Seth’s Week 7 Daily Fantasy Analysis and FanDuel Lineup

Seth’s Week 7 Daily Fantasy Analysis and FanDuel Lineup

October 23, 2015 – by Seth Trachtman

A solid Week 7 using my Patriots stack along with DeAndre Hopkins, and I’m back on track.

I only entered four double up tournament contests last week, playing it safe with a very conservative lineup. Judging by my rank, I finished somewhere around the 70th percentile of entries, comfortably in the money for contests that pay out to the top 45%.

My results so far:

Week	# Contests Entered	Total Entry Fees	Total Prize Winnings	Net Gain/Loss for Week	Finals Tickets Won	Cumulative Profit	Cumulative Finals Tickets Won
1	5	$32	$327	$295	4	$295	4
2	9	$82	$0	($82)	0	$213	4
3	5	$45	$29	($16)	1	$197	5
4	5	$45	$0	($45)	0	$152	5
5	4	$40	$0	($40)	0	$112	5
6	4	$35	$70	$35	0	$147	5

The Changing Player Pool

Sports stats trends can change gradually, and fantasy owners have to adjust to those changes. The salary caps in FanDuel also require us to evaluate and reevaluate player values. Six weeks into the regular season, it’s a good exercise to see how the early season compares to 2014. The question is: should strategies should be adjusted based on the performances (and salaries) thus far?

To investigate this, I looked at points scored per dollar of salary at the four skill positions:

For 2015, I divided FanDuel points per game in Weeks 1 through 6 by Week 7 salaryFor 2014, I divided FanDuel points per game for the full season by Week 17 salaryI then looked at the top value from each year, as well as the average of the top 10, top 20, and top 30 values of each year

The results:

Quarterback

	Max	Top 10	Top 20	Top 30
2015 Increase	25.86%	17.32%	13.62%	13.18%
2015	0.003064474	0.002725576	0.002519123	0.002345738
2014	0.002434884	0.002323203	0.002217164	0.002072536

Running Back

	Max	Top 10	Top 20	Top 30
2015 Increase	20.09%	0.64%	2.17%	5.65%
2015	0.002990805	0.002214193	0.002036297	0.001890126
2014	0.002490385	0.002200067	0.001993103	0.001789103

Wide Receiver

	Max	Top 10	Top 20	Top 30
2015 Increase	9.32%	17.91%	16.40%	5.19%
2015	0.002521739	0.002305267	0.002142591	0.001852631
2014	0.002306742	0.001955064	0.001840715	0.001761297

Tight End

	Max	Top 10	Top 20	Top 30
2015 Increase	23.65%	14.59%	12.20%	10.47%
2015	0.002394915	0.002056182	0.001783962	0.001527573
2014	0.001936842	0.001794315	0.001590054	0.001382754

We’ve seen a very similar increase in dollars per point at every position except for running back. It’s unclear if this is because FanDuel isn’t adjusting salaries on the same scale as the other positions, or the other positions are just blowing out expectations.

Either way, it’s clear based on the numbers that we’re getting more bang for the buck from quarterback, wide receiver, and tight end than we were last season. Quarterback, in particular, is looking like a great investment relative to the other positions.

My Week 7 Strategy

Playing the safe lineup worked out well last week, so I’m at it again. I played a safe stack last week (Tom Brady and Julian Edelman), and I’m unintentionally trying that again with a pair of Cardinals.

To review my normal strategy:

Start with Vegas over/under linesEvaluate each team’s recent fantasy points allowed vs. each positionEvaluate salaries and contest format

The highest Vegas-implied point totals this week include:

Team	Vegas-Implied Points
Arizona	29.0
Indianapolis	28.0
New England	28.0
Atlanta	25.8
San Diego	25.0

The lowest Vegas-implied point totals include:

Team	Vegas-Implied Points
Cleveland	17.5
Baltimore	19.0
Tampa Bay	19.8
Kansas City	20.0
NY Jets	20.0

The Result: My Lineup for Week 7

Here’s my lineup for Week 7:

 

Carson Palmer is an obvious play this week facing the worst available opponent vs. quarterbacks in the Ravens. For his purposes, Palmer has the fourth most points per game of available quarterbacks, and Arizona has the highest Vegas-implied total of the week. I fully expect Palmer to be the most-owned quarterback of the week for this reason, but in a double up I’m still happy to take him.The plan was to pair Palmer with John Brown, a value at $6,700 who has been on fire recently. The speedy Brown had 22.6 FanDuel points last week, and has averaged better than 16 points per game over the last three weeks. Unfortunately, Brown is looking like a game-time decision due to a hamstring issue, so I took Fitzgerald instead. Fitz is third in points among wideouts who have played all season, but he’s actually scored fewer points than Brown over the last three weeks (13.0 per game). Still, this is a great matchup with Baltimore averaging the second most points allowed to wide receivers per game.I went very expensive at running back with Devonta Freeman and Todd Gurley. Freeman’s salary has caught up with his performance on the field, averaging an incredible 34.0 points per game over the last four weeks. He’s the third most expensive player at the position, but the Falcons have the fourth highest Vegas-implied total. Todd Gurley has been great in his two starts so far this season, running for 305 yards over the two games. Cleveland has allowed the most rushing yards per game in football to this point.The rest of my wide receivers are relatively cheap buys. Steve Smith Sr. has a difficult matchup vs. Arizona, but he’s been a consistent target hog when he’s played. He’s had double-digit targets in three of his five games, and has averaged more than 11 targets per game. Willie Snead has seen a ramp up recently, with a career game last week (141 yards receiving), and has averaged 7.5 targets per game over his last four games. The Saints could be playing catch up vs. the Colts, who have allowed the third most points to wideouts this season.I was all set to play Antonio Gates in a dream matchup against the league’s worst defense vs. tight ends in the Raiders. However, he’s yet to practice this week and is a game-time decision for a late afternoon game on Sunday. With lineups locking at 1:00 p.m. ET, it’s just too risky. Instead, I opted for Jason Witten, who is facing the Giants, the sixth worst defense vs. tight ends. Witten had his best game of the season in Week 1 vs. the Giants, with 22.0 points.Kicker and defense was a question of what I could afford with my remaining money. In this case, it wasn’t much. Prater is tied for the cheapest kicker salary, with the Lions playing at home in a kicker-friendly dome environment. The Washington defense has been hit-or-miss so far this season, but they face a Tampa Bay offense that has the third lowest Vegas-implied point total with an erratic rookie quarterback (Jameis Winston) who has thrown seven picks and fumbled three times in five games.

That’s my lineup for Week 7. Don’t forget to compete against me in this week’s TRFC contest!

 

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