Daily Fantasy Strategy — April 21 — For Draftstreet

Let me start by saying I’m making an assumption that most of us form our basic opinions of a player’s fantasy value with categories in mind. By that I mean most of us play in yearly roto or H2H formats that use categories. Some people play in points leagues, but from what I can tell, points leagues make up a fairly small percentage of yearly leagues. And not all points leagues are the same. My guess is that whatever your opinion is of a player’s value, it’s somewhat based on categories.

If that’s true, it could be hurting those of us that play daily contests. So I took the Steamer RoS projections to make RoS rankings based on 5×5 value and the DraftStreet scoring system. To calculate 5×5 value, I used Zach Sanders’ z-score method and calculated each player’s Fantasy Value Above Average (FVAAz). Below are a couple of lists showing the players who are much better and much worse when using the Draftstreet scoring system and some discussion of the types of players that show up in each list. And then at the very bottom of the post (after the daily picks) I’ll have a chart embedded showing how all players compare with each scoring system.

Gainers

What instantly jumps out about this list is that five of the six players on it are middle infielders. That’s especially strange to me because I didn’t even factor in positional scarcity when I did the 5×5 rankings. And the sixth guy on the list, Carlos Santana, also would have gotten a bump if I had factored in positional scarcity. When I saw Santana and Ben Zobrist on the list, I thought this might be a list of high OBP guys, but three of the players on the list have a walk rate under 6.5% since the start of 2012. They do all have strikeout rates that are comfortably better than average, which certainly helps since Draftstreet docks a player .75 points for a strikeout. But there might be something more going on here that I’m missing.

Losers

Again, I’m not totally sure what to make of this list. Everyone on this list has a strikeout rate since the start of 2012 higher than anyone on the list above. But a couple of them are close to league average, and only Napoli has a very high strikeout rate. It’s also a mix of power and speed guys, so I’m not sure there’s anything to be gleaned from the manner in which these players produce. As in the list above, we see players primarily from the same position with six outfielders. Again, strikeouts are making a difference, but that’s not the whole story. Let me know if you see another common thread.

The Daily Five

Felix Hernandez ($24,842) – You can have Yu Darvish for $285 more than Felix against a solid A’s lineup, or you can have the King against the Astros. If you have the cash to pay for an elite starter, it’s an easy decision today.

Julio Teheran ($17,661) – I really like Anibal Sanchez who costs $322 more than Teheran. But Anibal will be facing the White Sox whose offense is off to a nice start while Teheran will get the Marlins.

Dan Straily ($12,461) – If you’re looking for a cheaper SP option, how about Straily against a Texas offense that has struggled so far this year and is better against left-handed pitching?

San Francisco Stack / Colorado Stack – As is almost always the case when a game is being played in Colorado, Vegas has this projected to be the highest scoring game of the day. You can feel even safer about there being a lot of offense in this game with Ryan Vogelsong and Jorge de la Rosa pitching.

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