What I’m going to write about is counter-intuitive in the context of fantasy sports as we are generally concerned with individual performance and its derivatives that the aggregate performance of teams becomes the noise from which we must distinguish signal. But in certain cases, we can learn things about team philosophies and skill sets that can be applied in a predictive way toward future individual performance.
You know these things anecdotally of course. The Dodgers and Rays have short leashes on their starting pitchers. The Mets and Reds have horrific bullpens. The Indians can’t hit lefthanded pitching. The Tigers are bad at everything. This information becomes useful the more specific and more finite to a particular category it is, and when it is an extreme in one direction or the other. On that note, I give you…
The Swiping Padres
In today’s three true outcomes game, there’s been plenty of media guffawing that there isn’t enough action and strategy. For many reasons, the Padres have been antithetical to this narrative, but the one most useful from a fantasy perspective is their penchant for stealing bases. Through 44 games, they are lapping the field with 45 stolen bases, with the next closest team, the Royals, trailing by 12 with 33 swipes through 42 games. If you were wondering, the Yankees are in last place with 8 pilfers, which is as many as Fernando Tatis Jr. by himself. The Yankees have played in 44 games, while Tatis has only played in 27.
What’s more, who was the 2020 leader in steals? The Padres. While the differential wasn’t quite as high then, despite that being a 60-game sample, which leads me to believe that the Padres are being even MORE aggressive on the base paths this season. They’ve also been extremely effective- Wil Myers has been caught 3 times, and Manny Machado twice, everyone else not more than once despite having nine players with at least three steals.
So, why? Why are the Padres doing all this running about when all of the other teams are content to sit back and knock the ball out of the yard? Well, they are aggressive in all aspects of the game, and have a core full of young, fast and athletic players. This style of play makes sense, and will continue to make sense, and thus the seemingly unsustainable rate of theft may actually hold up for the season. Whether you are looking for speed to help out your roto teams or are needing a tiebreaker to help you make DFS decisions, the Padres will be there for you, one stolen base at a time.
Angels in the Batter’s Box
There seems to be somewhat of a predictive element, or at the very least the appearance of a correlation, to using simply walks to determine how successful a team is this season. Four of the top five teams in BB% so far this season are the Dodgers, White Sox, Giants and Padres, two division leaders and two teams thought by many to be the best in baseball to begin the season. At the other end of the spectrum, though are the Angels, who have delivered anything but a heavenly performance in the walk category this season, putting up a dismal 7% walk rate thus far.
To make matters worse, their best hitter (anyone’s best hitter) Mike Trout will be on the IL for quite some time, their next best hitter takes days off because he is also their best pitcher, and their third best hitter (Anthony Rendon) hasn’t really been to get in a rhythm due to injuries. Some of the time they are left with little more than Jared Walsh and Justin Upton to anchor a lineup that already did not do much to strike fear into the hearts of opposing pitchers.
But how is this actionable? That’s where the causation of the lack of walks is important and plays a role. It can’t just be that the Angels lineup is filled with undisciplined hitters, although I didn’t go through a full O-Swing% deep dive as that is getting too far in the weeds even for me. What I do think it means, at least in part, is that pitchers are going to be aggressive in the zone from the beginning of the game. This is an important note, as we all have more pitchers than we might care to admit with control issues on our season long rosters, and you might be more interested in a high strikeout upside arm with some control issues against the Angels for DFS purposes. Unsurprisingly, the Angels who are not only worst in BB%, are also third worst in hard hit%. It’s going to be tough sledding for them ahead.
Rangers Excessive Lefthanded Pitcher Problem
Due to an unfortunate confluence of roster rebuilding and adding literal injury (namely, losing two right-handed relievers to Tommy John surgery) to the figurative injury of the rebuild, the Rangers have found themselves in an unusual predicament of having an extremely left-handed bullpen. With four of their five starting pitchers being right handed, it helps combat the problem a bit, but let’s take a look at that bullpen.
RHP
- Ian Kennedy (closer)
- Josh Sborz
- Hunter Wood
- Brett de Geus
LHP
- Koby Allard
- Taylor Hearn
- Brett Martin
- John King
- Joely Rodriguez
Now keeping in mind that Kennedy and Sborz are late inning, high leverage relievers, they really are left with 5 LHPs vs only 2 RHPs for everyday relief duty. Woof. If a predominantly right-handed hitting team can get into the bullpen early, they will have every opportunity to pile up runs due to the excessive platoon advantage.
While this won’t help you much in season long formats, and you really shouldn’t have any interest in any of these guys with the exception of Kennedy, this is a very important tidbit to consider for DFS purposes. Especially when considering using hitters on platoon heavy teams (A’s, Rays, Giants, Dodgers), there will be plenty of pinch-hit risk for platoon lefty swingers in these lineups. Conversely, there will be ample opportunity for righthanded hitters that crack the starting lineup to stay in it and feast upon whomever the Rangers bullpen decides to throw at them.
Because that is the other important aspect of this- no one is particularly experienced or good. Except for Kennedy, who is obviously an experienced and decorated vet at this point, everyone else, including the entire parade of southpaws, is in either their first or second year of service time. All of that to say, a bunch of youth trying to carve their path and gain experience while navigating tough matchups and frequently ceding the platoon advantage is a recipe of opponent DFS success, and that is where we will look to capitalize.
