A True Story
When NFL salaries initially came out in 2015, I immediately created a lineup with a pure ‘gut’ approach that I promised myself I’d play. Week 1 came and went, I forgot to play the lineup, and of course it would have gone on to win the Sunday Million.
That story isn’t actually true, but I didn’t really know how to start this and I’m pressed for time so here we are.
In an upcoming series Editor-in-Chief Matthew Freedman is going to provide his initial thoughts on the Week 1 FanDuel salaries from an individual player and positional perspective, but because I aim to provide you with as much useless information as possible, I want to take a macro look at pricing in this article.
A Historical Macro Perspective
Specifically, I’m going to look at how FanDuel has historically priced elite players, how those guys have performed, and how the pricing of elite players might have changed this year. Based on pricing, here’s the (admittedly arbitrary) way I categorized elite players:
— QB, RB, and WR: $8,000-plus
— TE: $6,500-plus
— D and K: $5,000-plus
It’s interesting that the average number of players in each range is almost exactly the same this year as it was last year, except at kicker. There’s just one kicker priced at $5,000, compared to almost five per week last season. That could change as the season progresses. Otherwise, every position in the ‘elite’ category is within at least 1.2 players of last year’s average.
If we’re looking at the distribution of salaries at each position, it doesn’t look as though very much has changed with FanDuel’s pricing structure — same elite prices, same salary floor at each position.
So, with that said, we can look at how these top-tier options performed in 2015 to glean some insights for 2016. We’re obviously not going to select players based solely on past pricing trends, but with so much up in the air in the early portion of a season — with so much unknown early in the season compared to later in the year when we have more relevant data — I think this sort of aggregate data has more value.
The Plus/Minus Values of Top-Tier Players
First, let’s take a look at the Plus/Minus generated by the top-tier players at each position.
The only position that isn’t positive is quarterback. Actually, given the pricing structure on FanDuel, top-priced quarterbacks have a really difficult time returning value compared to their cheaper counterparts.
The top position is tight end, although that’s a bit misleading because we’re mostly looking at the Gronk effect. Still, Gronk and now Jordan Reed are severely underpriced on FanDuel as compared to DraftKings. I’d go as far as to say that, if you’re playing an elite tight end in any given week this year, you should get almost all of your exposure to him on FanDuel and go cheap at tight end on DraftKings.
Defense is really interesting and perhaps an underrated spot at which to pay up on FanDuel. We’re generally talking about just a few hundred bucks between a top defense and a mid-tier one.
The Consistency of Top-Tier Players
Plus/Minus isn’t all that matters, though. Here’s a look at top-tier players’ Consistency (the percentage of games in which they reach their salary-based implied point total) compared to the position as a whole.
Again, quarterback is getting killed. I know the general sentiment is, “Pay up for quarterbacks in cash games,” but I’m not sure that’s necessarily the best long-term strategy on FanDuel. When you look at how much more consistent top-tier running backs have been, going big there and perhaps trying to find cheap value with your signal-caller is the way to go, all else being equal.
The Ownership of Top-Tier Players
And finally here’s a look at ownership.
Top-tier players have been more higher-owned at every position, which is to be expected. Defense is the interesting position here. Defenses are generally underpriced at the top yet also heavily owned, probably because assessing defenses with the Vegas lines is so easy for the average player to do. Despite the value at the top, I think a potential edge might be rostering some mid-priced defenses in really good spots — those that will return value without seeing massive ownership.
The Big Finalé
Overall, FanDuel’s pricing in 2016 looks very much like FanDuel’s pricing in 2015. That’s good news for those of us utilizing our Trends tool to create profitable angles this season.
