Exclamation Point! Yahoo Week 1

Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, USA Today Sports

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Welcome to Footballguys' weekly feature on Yahoo!'s DFS contests. For those of you who have played DFS before, just not on Yahoo!, their rules are a combination of the familiar and completely alien. With respect to the familiar, entry fees for both cash games (i.e., head-to-head and 50/50) and guaranteed prize pool tournaments (GPPs) run anywhere from $1 to several thousand. Their featured GPP each week is the Baller, which costs $10 to enter and pays $500,000 to the winner. Yahoo! also features a smaller GPP that costs $25 and pays $100,000 for first place. Also familiar are Yahoo!'s lineup requirements and scoring system. In short, they mix DraftKings' model for lineups (i.e., one flex, no kicker) with FanDuel's model for scoring (i.e., 0.5 PPR and no milestone bonuses).

In terms of the unfamiliar, it's a big one: Pricing, and therefore the salary cap, is orders of magnitude smaller than FanDuel's $60,000 or DraftKings' $50,000. Specifically, it's $200, which makes cost decisions more akin to what one encounters in a typical full-season auction league, just without the "auction" part, and with the minimum "bid" being $20 for quarterbacks and $10 for all other positions. As an illustration of relative positional costs, here are the highest-priced players at each position in Week 1's $500K Baller GPP:

• QB = $36 (Drew Brees, Andrew Luck, and Russell Wilson)
• RB = $32 (David Johnson)
• WR = $36 (Antonio Brown)
• TE = $27 (Rob Gronkowski)
• DST = $16 (Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs)

So the first question you might ask is, "How do you define and identify value, Danny?" Well, it's all based on a system I developed last season and wrote about for one of our previous featured DFS articles. You can read more about the methodology by clicking this link, so I'll just give the Cliffs Notes version here. At its most basic, the system answers the question, "What is the probability that a specific player achieves his value threshold this week?" And it does so via the following steps:

1. Based on salaries and average winning scores, what's the value multiplier for the site? Yahoo! scoring is the same as FanDuel's so you're looking for around 120 points in cash games and around 180 in tournaments. Because of its salary structure, however, that doesn't translate to FanDuel's multipliers of 2x and 3x. Instead, it's 0.67x and 0.90x.
2. Apply the appropriate multiplier to each player's salary. For instance, Antonio Brown's Week 1 salary is $36, which means he needs to score 24.0 points to achieve value in a cash game (36 times 0.67) and 32.4 to do so in a tournament (36 times 0.90).
3. Grab each player's average projected points according to our Interactive Value Chart. In Brown's case, that's 20.8.
4. Using the value thresholds in Step 2, the projections in Step 3, the standard deviation of player scoring at each position, and the appropriate statistical distribution (normal for quarterbacks, log-normal for other positions), calculate the probability that a player's actual point total will meet or exceed his value threshold. For Brown, this means calculating the likelihood that he outscores his Footballguys' projection by at least 3.2 points in cash games (i.e., 24.0 minus 20.8) or by 11.6 points in tournaments (i.e., 32.4 minus 20.8).
5. Rank players at each position according to these value probabilities.

Quarterbacks

Below are the quarterbacks with the highest (and lowest) probabilities of achieving value in cash games and GPPs:

Robert Griffin III (cash games) and Blaine Gabbert (GPPs) are by far the most valuable quarterbacks this week, but several factors combine to make me wary of relying on them. First, they're both starting their first regular season game in a new offense. There may come a week that Griffin or Gabbert win DFS contests for you, but it's more likely to happen when they've developed a mastery of the scheme and a rapport with their teammates while executing it, both of which are required to put up big numbers. A second, possibly related, factor is that Football Outsiders projects Cleveland and San Francisco to be the worst two offenses in the NFL. 

In Gabbert's case, a third factor works against him: The defense he's facing. Per Football Outsiders' DVOA metric, the Rams finished 7th in defensive efficiency last season and are projected to improve to 4th this season. They also allowed the 12th-fewest fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks in 2015.

The most important reason to forego Griffin and Gabbert's value, however, is that there's plenty of more attractive value options at other positions, especially running back, so you can allocate more of your budget on your quarterback this week. That's especially true in cash games, where we have the rare occurrence of a pricey player like Aaron Rodgers nevertheless representing Top 3 value. The alternative is less clear in GPPs, what with the underwhelming duo of Jimmy Garoppolo (first start plus bad matchup) and Alex Smith (great matchup, but the very definition of "low ceiling") ranking No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Ranking a respectable 7th in GPP value likelihood (4.5%), Rodgers may actually be the right play in both formats.

