MLB DFS: Why Hitting The Ball Is Good
Last Updated: Feb, 2019
This is an article written prior to the 2015 season, so the stats referenced are from 2014. The main points remain the same, but there have been a few notable changes in the game since then. The biggest change as it relates to this topic is the rising strikeout trend in the game. In 2014, the league average K% was 20.4%, and here is where it has gone the past few seasons:
2016 – 21.1%
2017 – 21.6%
2018 – 22.3%
As the strikeout rate has risen, I have continued to move my targets for what K% I’m willing to accept for hitters in cash games. I used to aim for 20% or lower, but am more willing now to use hitters with K rates into the mid-20’s, as you’re sacrificing too much power potential in today’s game to only focus on low strikeout hitters.
This was also written back when FanDuel had negative hitter points for outs, and when their scoring was generally 3-3.5x lower across the board for every category, in addition to removing negatives for an out. Factoring in higher scores per stat and not losing points for outs, a players 2014 FD score would be roughly 4x higher in 2018.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
One of my favorite movie lines of all-time comes from Moneyball, when Brad “Billy Beane” Pitt says to the old scouts, “If he’s a good hitter, why doesn’t he hit good?” Makes me laugh every time.
One of the daily struggles in playing DFS is figuring out how you define what a good hitter is. Is a good hitter someone who can hit two HRs and win you a GPP, but more often goes 0-for-4? Or is a good hitter a guy who has a higher percentage of positive days, but rarely gives you that big score?
Of course, the answer is that every day and every type of contest are different, and beyond that, each of us develops our own style of play. But, at the very least, even if there’s no correct answer, you can improve your DFS skills by learning to understand what makes a player who he is. Today we’re going to look at plate discipline, which is a hitter’s ability to control the strike zone, focusing mostly on strikeouts, which is also commonly talked about in terms of contact rate.
Baseball is very unpredictable on a short term basis, and it’s been shown that after a ball is hit into the field of play, we really don’t know what is going to happen with much accuracy. So, it makes sense to focus more on what are the most consistent and predictable stats. And, you guessed it, it’s strikeouts, for both batters and pitchers. The other side of plate discipline, walks, is also a highly consistent metric. Close behind are ground ball and fly ball tendencies. Home runs also predictable from year-to-year, and my previous column talked about finding home runs from fly ball percentages. What I mean by most predictable and consistent stats, is that they correlate strongly from season to season and they also stabilize more quickly into a season than other stats. According to Fangraphs, it takes only 60 PA for K% and 120 PA for BB% for the numbers to become meaningful.
The league average strikeout rate is right around 20%, and it has been climbing for the past decade. In 2005, the average K% was 16.4% and it has gone up every season to 2014’s 20.4%. Let’s take a look at the hitters with the best and worst strikeout rates last season:
The worst (highest) strikeout rates for hitters with a minimum of 400 PA are exactly the types of players you would probably expect: Tyler Flowers 36%, Mike Zunino 33.2%, Alex Avila 33%, Chris Davis 33%, Jarrod Saltalamacchia 32.9%, Drew Stubbs 32.1%, Chris Carter 31.8%, Adam Dunn 31.1%, Oswaldo Arcia 31% and BJ (Melvin) Upton 29.7%. Even if you had never thought to look at batters’ strikeout rates, you probably could’ve guessed several of those names.
How about the best (lowest) strikeout rates among hitters with 400 PA: Victor Martinez 6.6%, Jose Altuve 7.5%, Ben Revere 7.8%, Michael Brantley 8.3%, Nori Aoki 8.9%, Kurt Suzuki 9.1%, Erick Aybar 9.7%, Denard Span 9.7%, Albert Pujols 10.2%, Robinson Cano 10.2%. In this list we find a combination of stars, speedsters and underappreciated contact hitters with no power. I hope you were surprised to see Kurt Suzuki on this list, as we’re going to talk more about him.
I have always used strikeout rates as a key tool in deciding whether or not to use a player in cash games. I strongly avoid high strikeout players in cash games, and target good contact hitters against low strikeout pitchers. In tournaments, when searching for upside, I am mostly ignoring strikeout rate, and focusing on fly ball hitters with good HR/FB%. But, is that a sound strategy?
