I want to clarify something and maybe I’ll leave this here for a while as my official stance. Shortly after COVID there were two very significant things which MLB quietly did that have drastically impacted how weather is impacting Baseball for DFS and I feel confident enough in the sample size to go forward with a change in my own personal strategy.
Weather doesn’t matter anymore for MLB DFS.
It’s a sweeping statement and it’s not 100% true, but it really doesn’t matter the way you once thought it did. Here is what changed.
- MLB Introduced a humidor in every stadium officially in 2022. Prior to 2018 it was mostly just Coors Field, then Chase Field and then slowly teams were doing it on their own and were admittedly not officially regulated by MLB as to what their settings were – despite claims that they had ‘standards’.
- During COVID MLB started to implement a new Baseball to reduce scoring, but COVID made it so that they had two different batches of baseballs from 2020 up until the 2022 season. The mudding process for each team as independent as well and thus we had no uniformity into which baseballs were being used.
It was documented quite exhaustedly early in 2023 when scoring was drastically down how the new Baseball’s just didn’t carry the same and were far less impacted by weather than the prior baseball. The two factors above were done such so that MLB can reduce the drastic differences in outdoor elements from various locations. In other words, they want Miami’s park factor to be the same as Arizona’s. Two completely different environments. And wouldn’t you look at that, Miami has now shifted to no longer a drastic unders park even with it’s dimensions and humidity.
I am not saying that these elements don’t matter
- Wind
- Heat
- Humidity
- Dewpoint
They do. They just don’t matter like they once did. What matters for park factors?
- Batters Eye — Kinda helps when the home plate is aligned properly and you can see clearly. This is why SafeCo is a pitchers park.
- Dimensions relative to the defense: Why are Coors and Chase so damn good for offense? Because they are like playing outfield defense in Yellowstone Park. I’ve long felt that the Rockies would be better off with a smaller stadium from a dimensions perspective.
- Lighting — yeah, this is big depending upon time of game and the sun direction believe it or not for some fields defensively.
Does wind help? Yeah, it does, but its a little overblown (pun intended) in most scenarios because everyone auto assumes oh, wind is gonna just give us 10x homers today.
Does heat & humidity help? Yeah, they do. But they’ve been diminished.
Thus the thing we are searching for with weather is just a simple question.
Is the damn game gonna play or get PPD? And most of the time, games are going to play.
Stop spending more than 5 seconds on weather. This isn’t 2017.
WEATHER
Cleveland has PPD risk tonight. Looks like rain will come in and be steady most of the game. I would think they call this before lock if they are going to PPD it. But if they wait, I expect it to play.
Eight games and not a single pitcher that I would want to tell you, your mother or your pet turtle to consider using in DFS tonight. What a horse crap list of options we have available — but that means something my friends. It likely means we get a bunch of mediocre pitching performances and thus the SP options really don’t matter so long as you don’t pick the one Jose Urena on the slate. Meaning, don’t be that guy who picks the -10 pitcher.
RYAN WEATHERS (DK: $6700, FD: $8400)
I think we have to take a shot with Weathers. The Marlins likely will push out 7+ RHH tonight, including lefty masher Austin Slater and their regular Agustin Ramirez at the top of the order, but really it’s a trade off of their slight power risk versus the pretty good K% upside that Weathers should have tonight too. He got 7K through 19 batters in his first start vs Seattle & another 2 times through the order tonight should produce 6+ strikeouts.
LANDON ROUP (DK: $7900, FD: $9200)
The other SP option should come from the Mets/Giants game. Neither guy is one that I think carries consistent elite status, but is good enough to draw our attention. Holmes’ being $1200 more could push you down to Roup if you really want to open up $ for hitting stacks & believe it or not, I trust the Giants lineup more than the Mets lineup after posting 10 last night. So lets ride the Roup train.
CLAY HOLMES (DK: $9100, FD: $9300)
See above. He’s 2b behind Roup.
CHASE FIELD: Braves/D’Backs
They got the under out of their system last night & both Elder/Soroka were too good in their first start to expect consistency from either. Atlanta just needs to not have their heads up their asses and be patient with Soroka so they can get him out and feast off a horrific bullpen right now.
MARINERS / ANGELS
Welcome to Mike Trout’s first Saturday night home game this season. Thank you for your service Mr. Emerson Hancock and thank you too Josh Kochanowicz in this first 5 easy over.
CATCHER
- Drake Baldwin
- Cal Raleigh: With no pay up pitching tonight I’ll allow spending $5600 on a guy who really should be $4300
- JT Realmuto
FIRST BASE
- Josh Naylor
- Matt Olson
- Nolan Schanuel
SECOND BASE
- Ketel Marte
- Edmundo Sosa
- Luis Arraez
THIRD BASE
- Nolan Arenado
- Austin Riley
- Yoan Moncada
SHORTSTOP
- Corey Seager – Case in point here on Cal Raleigh. Seager is 10x the player Raleigh is tonight and only $4600
- Trea Turner
- Play Seager, ok?
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Mike Trout
- Brandon Nimmo
- Corbin Carroll
- Luke Raley
OUTFIELD – Tier II
- Randy Arozarena
- Justin Crawford
- Alek Thomas
- Trent Grisham
- Mike Trout – OF – LA Angels – Chairman of the Dongers Club and Mr. Saturday Night
- Corey Seager – SS – Rangers
- Drake Baldwin – C – Braves
- Corbin Carroll – OF – Diamondbacks
- Luke Raley – OF – Mariners
- Josh Naylor – 1B – Mariners
- Nolan Arenado – 3B – Diamondbacks
- Ketel Marte – 2B – Diamondbacks
- BONUS …. Randy Arozarena – OF – Mariners
BETS
- Mariners/Angels 1st 5 Innings Over
- Braves/Diamondbacks OVER 9.5
- Marlins/Yankees UNDER 8
- Giants ML +102