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by Ethan Haskell (Ethan) Last Updated 2013-07-20 18:13:42

MLB Daily Research Tools FAQ

The MLB Daily Research Console is jam-packed with tools to both help you quickly find player info for each day’s games as well as to allow you to be interactive when deciding between players. From the Daily Lineups page that provides a feed from RotoWire as MLB Lineups come in to the Player Comparison Tool that allows you to compare two hitters, four hitters or two pitchers, the MLB Daily Research Console has what you need to win consistently.

MLB Daily Research Tools List

Click any tool below to jump down the page to the FAQ section for that tool

MLB Player Splits

1) Which batter splits can be found on the MLB Splits Page?

There are also two other tools for the forward-thinking crowd linked from the top of each page:

2) What are the stats shown for each player?

NOTE: All /AB statistics are per at bat rather than the total statistic. So if a player has 4 home runs in 12 at bats against a pitcher, his /AB in parentheses for home runs will be .333

Weekly MLB Cheat Sheets

1) What are each of the cheat sheets?

There are four cheat sheets for MLB, each of which is designed to help make the day-to-day daily research more efficient:

1) Weekly Batter Cheat Sheet
2) Weekly Batter vs. Pitcher Cheat Sheet
3) Weekly Pitcher Cheat Sheet
4) Weekly Pitcher vs. Offense Cheat Sheet

2) What is the Weekly Batter Cheat Sheet?

The weekly batter cheat sheet finds all players who have an OPS over .950 in one of the four major batting splits (Home, Road, vs. Left, and vs. Right). It then shows you all matchups for the upcoming week where a “cheat sheet batter” or someone who has an OPS over .950 in a certain split has a favorable matchup.

There are two tables on the Weekly Batter Cheat Sheet:

Table 1: The top table shows all of the batter targets, or players with OPS over .950 in each of the four splits listed above.

Table 2: The second table goes through each day of the upcoming week and shows which players have advantageous splits on each day. This table also shows the expected opponent starting pitcher and the target split for which that player has an OPS over .950.

3) What is the Batter vs. Pitcher Cheat Sheet?

The batter vs. pitcher cheat sheet is derived strictly from BvP splits. At the start of each week, the splits for the upcoming week are collected and players are targeted on the BvP Cheat Sheet by meeting BOTH of the following 2 criteria:

If a player matches the two criteria above, he is put on the Batter vs. Pitcher Cheat sheet for that day. Full stats for each target batter are shown on the BvP Cheat Sheet as well.

3) What is the Pitcher Cheat Sheet?

The pitcher cheat sheet is intended to help find the best matchups, regardless of a pitcher’s talent or personal statistics. It solely looks at opponents each day in helping find you the best possible matchup.

Matchup ratings are based on OPS for combo-splits. There are 4 combo-splits possibly derived from Home, Road, vs. Left and vs. Right:

Each team is ranked for each combo-split above in order of best to worst OPS. So if the Tigers have an OPS of .750 at Home and .800 vs. Left Handed Pitching, their combo-split would be Home, vs. Left with an OPS of .775.

The best 5 and worst 5 teams for each combo split are listed at the top of the page.

The table then shows you each pitcher matchup, broken down by day, for the upcoming week. Matchups that are favorable (against a bottom-5 team for a given combo split) are shown in green. Matchups that are unfavorable (against a top-5 team for a given combo split) are shown in red.

4) What is the Pitcher vs. Offense Page?

The Pitcher vs. Offense page differs from the Pitcher Cheat Sheet in 2 ways. First, it takes into account personal statistics for each pitcher. Second, it directly averages those pitcher stats with his opponent’s team batting averages.

So if Justin Verlander was pitching against the Red Sox and he had a season ERA of 3.8 and the Red Sox were averaging 4.2 runs per game, Justin Verlander RUNS total would be 4 on the Pitcher vs. Offense Cheat Sheet (the average of 3.8 and 4.2).

