Welcome back to The Daily Grind, the place where I will be discussing all the happenings in Daily Fantasy Sports on a weekly basis. The Daily Grind will be my voice to help you through the constantly changing DFS landscape as I highlight important news, free articles, resources, potential overlay situations, great contests to play and more every week. The emphasis here will be first to cover the four sites that we partnered with this year (FanDuel, DraftKings, FantasyAces and FantasyScore), but I will still discuss major news and contests beyond those sites when applicable.
THE DFS NEWS OF THE WEEK
As you probably already know, over the last few weeks I have been talking about the DFS landscape and how quickly it is changing, not so much from a contest perspective but more from both political and legal viewpoints. This week I am not going to dig into that (pause for cheering), but I am going to share with you a great webinar that our site owners here, Joe Bryant and David Dodds, conducted this past week to talk all about the DFS landscape. Joe and David dug into many of the current issues, fielding question after question from host Cecil Lammey for more than an hour on the topic. It is a great discussion and well worth your time, and I strongly suggest you give it a view.
For the rest of the opening segment of The Daily Grind, I am going to talk about DFS games in a way that I have not found discussed very often, if at all. Late October is a special time on the annual sports calendar, as all four of the major sports are in session. Football is of course in full spring, but both hockey and basketball are starting their seasons this month, while baseball is wrapping it all up with the World Series. These four sports represent the vast majority of DFS sports available on the various DFS sites, so I thought it might be an interesting take to present a comparison of playing one sport versus another. I personally have tried them all, so I felt that I could take on this topic in an interesting way. Consider this as a Halloween treat for this weekend, and I hope you get as much enjoyment from this as a big bag of your favorite fun size candy. Dig in.
A DFS For ALL Seasons
First of all, let’s talk about the four major sports games out there – baseball is wrapping up now, but basketball and hockey are starting to ramp up both on and off the field with DFS fantasy contests. By now you should be very familiar with how to play DFS football (and if not, dig in to our two great e-books, “Cracking DraftKings” and “Cracking FanDuel”), and maybe you were thinking about picking up another DFS sport. There are many places to read up on these other sports and how to play them (including some tutorials by our friends over at Rotogrinders), but what about comparing each sport to the one or two you might know already?
Let’s start with football as the baseline. We know that we have a reasonably set roster (very set at FanDuel, one flex spot at DraftKings, for examples) and that there are many different ways to construct a lineup each week, both for cash games and for GPPs. Is that the case for other sports? Basketball is the closest sport to football in lineup construction in my view as far as the different ways you can build a lineup, as there are two general concepts in building rosters for cash games for both. There is the “stars and scrubs” or “studs and duds” method where you pay a lot for some players and then round out the rest of the lineup with value / punt / cheap players, and then there is the “balanced” lineup where you make sure all of the players are at least mid-range in price and value. The reason I think that football and basketball compare similarly is that there is not a particular position where you absolutely, positively, almost without a doubt should spend more money on that position than any other positon. Some weeks you pay up for a quarterback, other weeks it is a running back or wide receiver. The same goes for centers or point guards or power forwards in basketball – there is no set rule as to what position deserves more money. That is NOT the case in baseball or hockey. Pitchers dominate the DFS value in baseball and deserve more budget dollars than any other position. Goalies in hockey are not quite as dramatically commanding of budget as pitchers in baseball, but a reasonable comparison can be made for both as they get volume stats (innings pitched, strikeouts vs. saves) and also a shot at a big bonus for a win. Football and basketball do not have those key positions.
Let’s take another look at lineups, this time from a GPP perspective. In football, we all know about stacking, where you take 2-3 players from one team and hope that they combine for good numbers, such as a quarterback throwing to a wide receiver for a touchdown. That is the most direct stack there as, but baseball is not far behind in that a team can string together offense and put up runs, hits and RBIs together in a big inning. Owning several players from a lineup that explodes one day can produce big numbers, just like a quarterback connecting with a receiver for two touchdowns. Hockey and basketball have lesser stacking appeal, but they do have some correlation. Basketball would work well if a particular player kept feeding the other one for points, as one player would rack up assists on the other player’s scoring. That said, this is not often a plan for GPPs as many DFS basketball players do not target these combinations.
