Our Lineup Optimizer is an incredibly powerful tool inside our Player Models, particularly when creating a large number of lineups. However, it’s just that — a tool. We still have to make decisions. Otherwise, everyone would have the same 150 lineups in each contest.
This is intended more as a teaching piece than a step-by-step guide. These rules are suggestions that can show you how to translate your read on this game into lineups.
Additionally, this piece focuses on DraftKings Showdown contests, but similar strategies are useful on FanDuel.
General Theory
The two most important factors in building plus-EV Showdown lineups are correlations and uniqueness. Building correlations into our lineups are rather obvious. Given that we’re only building around one game, every event on the slate will impact every player. Each of our lineups should be built around a specific scenario (which you can read in my game breakdown) while trying to find the best way to profit if that scenario happens.
Some correlations are fairly straightforward. Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase are likely to have big games together, for example. Others are less so. This is an older article, but the Undervalued Correlations need to be considered here—namely, those across teams. Quarterbacks correlate with the opposing quarterback at a higher rate than any position other than their own top receiver.
The other factor, uniqueness, differs dramatically based on the type of contest you’re playing. When building for the 98,000 entry “Showdown Rush,” for example, finding unique lineups is very difficult. However, having a 1% chance at getting first place to yourself generate $2,000 in expected value. A 2% chance at a five-way chop is only “worth” $1,400. (Those percentages are way, way, higher than anybody’s actual expectation, but chosen for illustration purposes.)
That makes finding contrarian lineups more valuable than “better” lineups in terms of our profit over time in large contests. This is less the case in smaller contests but still important given the top-heavy nature of most tournament payouts.
Team Limits
From a macro sense, the most profitable long-term strategy for Showdowns is to use four members of the underdog team, along with two from the favored team. While I wouldn’t build all of my lineups around this strategy, this is how I’ll approach the bulk of them. The general idea is that Showdown ownership doesn’t efficiently reflect the odds of the underdog team winning. The Bengals are +280 underdogs on DraftKings, which implies a roughly 26% chance of winning. In most cases, less than 26% of lineups will be overweight on Bengals.
One of the simplest — but most important — tools in our optimizer is the ability to set limits on the number of players on each team. For this example, I’m going to leave it slightly more open than four Bengals. Given how tightly concentrated the Chiefs attack is, it’s certainly possible that three Chiefs end up in the optimal lineup even in a loss. Therefore, I’m willing to keep the range of Bengals between three and five. (Though the optimizer is unlikely to produce too many five Bengals lineups.)
Player Groups
We can set any number of rules inside the optimizer for which players to include or exclude and in what combinations. There are tons of reasonable combinations with these two explosive offenses, but we are building around a Bengals win. See my Breakdown for further thoughts on which players benefit in various scenarios (Link here?)
Our various rules need to work together to create lineups with the best possible odds of winning. As an obvious example, it wouldn’t make sense to create a rule that we include at least one of the Chiefs defense or kicker, given that we’re going overweight on Cincinnati.
The first player group I’ll be setting focuses on the Bengals’ side. Two players stand out as having far better scores in games Cincinnati controls — Joe Mixon and CJ Uzomah. Both also project fairly well for their salaries, so that’s where I’m starting. I want at least one of them in my lineups, with the possibility for two.
On the Chiefs’ side, it’s unlikely Mahomes pays off his high salary in a Chiefs loss. Therefore, I’m focused more on the pass-catchers. I want these lineups to include any two of Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Byron Pringle, and Jerick McKinnon. This time, I want exactly two, though. It would be hard to see three pass-catchers on a losing team make the optimal.
Our three Chiefs lineups can still include Mahomes, but we’ll be heavily underweight on him relative to the field. That’s fine when building around a Bengals win. It also groups Mahomes with two of his receivers anytime he appears, a bonus on the correlation front.
Player Correlations
Finally, we’re going to include another strategy referenced in my breakdown of this game. This time, using the Player Correlations tab. The correlations tab allows us to set “if…then” style rules around our lineups. It doesn’t force the first part to happen (the “if”) but automatically includes something else if it does.
What I want here is for every lineup with Joe Burrow at Captain to include two of his three main receivers (Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd). I personally prefer Boyd + one of the others but will be leaving it open for the optimizer to produce any combination of the three.
Pay attention to how this one works. Our Showdown Optimizer creates separate designations for players as Captain or not, so be sure to select “Joe Burrow-CPT” here instead of “Joe Burrow-QB.” If I wanted to set this rule to be Boyd + one, I’d add another rule beneath that says include exactly one of Tyler Boyd.
You can use our optimizer in this fashion to create any number of groups. Generally speaking, QB Captain + two pass-catchers is a solid strategy. I’d be comfortable including a similar rule with Mahomes, even in this scenario building around a Chiefs loss.
Under the “Position” tab, you can set a rule to pair captain quarterbacks with exactly two recievers from their team as well. That’s a solid rule most of the time, but I’d avoid that when top tight ends (like Travis Kelce) are in play, as it excludes them from the pairing.
General Rules
Beyond the slate-specific rules discussed above, we can set some other rules to give us an edge. My favorite for Showdowns is the maximum salary cap setting. Simply lowering this from 100% gives us a huge edge in building unique lineups — leaving salary on the table is underutilized in Showdowns.
Beyond that, we can control the maximum exposure to any one player — customizable by position (including Captain). This also helps to diversify lineups, as it forces the optimizer away from the best Pts/Sal (or ceiling/sal) projected players. Setting the “bounce” also helps with this. The bounce cuts a player’s projections by a given percentage each time they appear in a lineup. They recover each time they aren’t, which helps to diversify.
Additionally, we can control which players are allowed to appear in the Captain spot. Generally speaking, it’s OK to eliminate kickers and defenses from captain consideration. Defenses are even thinner here than most weeks, given the strength of the offenses, but I’m not so sure I’d rule out kicker captains. Harrison Butker, in particular, is projecting exceptionally well, and a cheap captain allows you to pack your lineups with stars at the flex spots. Certainly, don’t force the optimizer to produce these lineups, but a handful of them is fine.
While this was focused on the Bengals winning the game, we could tweak them based on how we think this game will play out. (Or give ourselves exposure to a variety of scenarios.) Besides shifting our exposure to four (or five) Chiefs, we’d want to focus more heavily on the Chiefs ground game if we are building around them controlling the game.
Regardless, experiment with various rules and settings and see what you can come up with.
Good luck in the Showdown streets!
