Heading into Week 15, DraftKings has noticeably tightened up their pricing structure across the board. Where they’ve been slow to react to injuries and role changes through much of this season, the pendulum seems to have swung drastically in the other direction this week – for example, A.J. McCarron and Ryan Fitzpatrick are the same price this week. These changes appear to have limited the huge bargains we’ve seen over recent weeks, but there is still value to be found.
As we find these value-priced players, we always need to ensure that they have merit and can reasonably be expected to meet or exceed their implied point value, regardless of how cheap they are. A minimum-priced player who posts a zero in your lineup will likely have mitigated any added value you’ve gained by being able to fit in the salary of a stud that week.
With this in mind, our look at bargains may be a bit different than columns featured at other sites. The focus won’t necessarily be on the cheapest option available, but instead it will lean towards finding a few great values on DraftKings, as compared to FanDuel and Yahoo pricing.
Our main method of measuring this will be Fantasy Labs’ Bargain Rating, which is a metric that allows us to measure how much of a discount a player is from one site to another.
We’ll also factor in overall price in relation to their position, price change over the past week, and the past month.
And remember, you can always find a list of all players sorted by their Bargain Rating by visiting the Player Ratings page!
Blake Bortles
Bargain Rating on DraftKings: 93%
Current Price: $6,100
Price change over last week: +$100
Price change over last month: +$200
As mentioned in the intro, the bargains are not nearly as extreme this week as they’ve been in the past. That being said, Bortles can still be had at a 93% Bargain Rating on DraftKings this week. While these savings are not nearly as extreme as in the past, he’ll take up only 12.2% of your budget as opposed to 13.2% on FanDuel. And though we’ve witnessed a price increase over the past couple of weeks for Bortles, in yet another pricing anomaly, his price has still only increased $200 since the beginning of the season.
Bortles is the eighth-highest priced quarterback on the board coming off of his monster Week 14. For some reason, he has remained down among the Matthew Stafford/Matt Ryan tier, despite ranking fifth in DK points scored this season. His deflated price point, combined with many excellent performances, has resulted in Bortles boasting a league leading Plus/Minus of +8.2 at the quarterback position.
Utilizing our Trends tool, we’re able to see that when quarterbacks have had a Bargain Rating of at least 90 and also a Plus/Minus of at least +6.0 in the past, they’ve found great success. This group of players has shown that taking advantage of these inefficient prices can be a great strategy; they’ve met or exceeded their expected point value on 16 of 19 occasions.
Bortles offers consistency – he’s fifth in terms of our Consistency rating this year – and big upside. The lack of a true goal line back in this offense has led to inflated touchdown production for him and the Jaguar wide receivers. Jacksonville has attempted more passes and thrown more touchdowns inside of their opponent’s 10-yard line than any other team this season.
Against an Atlanta team that is middling against opposing quarterbacks – they have an Opponent Plus/Minus of +0.6 – and without starting running back T.J. Yeldon, we should see Bortles push the ball down the field once again in this game.
Tim Hightower
Bargain Rating on DraftKings: 93%
Current Price: $3,900
Price change over last week: $900
Price change over last month: $900
Hightower stepped into Mark Ingram’s starting role last week and instantly found success, despite a difficult matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stout defensive front. With Detroit’s generally unforgiving run defense on tap next, Hightower will be more of a volume play than anything this week. With C.J. Spiller seemingly not a threat for playing time – Hightower saw 71% of offensive snaps as opposed to Spiller’s 18% – we should see the veteran receive another heavy workload.
Once again taking advantage of the Fantasy Labs’ Trends tool, we can query for running backs who’ve been faced with comparable situations in the past.
With his low price, we only need 7.34 DK points for Hightower to meet his implied point total in this matchup. If he receives around 20 touches – he posted 29 last week – there should be no problem with him meeting or exceeding this low point total.
Bonus Bargains
Because our Bargain Rating metric is correlated so highly with a player’s success, why not highlight a few more great bargains? Below you’ll find players who didn’t quite make the cut above, but are still a great value this week. If you find yourself wanting to utilize the Bargain Rating as a part of your weekly lineup construction, make sure to check out this short video from our co-founder Jonathan Bales on how he uses this rating within our Player Models tool.
Philip Rivers
Bargain Rating on DraftKings: 96%
Current Price: $5,500
Rivers has been stripped of all of his offensive weapons and San Diego is struggling as a team. He will take on a Miami team that carries an Opponent Plus/Minus of +3.3 and just gave up 337 passing yards and 4 touchdowns to Eli Manning last week. While it will be tough for him with the weapons he has at his disposal, Rivers makes for a potentially nice contrarian GPP play this week, as his recent struggles should keep people away.
Malcolm Floyd
Bargain Rating on DraftKings: 92%
Current Price: $3,500
If you’re going to look at Rivers this week, Floyd offers a potential option to stack him with. As mentioned, all of the weapons are gone or dinged up in this offense. Due to this, we saw Floyd register nine targets last week against the Chiefs. With the Dolphins breakdowns in the secondary, Rivers may look to exploit them deep with Floyd.
Tyrod Taylor
Bargain Rating on DraftKings: 96%
Current Price: $5,600
Tyrod’s back here again, as his price fails to move up comparative to what you’ll need to pay for him on FanDuel. Taylor has averaged 24.83 DK points per game over the past three weeks and will look to take advantage of an exploitable Washington secondary this week. Removing Matt Cassel from the mix, Washington has surrendered an average 25.1 DK points to Cam Newton, Eli Manning and Jay Cutler over the past month. Taylor’s a nice option at his price point once again in Week 15.