Bad matchups are often highlighted in looking for advantageous situations for DFS production. A bad pass defense can often provide a big day for the opposing offense, and taking a QB-WR stack against a weak secondary can lead to major points. Other sports also have this in it, as baseball DFS can target bad starting pitching, while basketball can target a weak team or bad defense in general. Hockey can even target bad penalty killing units for power play goal advantages. Looking for defenses that are bad against a particular position does translate across the board, but it depends on how you define it (or expand it to targeting a bad pitcher).
Home vs. Away. A football field is a football field, no matter where you play, right? Not exactly. Weather can impact a game, and so can the actual field itself. Some running backs and offenses are faster on turf, and some offenses do not do well in cold weather. On sites like FanDuel where you need a kicker, factors like win and altitude do matter. That translates well over to baseball, which has the biggest field impact of all the major sports as there are no set rules for overall field dimension. Football fans all know how the ball can go further when kicked in Denver, and the same thing happens at Coors Field in baseball games. All DFS baseball players know to look on the schedule to see if there is a game in Denver that day, as it is a major impact to their lineup plans. So what about basketball and hockey? You might not think either has any impact, but there are a few nuances to home vs. away for both. Basketball players tend to get a little more favoritism in foul calls at home (yes, it is true – and has been proven in several studies, including a great book called Scorecasting) but other factors like travel and the “home rim effect” where some players think that the ball goes in more for them on their home court are very subtle influences, but overall these are not really taken into consideration for setting a lineup. Hockey is different, and it does matter. Home teams get to decide who goes out on the ice after a stoppage in play second, which means that they can line up their offense and defense in response to the visiting team’s players. That means the home team can counter a top scoring line with their best defenders, and they can put their best offensive lines out in key situations against weaker matchups.
That brings up another key factor, which is opportunity. I am not talking about players getting a spot start here, we all look for that in every sport. Everyone wants that cheap running back that will be starting due to an injury – but why is that? That’s the opportunity I am talking about. Will the spot starter actually get a shot at performing? So what if a wide receiver is starting this week – will anyone throw him the ball? That’s the question, and one thing is true across all sports – you cannot produce if you do not get a chance to do so. Quarterbacks touch the ball every play, and running backs touch the ball the next most often. Wide receivers need targets, which is why we all look at those numbers (and now we even go so far as looking at the number of routes run). While snaps is great, offensive lineman get lots of snaps – but they do not touch the ball, so we don’t care. A tight end who is a glorified lineman is worth the same, so we need the opportunity to get the ball. This directly translates to basketball and hockey, where players get a certain amount of minutes on the court or ice. Some hockey players skate only 10-15 minutes a night, while some defensemen can play half the game. Stud basketball players can play 80% or more of the game (about 40 of the 48 minutes). Points per minute in basketball is a very key metric, so playing time is critical to know. As far as baseball, this does not factor in as much, but it is nice to know how often players get replaced later in games for key matchups. A star baseball player will likely not be yanked if a relief pitcher comes on that creates a bad matchup, while other players will almost always be pulled if in a lefty-lefty or righty-righty pitcher vs. batter situation.
This leads me to my next point – variance. You may not think this ties together right away, but it does. Baseball has the highest variance of any major DFS sport, and if you think about it, it is clear why. Baseball has 162 games a season, while football has 16. Over the course of a given season, most star players produce to expectations, give or take some variation. A .300 hitter will hit .300, give or take 15 points over a full season. A 1,000-yard rusher will get 1,000 yards, give or take 100. But on a given day? Baseball has 162 chances a season to perform, and each one of those is a microcosm of that full season snapshot. Some players hit 50 home runs a year, but trying to predict which games he will hit those long balls can get rather frustrating. A star quarterback may throw 40 touchdowns a year, but figuring out which ones will be the best games that year can also drive you crazy. The difference between the two sports is that baseball has 10 times as many games as football, so the daily snapshot is that much harder to predict. A star running back may get 50 or 150 yards in a given game, but the odds of him producing something positive and at least 50 yards a game is quite high. A star baseball player has about as much chance of going hitless as getting two or more hits in any particular day chosen at random. That variance needs to be understood, as the frustration level can be very high for higher variance sports. The good news with the other two major sports is that they fall in the middle, as both have 80+ games a season. Hockey goal scorers are quite analogous to home run hitters in baseball, but with 50% less games the frequency in which they score doubles. Basketball affords star players numerous ways to produce, so well-rounded stars can put up respectable numbers most nights even when their shot fails them.
