As we’re growing and publishing more content all around (very exciting), I’ve decided to make a post every Friday afternoon of the content from the previous week, just in case you’ve missed anything.
Here we go (Mario 64 voice)…
General
– Mark Cuban Invests in Fantasy Labs
We identified Mark as the “dream investor” from the start, for obvious reasons—his track record of helping entrepreneurs and his heavily involvement in sports—as well as his data-driven nature and connections in the world of sports analytics. Mark’s resources within the blossoming eSports industry were also extremely attractive to us.
– Updated Coverage of Fantasy Labs’ Deal with Mark Cuban
Just to keep everyone up-to-date, we wanted to compile a list of some of the media outlets reporting on the big news. We’ll update this list periodically as additional sites cover the story.
– The Fantasy Labs Mailbag, Volume 1
As I was growing up, one of the sports columns I constantly read was Bill Simmons’ mailbags – it was a good way for him to interact with readers while also talking about content that was important to him. My goal with this mailbag column – we’ll do this every Friday from now on with a rotating cast of Fantasy Labs characters – is the same. I want to answer your questions, talk about stuff that’s important to us, and interact in a fun way that can’t always be achieved in a regular article.
NFL
– The NFL DFS Year in Review: QBs on DraftKings, by Mitchell Block
In this series, I will be looking at every position and how players performed at different price points and under certain circumstances over the course of the past year. If you’re the type of player that is apt to lean towards always using a cheap quarterback or paying up for Rob Gronkowski, this may be a good time to see how such strategies worked out as a whole and if there are/were more optimal ways to approach your lineup construction from week to week.
– Hindsight Is 20-20: Utilizing Late Swap on DraftKings, by JayCabay12
In this video, JayCabay12 breaks down one of his NFL DFS lineups and shows how to utilize late swap on DraftKings as a strategy.
– Short Slates, Playing Chalk, and Positional Scarcity, by Graham Barfield
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?
– NFL to NBA: Using Fantasy Labs for Daily Fantasy Basketball, by Jonathan Bales
Watch Fantasy Labs co-founder Jonathan Bales explain the differences between daily fantasy football and daily fantasy basketball, as well as how to best transition from NFL to NBA.
– TASER Values, Complete 2015 Season, by Bryan Mears
And that’s pretty much exactly what we see, with a few exceptions of course. This is really encouraging and I think we can put trust in TASER to show us when regression is due. I thought it might come during the season a bit more than it did, but it definitely comes year-to-year as the data shows. Obviously, this is really useful for next year – the players with the highest TASERs from 2015 are great buy-low candidates in season-long leagues and guys to target earlier in the season in daily leagues.
– How to Eat Chalk and Remain Contrarian, by JayCabay12
Just because I ate the chalk there does not mean (to me at least) that I can’t still differentiate myself from the field – I just look at it as a different field. I didn’t take Odell because I like his hair (I do); I took him because I liked his upside. I hoped for him to score a lot of points, and if that happened, the question I asked myself had to change. It now goes from “how do I differentiate from the field?” to “how do I differentiate from lineups that are also going to have OBJ?” One easy way to do that is to not roster Eli Manning, who I thought would be a popular play. He came in at 28.7% ownership.
– 3 Vital DraftKings Trends for the NFL Wild-Card Round, by Graham Barfield
Overall, I think the cold weather is not a huge concern for the game in Minnesota. I’d be much more afraid of wind, but it’s currently forecasted to blow 10-15 miles per hour, which isn’t crucial. Maybe we lower expectations for Russell Wilson and Teddy Bridgewater slightly, but nothing extraordinary. If anything, the cold weather concerns should leave Wilson a bit lighter owned than he maybe should be in tournaments.
– NFL DFS Wild-Card Round Breakdown, by Mitchell Block
Be mindful of your game selection. While this is something we should be doing every week, it’s very important on these short slates. With the significant amount of overlap that is likely to occur, the level of variance will increase. This can lead to many head-to-head matchups being decided by only a player or two. Keep this in mind when determining how much of your bankroll to utilize and how you will distribute it between the different formats.
– Statistics, Data, and Trends Tool Tips, by JayCabay12
My “process” is a fluid one. I change where a lot of my time will be spent based on a few different factors. For example, early this season it became evident that pricing on DraftKings was soft at the tight end and quarterback positions. I spent a lot of time trying to best identify the values at those positions because I thought that accurately finding those values would offer me a nice edge on the field. I had good success rostering two tight ends for the first half of the season. I used the Trends tool a ton in both of those instances.
– NFL DFS: Bargain Hunting on DraftKings, Playoff Edition, by Mitchell Block
Ah, playoff DFS. Small slates, obscene lineup overlap and yet for some reason, we still find ourselves drawn in. With only a handful of players at each position, you may find yourself having difficulty even using up your entire budget this week, and that’s okay. More than ever, you need to focus on identifying the optimal plays, even if that results in an extra $1,000 -$2,000 left in your budget.
– When Should You Go Naked Quarterback?, by Tyler Buecher
The most common line of thinking is if the quarterback is set to do well in a matchup, it’s because the weapons around him are also in great matchups. This is why stacking is such a popular go-to move in GPPs – as a receiver flourishes, so will the quarterback. However, pivoting off this groupthink by rolling out a more contrarian naked QB could help land you at the top of a GPP leaderboard instead of having just a quality finish.
NBA
– NBA Stacking: Golden State Warriors, by Bill Monighetti
The first thing to consider is the nature of Golden State’s lineup. Joining the big three on the court is generally some combination of Bogut, Iguodala, Ezeli, and/or Rush. Three out of these four players have usage rates below 13% when playing alongside Curry, Klay, and Dray, though Ezeli’s does stay a bit higher – around 19.5%. When you start pairing the top options together, you are giving yourself exposure to a huge percentage of Golden State’s production. That may seem obvious, but there are many teams around the league where this is not the case.
– True DvP: Opponent Plus/Minus, by Bryan Mears
I put out an article a couple weeks ago about why DvP is misleading — check out the full write-up here, but essentially, it’s not particularly useful as a statistic if you don’t salary-adjust it. Thankfully, you can use our Trends tool to do exactly that and see a team’s “true” DvP, or their Opponent Plus/Minus to that position.
– NBA Ownership Review: 1/5/16, by Bill Monighetti
We’re always trying our best to predict ownership levels in GPPs…with ranging levels of success. In this series, I’m going to take a look at a GPP slate that I found interesting within the past few days and try to figure out what led to the ownership levels being what they are using our models. The numbers are all pulled from FanDuel’s $5 Layup.
– NBA Trend Testing: Projected Plus/Minus, by Bill Monighetti
With our Trends tool, you can see current and historical matches for players in matchups that meet the specified criteria. This makes it pretty easy to track performance within the result set. In this series, I thought it might be cool to take it one step further. I will be creating a Trend early in the week, playing the “Current Matches” in my lineups throughout the week on FanDuel and then reviewing the Trend at the end of the week.
– NBA DFS: Monitoring the Minutes, Volume 6, by Mitchell Block
Taking all of this into account, any time we see a player receive a change in playing time over a stretch longer than a game or two, we should be taking note. Each week in the space below I’ll take a look at a few players that have had a noticeable change in playing time – whether positive or negative – throughout the past week or two. I’ll attempt to flesh out the reason(s) behind the change, determine if this change has been correlating into an increase or decrease in fantasy production and how long we can expect this change in playing time to continue.
