Diversifying players across multiple sites and recapping last week
I believe last week was my highest win percentage in my head to head games ever. Across all lineups I won at over a 90% rate. So I thought this was a perfect time to recap what went right last week. This can help us identify best practices for future weeks.
First of all, through some conversations with John Lee we determined that I am pushing diversification across websites too much. For example, if player A and Player B cost the same price and I already had player A 100% at Fanduel I would purposefully drop down to the next player at Draftkings even if it cost me a projected point to do so. The rationale being that diversifying these players would decrease weekly variance. But after doing calculations I was doing it too much. You shouldn’t be looking at diversification across the player pool but instead analyze your player selections by site only. If this leads to diversification that is great. However, if it doesn’t don’t force the diversification. The margins of winning and losing are too slim to waste points on diversification. The second take away is no matter how successful you are at DFS, or anything, if you start questioning a process never hesitate to ask for a second opinion.
Unfortunately, a perfect strategy can only get you so far. You have to actually pick the right players too. My strategy typically starts by looking at the players that are the best value and the stud players that I think will have great games and then I build my team around them. Last week that process started at Fanduel by choosing my two main studs to be Peyton Manning and DeMarco Murray. I don’t think either of these players were controversial. Murray was the third most popular player so there is no explanation needed there.
Manning was not nearly as popular being owned around the tenth most. Even further there wasn’t many people fitting both of these high priced players on the same team. But that was precisely what I wanted to do. I felt like Manning was important to have because of a prop bet at Bovada which had him breaking the passing TD record at -180. For those not familiar with prop bets this basically told me that Bovada was very confident Manning would break the record which took three TD passes. If he passed for three TD’s he would surely get a bunch of yards too. There isn’t a safer way to get value on that much salary.
On the wide receiver front I went very heavy on Golden Tate. A lot of owners were scared away from Tate after his poor outing the previous week. However, that game was still encouraging to me because he got 12 targets. It told me that he was still a focal point of the offense he just wasn’t able to get enough separation to make plays. I made sure to tweet this fact out to my followers. I figured this week would be different because the Saints defense wasn’t as good at coverage and he could have a big game.
The final must haves in my Thursday lineups were Andre Ellington, Justin Forsett, and Jordan Reed. Ellington actually ended up being the RB that I used in most of my lineups with 87% of my money allocated to his lineups. I loved his matchup with the Raiders because after adjusting for opponent and situation they are ran on the third most and teams are successful in doing so at 12% better than league average. Additionally, as I mentioned last week I loved running backs that are heavily involved in the passing game because they aren’t subject to the whims of game scripts and Ellington fits the bill.
Forsett and Reed didn’t have huge games but they allowed me to avoid some of the popular failures last week like Ben Tate whom I had no shares of. My concern with Tate was that he still has some competition in the backfield where as the RB’s that I liked didn’t. Sure he was getting a lot of carries but that had more to do with the fact that the Browns were running so much. I was worried any decrease in team attempts would put his score at risk. Additionally, teams really like to pass against the Jaguars so there was added risk there as well.
Trying to get all of these players caused a little bit of an issue on Thursday because the majority were expensive. This forced me into deciding between the Raider wide receivers for my last spot which I thought was going to work out ok but didn’t love the idea.
But then the Percy Harvin trade came on Friday. This opened me up to the possibility of using Doug Baldwin on Sunday games who was priced near the minimum at $4,800. If you recall from my preseason sleepers Baldwin was one of my favorites and I drafted him in a lot of my leagues. I felt like this was the perfect time for him to move back to his familiar role of slot receiver where he had succeeded in the past and it was the last piece to pull together the lineups I was shooting for.