I could go on and on about the differences with the sports, but I will conclude here with just one more point – individual matchups. Football is a team game, but we know that there can be key aspects to look for when analyzing two teams to try and predict what will happen on any given Sunday. Revis Island is a clear example of how this matters. A wide receiver that will be shadowed all day long by a shutdown corner is a DFS nightmare if you overlook this, so it must be considered. The same is true for defenses that are strong against the run or the pass. Individual matchups factor in for other sports as well, especially in basketball and baseball. Some basketball teams struggle with centers or point guards or power forwards, so a star or even an above-average player at one of those positions can have a big day against a team that does poorly against that position. This is just like looking for teams that struggle to cover tight ends – finding a good matchup to exploit can create a valuable (and underpriced) player for your lineup. Baseball is a very interesting example, as there is no team sport that has more individual matchups than baseball. The idea of how a batter does against a particular pitcher is a hotly debated one, but over time it is clear that tendencies do develop. What can (and often does) happen, however, is that starting pitchers may only face a particular hitter 2-3 times that game before the bullpen takes over, so those matchups go out the window when that happens. Once again, variance is high for baseball.
I hope this helped you in some way if you were thinking about how football DFS knowledge might translate over to another sport like basketball or hockey as those seasons start up (or even baseball next Spring). If you do decide to play, do keep in mind that some sites like DraftKings and FantasyAces offer up beginner sections to get you started, so do take advantage of those games until you get your feet wet. As always, play intelligently and on a budget – and have fun with it. That’s what DFS is all about.
FOOTBALLGUYS AND DFS COVERAGE FOR 2015
You know the deal by now - Footballguys has a ton of DFS coverage this year. Whether it is our two e-books that cover FanDuel (“Cracking FanDuel”) and DraftKings (“Cracking DraftKings”), or the 50+ articles a week we produce to cover all four major sites each week – we have it all covered. All this articles are linked in our Daily Crusher App that continues to be one of he best ways that DFS players can create lineups for cash games and tournaments and also get deep analysis on their rosters, likelihood of winning and exposure to various players. Once you start using this, it will be hard to imagine how you ever lived without it. I'm still learning all the different ways to use this great tool both by experimenting with it and with the help of our Daily Crusher Manual and I can already see its immense value to me as both a cash game and GPP player.
There's a ton more coverage we have this season for DFS, too much to outline in The Daily Grind, but we have a large section dedicated to each of our sponsor sites listed below.
DraftKings Coverage for Week 8
FantasyAces Coverage for Week 8
FantasyScore Coverage for Week 8
Let's also not forget about the Footballguys' blogs for both FanDuel and DraftKings. Watch for new content every day over there.
We even added new video content for 2015. In a partnership with Rotogrinders, you can now see both John Lee and Austin Lee with Dan Back on The Footballguys Rotogrinders Hour. It is a great show with lots of insight. Check it out!
Of course, if you are a bigger fan of The Audible, we have both FanDuel and DraftKings shows for DFS coverage for each site as well. Be sure to subscribe to these weekly podcasts to get your weekends rolling for the NFL DFS slate.
FOOTBALLGUYS DFS CONTEST
Footballguys wants all of their readers to get in on the fun. With the help of both FanDuel, we have a great contest available to Footballguys here in Week 5. The Footballguys Football Championship, presented by FanDuel, offers contestants with a shot at not just a double-up opportunity on their $10 entry, but also a chance at one of the final prizes. All you have to do is beat Sigmund Bloom, David Dodds and Joe Bryant’s scores in a given week and you get a ticket for the Week 11 final contest, where first place will win $5,000. That’s a pretty sweet deal on top of a normal double-up contest, as these extra prizes create a built-in overlay of about $40,000. This one should fill up quickly.
