The key to success in daily fantasy sports is research. With our Trends tool, research is easy.
Description
(Written the Friday before kickoff)
If you’ve read Bryan Mears’ fantastic weekly Market Share Report, you’ve likely spent time trying to decide how best to apply that information to your weekly fantasy lineups. There are, of course, multiple right answers, but here’s one take that can be applied to the wide receiver position.
With some exceptions, we more or less expect site pricing to account for player performance and matchup. If a receiver is ripping off 80-plus yards in every game, you’re not going to get him cheap. But what about receivers who are comparable to those high-yardage guys in opportunity but who haven’t been as productive just yet?
I’m going to look at players who’ve had a high market share of targets but low yards-per-target (YPT) totals. I’m going to be using market share rather than total targets because I think it’s a little less game script-dependent. For example: Tavon Austin has finished either first or second in market share of targets for the Rams each week. And in the weeks in which he’s finished second, he’s just a hair behind the leader. But his average number of raw targets is around eight in losses against eleven in wins. For the purposes of this trend, I’m not necessarily concerned with game script. I just want to know which guys have remained heavily involved in their offenses but have not been racking up the yards to match their opportunity.
Let’s take a look at this week’s trend:
Again, we’re looking at receivers who command a high market share of total team targets but who have been inefficient so far, averaging seven or fewer YPT. To screen for players who are in good matches in the coming week, I have added a Pro Trends filter.
For comparison, the below screenshot shows what happens when the YPT restriction is lifted. Over half a point is lost from Plus/Minus and ownership is higher — but more overall raw fantasy points are being scored, indicating that players in the first group are generally cheaper, which makes sense.
The Matches
Brandon Marshall’s 30.1 percent market share puts him in the Antonio Brown/Julio Jones category while his 5.9 YPT puts him in the Tavon Austin category. Marshall’s YPT over the fantasy year (past 365 days) is 8.1, indicating that positive regression is likely in this stat.
You wouldn’t expect the Cardinals to be considered a strong matchup for a wide receiver, so why does Marshall have so many Pro Trends this week (he has nine at the time of this writing)?
The Pro Trends are telling us that Marshall is just too cheap right now on FanDuel. And Marshall’s efficiency to begin 2016 is likely a large contributing factor to that depressed price point. Some of his recent performances are just plain ugly: Four catches on 12 targets against Seattle and three catches on 10 targets against Kansas City. Marshall is a prime candidate in this trend this week.
Last season, Odell Beckham had a reception of at least 40 yards in seven of 15 games. In 2016, he is only one for five. His yards per catch (YPC) is down nearly two full yards in 2016. The good news is that his targets have remained steady (as pointed out by Matthew Freedman in our WR Breakdown) and he will also be playing in a Pro Trends-heavy matchup.
The problem with Tajae Sharpe is, of course, that he doesn’t have the track record that the others do. He is averaging 4.5 YPT and we don’t know that regression is coming because he does not have the history to back it up. He is cheap and he’s playing the Browns, so there’s that.
Jeremy Maclin’s efficiency is weighed down by a matchup against the Texans in which he caught six of 15 targets. Since the Chiefs have had their bye week already, that single performance hurts him more than most. Also, Maclin’s longest reception in 2016 is 22 yards, although his YPC average is nearly identical to his 2015 average. He’s probably my favorite of all the matches.
As for DeAndre Hopkins: Will Fuller has been stealing targets, but Hopkins’ market share in 2016 has still been a reasonable 22.5 percent. With Fuller’s status murky as of writing, it’s hard to predict Hopkins’ outlook for Week 6.
Results
(Written Sunday night after games)
Odell Beckham delivered a couple of long touchdown receptions on Sunday en route to a monster performance. The 10 targets he saw were in line with his season average, but his YPT of 22.2 led to the positive regression I hoped for.
For Jeremy Maclin, YPT was not the problem on Sunday: He averaged 16.3 Y/T, catching all three targets. However, in a game Kansas City led almost start to finish, Alex Smith attempted only 22 pass attempts, which disadvantaged Maclin.
The 15 targets that DeAndre Hopkins saw were a season high, although his YPT remained a disappointing 4.7 yards, as he had a long reception of just 12 yards. If Will Fuller remains a question mark moving forward, Hopkins will continue to be a prime match in this trend.
Review
Overall, I think looking for receivers whose YPT over the short term has been lower than their long-term averages will help us identify candidates who can provide the upside of positive regression. Since I’m using a market share filter to ensure that opportunity within an offense remains more or less the same, I’m hoping to find players who are ‘due’ to hit the big plays that have been missing in recent weeks.