This page takes into account several key stats used in daily fantasy:

Stats that favor the pitcher are shown in green. Stats that are not favorable for a pitcher are shown in red

Daily Starting Pitcher Hub

The Hub is your one stop shop for daily fantasy specific information about starting pitchers. The SP Hub covers all of the bases for your pitcher research. There are 4 pages/tools included in the Daily SP Hub:

What is Daily Pitcher vs. Batter Data?

Daily Pitcher vs. Batter stats take the sum of all batters a pitcher has faced on the opposing team for that day and totals them to make a “reverse BvP split”. For example:

Francisco Liriano is facing the Chicago Cubs. Cubs batters have the following stats against him:

Nate Schierholtz: 15 At Bats, 8 Hits, 2 Home Runs, 4 Strikeouts
Anthony Rizzo: 12 At Bats, 1 Hit, 0 Home Runs, 7 Strikeouts

The Pitcher vs. Batter split would be 27 at bats, 9 hits allowed, 2 HR allowed and 11 K’s against.

It’s a great way of seeing whether a starting pitcher has had success against the players they will likely face each day.

The stats shown for Pitcher vs. Batter Data are:

What is the Daily SP Splits Page?

The Daily Starting Pitcher Splits Page is meant to be a reference tool for all of the important split statistics for that days pitchers. Updated nightly, the SP Splits Page shows Pitcher Splits for the coming day whether they are at home or on the road, as well as their stats against both right and left handed batters.

Stats shown for Home/Road splits are:

Stats shown for vs. Left and Right Handed Batters are:

Color coding for ERA stats are used for all of the splits on this page:

ERA Stats Shown In Red are Over 5
ERA Stats Shown In Green Are Under 3

What is the Daily Starting Pitcher Ballpark Breakdown?

The Ballpark Breakdown page is the 3rd tool in the Starting Pitcher Daily Hub to help you further analyze the day’s pitching matchups. On this page you’ll find everything you need to know about the ballpark conditions that may affect the pitcher that day.

All stats designated with BPR in front are weighted against all ballparks in the Major Leagues. These stats are updated weekly for the current MLB season. Any ballpark rating over 1 can be considered favorable for hitters. Ballpark Ratings under 1 can be considered favorable for pitching.

Stats shown on this page are:

Total bases are found by giving 1 base for a single, 2 for a double, 3 for a triple and 4 for a home run

What is the Starting Pitcher Matchup Breakdown Page?

The Starting Pitcher Matchup Breakdown is designed for those who like to find pitchers facing the worst opposing offenses on a given day. It shows three key statistics for three opposing team batting splits each day:

Split #1) Seas – Opponent Batting for the entire season
Split #2) LR – Opponent Batting versus left/right handed pitching (based on opposing pitcher each day)
Split #3) HA – Opponent Batting at home or on the road (based on game location each day)

Player Comparison Tools

There are three player comparison tools for MLB Daily Research that can be used as incentives only tools for each daily fantasy site. Each comparison tool is site-specific in that it looks at both fantasy output based on each site’s scoring system and player value based on daily salaries for each player on all sites.

In baseball, the importance of site-specific scoring and value ratings is essential because of the wide array of scoring systems used.

Player Comparison Tool #1) Daily Batter Comparison
Player Comparison Tool #2) Two vs. Two Batter Comparison
Player Comparison Tool #3) Daily Pitcher Comparison

Hot Streak Hitters

Hot Streak Hitters shows three pages worth of information to help you better understand which players are performing the best of late:

1) Hit Streaks – All players with over a 5 game hit streak shown
2) Last 7 Days – Top-50 Players in terms of FPPG over the past 7 days shown
3) Last 14 Days – Top-50 Players in terms of FPPG over the past 14 days shown

Advanced Stats and Sabermetrics

The MLB Advanced Stats and Sabermetrics page shows a number of next-level figures to help improve your overall understanding of the game. Sabermetrics can be difficult to interpret but are extremely useful in reading trends and understanding what to expect from players in the near future:

Legend

Ballpark Factors

Whether you’re looking to find the best pitcher or find a sneaky group of hitters to stack, Ballpark factors can help play a role in your daily fantasy baseball research process. Updated weekly, the Ballpark Factors page shows park factors for three important categories:

1) General Factors (all batters)
2) Left Hand Batter Specific Factors
3) Right Hand Batter Specific Factors

The entire page is color-coded based on each park’s leniency towards hitters. The stats in blue and green favor batters while the stats in red and yellow tend to favor pitchers.