BIG CONTESTS FOR WEEK 8
FANDUEL
Last week I pointed out the great FanDuel NFL Survivor contest, and I hope that you are still alive and moving on to the third round. If you did, you need to check your ticket list to see if your entries are available for Sunday. If you don’t know, just click your name on the FanDuel site, then click “My Account”, and then “My Tickets” to see your tickets, and then be sure to update your rosters for Sunday. FanDuel also added the “win a car” freerolls to accounts that qualified (you had to play 2-4 weeks of cash contests, so hopefully you made it). Once again these freerolls should appear on your account, so again, update any dummy rosters.
Aside from that, FanDuel “only” has the same contests as last week on the DFS street continues to offer some of the largest volume of contests around. Start off with the Week 7 $4 Million Contest where someone will win a million bucks for just a $25 entry all the way down to the NFL Sunday Rush, wherr a $5 entry to this contest can win you $150,000 for first place. What a value that one is. But of course there is more, and as we mentioned earlier in The Daily Grind, FanDuel partnered with Footballguys to create an exclusive Footballguys-FanDuel Championship with over $40,000 in free prizes where you can turn a double-up entry into a ticket for a Week 11 final where if you can beat Joe Bryant, David Dodds and Sigmund Bloom in the week you can add up to $5,000 to that $20 you won in the $10 double-up. That's pretty sweet right there. And of course you have to take note of the Playboy College Football Championship, where you can earn one of 70 exclusive entries to the PCFC event at the Playboy Mansion on November 21st. Qualifiers will be running all season long at FanDuel, so take some shots at these great tournaments with extra incentives and prizes. Let's also not forget about the biggest one of them all, the $12M Fantasy Football World Championship that was announced early this season. Find a qualifier you like and take a shot and winning millions of dollars. The hard part is not deciding if to play, but which contests to target and try and take down.
DRAFTKINGS
DraftKings is once again offering their usual slate of great GPP contests. Such is the case in Week 7 with the $6M Millionaire Maker this week. First place walks away with $1M dollars, not a bad payday at all. DraftKings still has the biggest contest around with their $15 Million contest announcement from a few weeks back, and qualifiers are still in play for as low as $3 an entry. Hmmm, $3 for a shot at $5 Million. I’m in, and I think everyone should take a shot at this big prize.
As far as the rest of the contests for this week, there are plenty of tournaments at DraftKings to sink your teeth into, even after the Millionaire Maker. At a price point of just $3, the $1.25M Play-Action tournament is certainly appealing, and this week they kept the $9 tournament at big money levels as the NFL Slant contest offers $450K in prizes and you can win as much as $30,000. There' are also several giant 50/50 contests in the lobby as well, including a $25 entry with 17,000 winners about to get $50 Tuesday morning. Lots of contests and lots of money to be had in Week 5, so get those lineups ready.
FANTASYACES
You have to check out what FantasyAces is offering this season. Not only are they going bigger and better for the NFL, but they are also going for a Live Final for College Football!
First, FantasyAces announced the $500,000 NFL Live Final for 2015, which will be in Las Vegas on December 13th. The live final will have 40 entrants competing for a $100,000 grand prize. Qualifiers will run all season long up until the live event, including satellites to get into qualifiers at a discount.
The other major event for FantasyAces is their other live final, the $100,000 College Football Live Final. The live event will take place in Newport Beach, CA on November 21st where 13 finalist will compete for the $100,000 prize pool. The only way to claim a seat to the live final is to win a FACFC qualifier contest, which will be held weekly beginning September 3.
FantasyAces also has an interesting format called SalaryPro, where you get bonus points for staying furhter and further under the salary cap. More and more are trying out this unique format, so be sure to check out the lobby over at FantasyAces for contests that use this rule.
FANTASYSCORE
FantasyScore is offering up a GPP with a twist this year. If you can finish in the Top 3 in their Fantasy Football Championship Satellite, you can grab an elusive golden ticket for an entry towards the Week 16 championship game where $25,000 will be awarded. Another way to get a ticket is to go after the $20 entry satellite that is giving away four tickets. Check out all of these contests and more at our FantasyScore page.
Footballguys has you covered here - both in major DFS announcements and the tools you need to build winning lineups.
Thanks as always for reading The Daily Grind, and good luck this week.