Overall my ownership percentage in terms of dollars spent looked approximately like this for my key players:
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Peyton Manning 65%
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Andre Ellington 87%
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DeMarco Murray 62%
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Justin Forsett 51%
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Golden Tate 75%
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Doug Baldwin 75%
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Jordy Nelson 54%
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Antonio Brown 25%
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James Jones 36%
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Jordan Reed 75%
Fanduel GPP plays
Below are my weekly GPP plays at Fanduel. Throughout the season I will be employing strategies mentioned in Week 1 about contrarian plays. My goal will be to highlight players owned less than 10% to give you a contrarian option unless the player is such a good value that you should play him anyway. But remember that if you think a player will score three times their salary at a higher rate than their ownership level they are still a good buy. It is also important to remember you don’t need to go contrarian on everyone one of your positions. Additionally I will take the approach outlined in my preseason article about the best approach to allocating money in my lineups. In this article, I showed that in general it was best to spend on studs at wide receiver and to a lesser extent quarterback and save your money at running back and tight end.
Andrew Luck $9,900 (5%) - The Colts are the most pass happy team to date and this one is leading up to be a perfect storm type of game for Luck. The Steelers defense has the 6th most favorable pass ratio rate in the league. On top of that the Colts are only three point favorites against the Steelers. Put those factors together and I suspect the Colts should attempt the most pass attempts this week. But just like any great late night commercial, "Wait there’s more!" We will also throw in the fact that Trent Richardson and Reggie Wayne look unlikely to suit up. Without Richardson the Colts are left with Ahmad Bradshaw and Daniel Herron to carry the load. The plan all year has been to limit Bradshaw’s carries to keep him healthy for the stretch run. I don’t think they go against that plan this week instead they will opt into letting Luck throw more often. Additionally, without Wayne it opens up the perfect opportunity to allow you to stack T.Y. Hilton and/or Dwayne Allen with Luck.
Teddy Bridgewater $5,400 (5%) - If you want to take a cheaper route I think Bridgewater is the perfect way to go. At $5,400 Bridgewater has a great chance at making value. In fact I would put his odds at nearly 50% which is one of the highest of the year. He is playing against the Buccaneers whom teams are passing the second most often on. In addition, these teams are having a lot of success while doing so as they are 20% more efficient than league average. The other advantage is it allows you to fade Jerrick McKinnon who is a great option on his own but being selected at 28% is one that I am going to fade. The only problem with Bridgewater is his salary only covers 9% of your salary cap and he doesn’t have any great players to stack with him so you need to hit on a lot of other players to win first.
Arian Foster $9,100 (6%) - The Texans are the second most run heavy team this year which gives Foster the opportunity to have a huge game every week. Additionally, Foster is one of the best goal line backs in the league and has punched in 3 TDs within the 5 on 5 attempts despite missing two games. The Texans aren’t hesitant to give him more opportunities. I expect Foster to surpass 100 yards and if he can punch in two TD’s and add 30 yards through the air could reach value very easily.
Jermaine Kearse $4,900 (4%)– I already mentioned my favorite WR above in Hilton (being selected at 14%) so I will go a different route here and go with Jermaine Kearse. Doug Baldwin got all the attention last week and rightfully so but Baldwin’s price sky rocketed all the way up to $6,800 putting him out of my price range. But Kearse is really the Seahawks big play weapon averaging 15.6 yards per reception over his career. He has been getting 7 targets per game the last few weeks. If he can hit on a few of those targets he could easily surpass 100 yards and a TD, especially since the Panthers have been susceptible to the big plays so far this year.
Rob Gronkowski $7,200 (9%) – Gronkowski gets a favorable matchup against the Bears where Vegas surprisingly expects the Patriots to score 29 points. For the Patriots to score 29 points Gronkowski will have a great chance to score two touchdowns. Over the past three games Gronkowksi has averaged 10 targets compared to 6.5 in the four previous games. He also participated in 93% of the snaps last game. Those usage stats suggest Gronkowski is getting back to full health. A healthy Gronkowski at a discounted price? Yes, please!
As always please send any questions to Buzzard@footballguys.com or follow me on Twitter Follow @SteveBuzzard