I read way too much. And what’s sad is that I try to apply almost 99% of my daily non-world news related reading into fantasy football or DFS knowledge. Even if I’m reading something that has zero bearing on football or fantasy news, I try to apply it in some way. Is that normal? (Imagine reading the Hunger Games and trying to break it down into next-level Game Theory on how your opponents in the field react to certain environmental constraints. Or what if there were DFS Hunger Games?)
Anyway, a good friend of mine Scott Barrett asked me if I had ever read any strategy articles on short slates. I originally said no, but after a few moments of thinking I remembered an article Renee Miller wrote this past summer on positional scarcity and how strategies change/vary in short slates. All of that reading finally paid off into something useful.
So, with the help of Renee and my own spit-balled ideas I’m writing something about short slates for the NFL Wild Card and Divisional playoff rounds (four game slates).
Positional Scarcity
I’ll let Dr. Miller take the opener here:
“Overall, don’t think of positional scarcity as a negative. Your opponents are facing the same player pool. There is no disadvantage, unless you fail to turn a perceived negative into a strategic play. While others simply shake their heads and “punt” a position, dig a little deeper in your research and find the right combination of talent and opportunity to fit your lineup. Recognizing scarcity for what it is allows you to incorporate it into your lineup strategy.”
Generally speaking, NFL DFS is a fairly price-sensitive sport and each entrant tries to find value in certain situations. When these things intersect (short slate, “value”, “good matchup”) we get chalk. In the Thanksgiving slate earlier this year, Calvin Johnson was in roughly 70-75% of lineups in large-field tournaments. In theory, any player that is going to be that highly owned in tournaments is well worth at least considering avoiding. But, what if Megatron was simply the right play on that day? What if he goes off on the short slate and you’re playing from behind the rest of the way?
Well, that’s exactly what happened on Turkey Day. Johnson ripped the Eagles for 8-93-3 and anyone who didn’t roster Megatron in the mini-slate pretty much had zero shot at taking down tournaments because he was on 7 out of every 10 rosters.
In the upcoming Wild Card round, I expect running back ownership to be relatively flat, especially if DeAngelo Williams doesn’t play. In turn, this will create more decisions for entrants and more uneven lineup construction, resulting in pockets of value across the position.
In short slates, chalk is not inherently a bad thing. Sometimes chalk is just the right play due to positional scarcity. When ownership percentage is flat across a position in small slates, we can find a leg up on our opponents.
Pricing
I touched on pricing a bit above, but I’m of the mind that pricing almost does not matter on short slates. Sure, the order in which players are arranged on the actual site matters — i.e. we want to know that Alex Smith is indeed priced below Aaron Rodgers in the Wild Card Round — but since pricing isn’t necessarily rigid, we can still make optimal lineups while leaving roughly $1,500-$2,000 on the table.
You can’t make a lineup with all high-priced guys and have to go into the mid/low-tiers some, but we do that every week anyway. What’s different is there are only four games on the slate that forces entrants to make fewer decisions. And because pricing isn’t adjusted to the four-game slate (Tyler Lockett is priced as the WR9 but is only $4,400 on DraftKings), we don’t have to be as price-sensitive as usual. Again, everyone is facing the same player pool.
Game Theory
So, we have fewer decisions to make. So what?
Humans are wired differently. DFS players are no different.
Shorter slates mean there are only a “handful” of good options on the slate; hence roster construction will be relatively about the same across the site. But — as we all know — making one or two moves that deviate from our opponents’ popular lineup construction can make all of the difference.
For example, I expect Russell Wilson to be very popular in the Wild Card round just based on recent performance. DFS players will want to stack him with Doug Baldwin — which is fine — but what if we leverage ourselves by playing Wilson-Baldwin and Seattle D/ST? Or taking that idea one step further: Wilson-Lockett and Seattle D/ST?
Just because Wilson will be popular — perhaps 30-40% owned — doesn’t mean he’s an auto-fade in a small slate. He may very well be the right play, but we can still leverage ourselves into a position to beat our opponents by playing chalk, while doing something slightly different.
Luck and Randomness
Certain players excel in short slates with limited options. Others dominate when the field has to make a ton of decisions in normal slates.
On small slates, any wrong choice is magnified and extrapolated. There are fewer games meaning fewer ways to make up potential errors in our lineups. However, as I mentioned above in the Calvin Johnson example, when a player is 70% owned and goes nuts in a small slate and you don’t have him — you’re constantly working from behind for the remainder of the tournament.
The inverse is exactly true. Say Johnson gets hurt in that game or significantly underwhelms. Well, if you did fade Johnson you obviously just gained a massive advantage over the field.
In sum, playing chalk when there is positional scarcity isn’t inherently bad. We can still find ways to create a unique lineup in these situations and leverage ourselves just a bit differently. It’s just the idea of “being contrarian without being stupid” while facing a smaller amount of decisions.
