now than Sandoval, with a much higher Hard Hit %, but depending on the matchup, it’s closer than you might think.
Melky Cabrera
2013 – 12.6% K, 6.2% BB, .313 BABIP, 3.2% HR/FB
2014 – 10.8% K, 6.9% BB, .316 BABIP, 10.7% HR/FB
2015 – 10.7% K, 5.3% BB, .256 BABIP, 1.7% HR/FB
Much like Pablo Sandoval, this is a player whose salary is too low for matchups against right-handed pitching. His terrible start against left-handed pitching is bringing down his overall numbers. In cash games, I love finding hitters who don’t strike out, and Melky Cabrera does not strike out. The dude is only 30-years old, and his BABIP is going to resemble his incredibly consistent .300+ range the rest of the way. I understand how much you don’t want to play Melky Cabrera, and you don’t have to, but I’ll be taking my advice with this boring old guy who is 10 years younger than me.
Adam Jones
2013 – 19.7% K, 3.6% BB, .314 BABIP, 19.9% HR/FB
2014 – 19.5% K, 2.8% BB, .311 BABIP, 15.8% HR/FB
2015 – 14.7% K, 4.3% BB, .328 BABIP, 15.0% HR/FB
I bring up Adam Jones, not because he is having a bad season, but simply to further illustrate my point. Adam Jones is really good at baseball. He has been really good for the past four seasons. He is hitting just as well this season as last, maybe even better with a drop in K rate. He costs $3,400 on FanDuel. How often do you play Adam Jones? How often do you even consider him? I would guess it’s not nearly as often as you consider the more expensive Joc Pederson with his 30% strikeout rate or Starling Marte with his incredibly unsustainable 37% HR/FB rate. Adam Jones is 29-years old. Twenty-nine. (I’m screaming that 29). It’s amazing how quickly some players can turn into Boring Old Guys. Respect Your Elders.
It is not my job to tell you which players you should play, and honestly, there are plenty of reasons not to play some of these guys. We don’t ever know for sure when a rough start from an older player is the start of a downward trend that is not going to reverse itself. But in DFS, the salaries move along with the slow starts, so pay attention to the underlying numbers and then you can decide which way you think they are likely to go.