I am going to really dig into some numbers that I am hopeful will confirm my hypothesis on why certain players are better cash game plays vs other players who are better GPP plays using nothing but strikeout rate, with the knowledge we already have about home runs coming from fly balls. A couple of the names that stood out to me on the top 10 lists were Mike Zunino at a 33.2% K% and Kurt Suzuki at a 9.1% K%. They appeared in about the same number of games, similar number of at-bats, and were at a similar salary most of 2014. And get this; they each scored 229 FanDuel points in 2014! The only major differences in these two players are that Kurt Suzuki hits a lot of ground balls and rarely strikes out, while Mike Zunino hits a lot of fly balls and strikes out a lot.
NOTE – Changing the FanDuel scoring to 2018 levels, Zunino would have scored a total of 1006 FD points, Suzuki 980. A slight advantage gained by the guy not losing as many points for outs, as you would expect, but they remain close.
Using FanDuel scoring, in 2014, Kurt Suzuki scored 0 or negative points in 28 games. He scored 0.25-4.75 points in 84 games. He scored 5 or more points 18 times, with just 3 of those games being over 8 points.
Mike Zunino scored 0 or negative points 52 times. He scored 0.25-4.75 points in 53 games. He scored 5 or more points 26 times, with 10 of those games being 8+ points.
Of course, these two players are extreme examples, but it does show the point that making contact brings more consistency, while strikeouts and fly balls bring more upside with more volatility. Kurt Suzuki’s strong contact rate helped him to score negative points just 21% of the time. Mike Zunino, on the other hand, posted a negative score in 40% of his games. A whopping 81% of Zunino’s 229 FanDuel points for the whole season came from the 20% of games where he posted 5+ points.
I wanted to see if these numbers would hold up with better players, so I found a couple marquee players to analyze based on strikeout rate and fly ball rate. I present to you Robinson Cano with his 10.2% strikeout rate and 25% fly ball rate, and Justin Upton with his 26.7% strikeout rate and 40% fly ball rate. In 2014, Cano scored 422 FanDuel points in 157 games , while Justin Upton scored 434 points in 154 games. Clearly, Justin Upton is a different level of player than Mike Zunino, so the numbers aren’t quite as jarring, but the theory definitely holds up.
NOTE – Using 2018 FD scoring, Cano would have scored 1664 points, Upton 1686.
Robinson Cano scored 0 or negative points 24 times, 0.25-4.75 points 103 times, and 5 or more points in 30 games, with just 7 of those games being over 8 points.
Justin Upton scored 0 or negative points 36 times, 0.25-4.75 points 79 times, and 5 or more points in 39 games, with 19 of those
games being over 8 points.
Essentially, Upton with his 26.7% strikeout rate is giving you a high percentage of low scoring days with an occasional big game. Upton scored 44% of his points in 12% of his games in 2014. Cano and his 10.2% strikeout rate gave you a solid base of points at much more even levels, without the big game upside.
I wanted to see how these numbers would hold up using DraftKings scoring, and what I found was more confirmation for the importance of contact rate and predictability. Since there are more points scored on DK, I split the scores up into even more groupings, and here is what I found: Cano scored 0 points in 13% of his games, Upton scored 0 points 22% of the time. But, here’s where it gets very interesting, I ran the numbers for the following point groupings; 2-4, 5-7, 8-10, 11-14, 15-19 and 20-26. Cano outscored Upton in every single one of the point groupings until we got to the 20-point barrier. Every single one. Upton scored either 0 or 20+ points 34% of the time, while Cano scored either 0 or 20+ just 18% of the time. The DraftKings numbers on Suzuki vs Zunino showed the same thing; Zunino scored either 0 or 20+ points 46% of the time, while Suzuki was at 0 or 20+ points just 24% of the time. Suzuki outpaced Zunino at every single point level from 2-19.
I want to point out a couple disclaimers in conclusion. I only used data from four players here, so this is too small of a sample size to make a decisive conclusion. And, there are so many more factors in play, with countless other stats and the importance of opposing pitcher. But, I am personally a big believer in using a hitter’s contact rate as a key factor in my daily analysis, and the fact that this data showed exactly what I thought it would only enhances my opinion.
Additionally, I am not making the case that you shouldn’t ever play less reliable hitters with home run upside in cash games. There are a lot of different ways to go about building rosters, and of course every day brings different matchups. I am just trying to bring more clarity to what makes hitters who they are, so you have more tools at your disposal to figure out how to put together the best DFS lineups you can. Now, go get some guys that hit good!