Finding Inefficiencies
I have created the Vegas Bargain Rating (VBR) metric and release VBRs every week because I think it is incredibly valuable in DFS to find inefficiencies wherever you can. VBRs highlight pricing inefficiencies: Which golfers are priced relatively low in comparison to their Vegas implied odds (and thus upside)? Find the biggest differences and you’ve spotted an inefficiency that you can exploit in building lineups.
We’ve talked a lot at FantasyLabs about the limitations of Vegas odds in PGA DFS. A golfer’s odds to win, as listed in our Player Models, are exactly (and only) that — odds to win. They aren’t odds to make the cut or odds to score X amount of fantasy points or anything else. While they’re a good indication of who can win the tournament, you still need to create a cohesive DraftKings lineup, not just select the group of guys who collectively have the greatest odds to win. VBR helps us find inefficiencies, but it’s not the only metric we need.
Adjusted Round Score
We should also be availing ourselves of Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score), a unique metric that measures a basic stat — average strokes per round — and adjusts for course difficulty and field strength. Basically, it puts everyone on an even playing field so that we can make fair comparisons. It turns them all into apples (or something).
It’s probably the best statistic in PGA DFS to measure a golfer’s talent (Long-Term Adj Rd Score) and recent form (Recent Adj Rd Score). Thus, I was curious this week, leading into The Open Championship, if we can find inefficiencies using this stat: Which golfers are undervalued, given their Adj Rd Scores?
Before I hit you with some graphs, it is useful to note that we can find inefficiencies with Vegas odds and Adj Rd Score because they’re valuable. Most golfers have marks between 68 and 75 and you can see using our Trends tool the correlation between Plus/Minus and Adj Rd Score is very strong:
Adjusted Round Score and DraftKings Salaries
What is the correlation between DK salaries and Adj Rd Scores? Here’s LT Adj Rd Score first:
The correlation (r-squared value) isn’t nearly as high as what we see with Vegas odds — the correlation this week was over 0.80 — but it is definitely high enough to find inefficiencies.
What I’ve been curious about for a while now is whether DK prices golfers more on LT play or recent play. The correlation with Recent Adj Rd Score suggests the former:
Our r-squared value definitely dips when looking at recent performance in relation to salary. In fact, even if you create a combined Adj Rd Score — say, 50 percent LT and 50 percent recent — the correlation still takes a hit from the overall LT mark. This isn’t to say that recent play isn’t important. Rather, it’s that DK salaries tend to take LT performance into account more than recent form.
What Now?
Because we know that Adj Rd Score is important — and predictive of DFS success — the fact that it isn’t that correlated with DK pricing means that there are huge edges to be found. For example, here’s the Plus/Minus for golfers with LT Adj Rd Scores of 70 or better:
And here’s the Plus/Minus of golfers with Recent Adj Rd Scores of 70 or better:
And what if we combine the two?
Not shabby.
But Bryan, these elite Adj Rd Scores of 70 or better are seen only from the elite golfers like Dustin Johnson and Jason Day, right? There are no cheap golfers who have these elite marks, right?!
What a fantastic question. Thanks for asking. This is where our lower correlation — lower than Vegas odds, that is — actually helps us. If DK salary and Adj Rd Score were perfectly correlated with an r-squared value of 1.00, there would be no inefficiencies to find. Sure, Adj Rd Score is our best proxy for talent and recent play, but it wouldn’t actually be that valuable if DraftKings priced players 100 percent that way. Thankfully, that isn’t the case.
Golfers Priced No Higher Than $6,500
In fact, there are 19 golfers in this week’s Open Championship field who 1) have LT and Recent Adj Rd Scores of 70 or better and 2) are priced no higher than $6,500. That is incredible.
And these golfers have historically crushed value:
Note: We’re combining LT and Recent Adj Rd Scores here for a particular reason, which I’ll mention in one moment. But first, the crushing of the value . . .
Wow.
Why did I combine the Adj Rd Scores for this pricing tier? When you remove recent form — which (as we’ve seen) lessens the predictive power and production for the total sample — it actually drops the Plus/Minus and Consistency of this sample fairly significantly. This suggests that recent form is perhaps more important, or at least less considered by DraftKings, for the cheaper golfers.
Spotting inefficiencies in pricing is one of the best and easiest ways to find immediate value for your DFS contests. This week, have your fill.