Also, all stats are set to a weighted average of 1 and compared to the league average. This means that you can easily interpret just how drastic a given ballpark aids or hurts a certain handed hitter, or all hitters. Basically, the higher each park factor stat is above 1, the more favorable that park is to hitters. The lower a ballpark factor stat is below 1, the more favorable it is to pitchers.

Left and right handed batter ratings are based on On Base Plus Slugging Statistics

Team Stats

Team Stats are fairly straightforward. There are 5 categories of team statistics shown. 3 for hitting and 2 for pitching.

1) Team Batting
2) Opponent Batting
3) Team Pitching
4) Opponent Pitching
5) Team Batting Splits – This includes home, road, vs. Left and vs. Right

General stats are shown for each and the batting splits pages are color coded to help you better understand which teams to exploit or avoid in certain situations.

Closer Charts

Closers aren’t used on most DFS sites but they remain on a small number so the closer chart is a necessity when playing on DraftStreet or FantasyFeud. Shown on this chart are the closers for each team as long as the “next-in-line” player who would close if the #1 closer was demoted or unable to pitch. Also shown on the first table are statistics for each closer.

The second table shows Team Bullpen Statistics which can be especially useful when looking at a team facing a spot-starter who may only throw a few innings or when considering GPP plays against a stud pitcher with a weak bullpen behind him.

Vegas Odds and Lines

Vegas Odds and Lines are one of the most important factors in MLB Daily Fantasy Research. Understanding which games are expected to be high or low scoring is crucial in player selection. The majority of figures shown on this page are based directly on the Vegas Line set by oddsmakers. The one stat we do add to our Vegas Odds page is Projected Runs for each team.

Calculating Projected Runs for each team comes from a combination of the runline, which in MLB is always set to -1.5 for the favored team, the game total runs scored line, and the overall game moneyline for a straight bet (i.e. the moneyline for betting on a team to win with no run-line).

Each moneyline is associated with a probability percentage. So consider the following sample:

New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox

Runline/Spread: Boston (-1.5)
Game Moneyline: Boston (-155)
Total Runs Scored: 9 Runs

Each team’s projected runs would then be calculated with the following formula:

= (SPREAD + TOTAL RUNS/2) + ((Spread Moneyline Probability Percent * Projected Runs)/2)

Player Prop Bets

The other element of Vegas Odds is player prop bets. These lines are player specific and incredibly useful in daily fantasy sports. There are 4 major player prop bets that we show on our page:

1) Total Hits, Runs and RBI’s
2) Odds to Hit a HR
3) Odds to Record a Hit
4) Total Strikeouts (Pitchers)

For Total Hits, Runs and RBI’s and Total Strikeouts, an over/under line is set similar to total runs in the game’s Vegas Odds. A moneyline is then associated to both the over and under of that line and can be attributed to a likelihood percentage.

For example, if A.J. Burnett’s Total Strikeouts line was set at 6:

Over Moneyline = (-120) = 54.5% Chance Burnett strikes out over 6 batters
Under Moneyline = (+110) = 47.6% chance Burnett strikes out less than 6 batters

For Odds to Record a Hit or Home Run, the logic is the same except instead of setting an exact number to target for, you are simply looking at the likelihood of one event occuring. For both, you want to target hitters with lower numbers.

About the Author

Ethan
Ethan Haskell (Ethan)