Running Backs

Below are the running backs with the highest (and lowest) probabilities of achieving value in cash games and GPPs:

If you've read anything else DFS-related over the past few days, then it should come as no surprise to see Spencer Ware's value ranked 1st on both sides of the table. The problem, at least in GPPs, is that everyone and their extended family will also be rostering Ware for value. Therefore, even though you'll be getting great bang for your buck in terms of lineup dollars (i.e., budget), using Ware will be less of a bang in terms of actual dollars (i.e., prize money). All of the above can also be said for Christine Michael, although to a far lesser degree.

If you choose to only go with one of Ware and Michael, then the most attractive alternative for your second running back is Charles Sims. He'll be facing a Falcons defense that Football Outsiders projects to finish 28th this season and that actually did finish dead last in pass defense against running backs last season. And in terms of fantasy points allowed, the ranked 4th-worst. Even though Yahoo! only gives 0.5 PPR, that last bit is still important given that Sims does the vast majority of his damage as a receiver. 

Wide Receivers

Below are the wide receivers with the highest (and lowest) probabilities of achieving value in cash games and GPPs:

The pickings are much slimmer at wide receiver because almost all of the high-value players are in tough situations. Will Fuller and Tajae Sharpe are rookies playing their first NFL game, with the latter also facing a tough defense in Vegas' lowest-scoring game of the week. Kenny Stills and Chris Hogan are (arguably), the fourth receiving options on their teams and are facing two of the best defenses in the NFL. Kenny Britt has a favorable matchup, but his quarterback is Case Keenum and the Rams offense begins and ends with Todd Gurley. Mike Wallace is Mike Wallace; trust him at your own peril.

That leaves Kamar Aiken, Mohamed Sanu, and my preferred value options, the Colts duo of Donte Moncrief and Phillip Dorsett. There are three factors at play here. First, Indianapolis-Detroit has the highest over-under of the week. Second, the Colts' defense is paper thin due to injuries, so their offense will likely be in the position of having to chase scores with Detroit. Finally, and most importantly, Pro Football Focus projects Lions cornerback Darius Slay to shadow T.Y. Hilton, which means Moncrief and Dorsett are likely going to receive the lion's share of wide receiver targets (pun totally intended).

Although I recommend exposure to both across all my lineups, Moncrief's higher floor suggests tending to roster him more in cash games and Dorsett more in GPPs.

Tight Ends

Below are the tight ends with the highest (and lowest) probabilities of achieving value in cash games and GPPs:

The above discussion of Colts-Lions applies here insofar that Dwayne Allen also figures to benefit target-wise from Hilton's unfavorable matchup. Another factor in Allen's favor is that, although Detroit ranked 19th in pass defense efficiency last season (per DVOA), they ranked 29th on targets to opposing tight ends. They also ranked 28th in fantasy points allowed to tight ends. Nothing they've done this offseason, except for hoping linebacker DeAndre Levy returns to his pre-injury form, suggests massive improvement in these rankings.

An equally good, cheaper option, especially in GPPs is Jesse James. With Ladarius Green out for an unclear amount of time due to an unclear injury (or injuries), James gets first dibs on replacing Heath Miller as Pittsburgh's pass-catching tight end. Having only run 76 routes with the Steelers, he's somewhat of an unknown with respect to performance, but two things. First, as I showed in last week's True Fantasy Points article, James "true" performance stats -- receptions per route run, yards per route run, and touchdowns per route run -- rank higher than many pricier tight ends (e.g., Jordan Cameron, Eric Ebron, among others). Second, because we're talking GPPs here, being an unknown makes James more attractive as a value option. In the parlance of DFS, more unknown means higher variance means good value option in a GPP.

Defenses

Below are the defenses with the highest (and lowest) probabilities of achieving value in cash games and GPPs:

Before getting into specifics, it's worth noting the underlying message of this table: Don't spend on defenses, as there's value everywhere. Indeed, although I've only listed the Top 3 here, six defenses have a value likelihood of at least 50 percent in cash games, while eight defenses are at 33 percent or higher in GPPs.

Combining this value-heavy strategy with what I wrote earlier about Atlanta's bad defense (re choosing Sims), Philadelphia is the clear value play, especially in cash games To boot, using them also fits with what I wrote earlier about the bad offense of their Week 1 opponent, Robert Griffin's Cleveland Browns.

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