MLB Trendspotting: Thursday, May 17th
Welcome to a very random (and even cooler) edition of the classic 2017-era article “Trendspotting.” This article was designed as a daily look back at recent trends using the latest and greatest in advanced stats. The idea was that if we can understand “why” faster than our opponents, we can gain an edge.
If you are a newer player or don’t dig into the numbers… this next part is for you.
wOBA. ISO. wRC+. OPS. OPS+. K%. K/9. BB%. BB/9. WAR. BABIP. wRAA. GB%. FB%. LD%. IFFB%. XFIP. SIERA. Oswing%. FF. FT. FTSI. CUKC. Soft%. Med%. Hard%. SwStrk%. FStrike%. EV. Launch Angle. Distance. xWOBA.
Those are the baseball stats we casually toss around like it’s kindergarten reading material. It’s not. It’s complicated stuff. That’s why I created the Trendspotting scoring system last year, so I could boil it down and present you with a single number representation of the matchup. That’s also why we took that idea and made it a billion times better with PlateIQ Premium Ratings this year. We wanted to give newer players something that could hang their hat on while learning the game. We want to give you time to learn about the numbers and what they mean before you get squashed by the sea of nerds, accountants, scientists, brainiacs, numbers guys, and other degenerates who are experts in understanding these analytics already. After all, they are competing against you daily DFS.
Based on the PlateIQ Ratings, I’ll dive into the numbers and find you trends you can use both today, and in the future to understand player performance. Let’s fire up PlateIQ and some other sites like baseballsavant.com, Brooks Baseball, FanGraphs, and any other baseball analytics source we can find to see what we can uncover.
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Comments
Blogger of the Month
Solid info, I usually get confused by all of this when I research. Thanks for putting things in perspective
This was a go-to read last year! Been missing it and been meaning to write to coax this article out of retirement. Hopefully the first of many more!
I’m not sure if you check this page Chris, but quick question –
Should I consider giving slight projection downgrades to hitters with extreme spray chart batted ball tendencies? Or is it more just something to be aware of?
Thanks in advance
Thank you for taking the time. I enjoy the info please continue.
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2015 DraftKings FFWC Finalist
2016 DraftKings FBWC Finalist
It’s really not the first thing to consider or even the 10th thing to consider … but having knowledge of it and the associated park factors can’t hurt. I would say it’s fine to be aware but there are bigger fish to fry with limited research time on most days.
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Moderator
Throwback Thursday love this!! Bring it back thanks for the content Gimino always love this article
You bring some much needed clarity to what these numbers actually mean. I have always felt you are the sneaky smartest of all the experts.
awesome content as always, glad trendspotting is back