Baseball seasons consist of nearly twice as many games as any other professional sport in America. It’s not unusual for players to play every single day for two straight weeks. The overwhelming majority of baseball games are played between two teams that don’t have a day of rest between them. However, doubleheaders exist, and there are times when one team will have a couple of days off between games. Is a well-rested opponent the kryptonite for DFS roster construction? Or are days off overrated?
Hitters
Using our Trends tool, we can look at player performance based on opponent rest days. A value of zero represents the second game of a doubleheader, a value of one means the opponent played a game the day before, and a value higher than one means the opponent has had at least one day off in between games.
Doubleheaders are just about as rare as consecutive days off. Still, both scenarios have been prevalent enough in recent seasons to yield a reasonable sample size. The following chart shows how hitters since 2014 have performed on both DraftKings and FanDuel based on opponent rest days:
A quick look at the data shows that opponent rest days have a notable impact on hitter Plus/Minus, Consistency Rating, and ownership percentage (which Pro subscribers can review for each slate with our DFS Ownership Dashboard). Given that pitchers generally have four to five days of rest between starts (regardless of team schedule) it might seem odd that hitter production tends to decrease as opponent rest days increase, but it does make sense that with more rest opposing players might be quicker to reach ground balls and fly balls on defense and thus limit offensive scoring.
Where this trend likely has the most actionable use is at the extremes. Hitters in doubleheaders have provided great value in recent seasons. With undiminished raw production, doubleheader hitters have benefited from an enhanced Plus/Minus and Consistency Rating and diminished ownership. Similarly, batters facing well-rested teams have been disappointing across the board.
Pitchers
Although platoons have become more prevalent in recent seasons, hitters aren’t guaranteed rest the same way that starting pitchers are. Do pitchers struggle against well-rested hitters?
Although pitchers experience a slight decline in raw production against doubleheader hitters, they are clearly at their best as DFS producers when facing teams playing with no rest. And as you can see the more rest days opponents have had the more pitcher performance has historically declined. Apparently, the more rest a team has the better it tends to be against pitchers. Against teams with at least two days of rest in between games, pitchers have been demonstrably subpar. In terms of raw performance, these pitchers haven’t been bad, but the benefits their opponents receive from multiple days of rest don’t seem to have been priced into the pitchers’ salaries.
Conclusion
Since pitchers have regularly scheduled rest and batters almost never rest (or they rest according to their platoon splits), most DFS players tend not to think about opponent rest days in MLB, although there’s clearly an edge to be gained by paying attention to this data.
We’ve established two main takeaways in this piece:
- Hitters tend to do better against opponents with limited rest. They’ve been at their best in the second games of doubleheaders.
- Pitchers tend to do better against opponents with limited rest. In terms of Plus/Minus and Consistency Rating, they’ve been at their worst against teams with multiple days in between games.
Within our Player Models we provide game logs for players as well as the number of games they’ve played in the last 15 days. When you’re constructing rosters with our Lineup Builder, take an extra look at players facing opponents with more or less rest than usual. Of course, this is just one piece of the ever-evolving DFS puzzle. Be sure to do your own research on opponent rest with the FantasyLabs Tools.
