David Does Daily (Fantasy): Week 3 Recap & Learnings

September 25, 2014 - by David Hess

This is the fourth installment in David’s diary about playing one-day fantasy football for the first time. All other posts are listed in this blog section.

FIRST PLACE BABY!

That’s right, I had my first first place finish! Too bad it was in a 50/50, so it was worth exactly the same as 50th place…

In Week 3 my intention was to apply a couple of the lessons I (thought I) learned in Week 2.

This meant:

On Sunday morning, look for backups being thrust into starting roles due to late injuries.
Stop coming up with crazy “angles” and entering lineups based on those angles.

One of those two goals worked out well…

Week 3 Results Recap

Note: I’ve added links in the Lineup Notes field that take you to that specific lineup.

Bankroll Entering Week 3					$243.88
Day	Contest	Fee	Lineup Notes	Result	Won
Thu	NFL 50/50 League	$2	Rotowire Optimizer / TR Picks / cheap D	125.48 (14 of 100)	$3.60
Thu	NFL 50/50 League	$2	RotoWire default	102.48 (45 of 100)	$3.60
Thu	NFL 50/50 League	$2	numberFire hand optimized	72.42 (91 of 100)	--
Thu	$2500 NFL Mini Rush #3	$5	stack on PHI (2 star ATS, 1 star over)	126.1 (107 of 574)	--
Thu	NFL 50/50 League	$2	RotoWire / add TR Picks / Knile Davis	101.9 (51 of 100)	--
Thu	NFL 50/50 League	$2	RotoWire / J. Charles / remove dupes	82.56 (82 of 100)	--
Sun	NFL 50/50 League	$5	use Blue/Forsett, optimize rest w/ NF	115.22 (13 of 100)	$9
Sun	$2K NFL Double Up ($2)	$2	same as above	115.22 (153 of 1117)	$4
Sun	$5K NFL Mini Snap #9	$2	Stack on DAL/BAL	93.98 (1648 of 2873)	--
Sun	NFL 50/50 League	$2	use Forsett / Rotowire & numberFire	149.8 (1 of 100)	$3.60
Mon	$20K NFL Snap (Mon-Thu)	$2	Stack on CHI/NYG	in progress (11,494)
Mon	$20K NFL Snap (Mon-Thu)	$2	"Cheat" w/ Week 4 salaries	in progress (11,494)
Mon	$20K NFL Snap #3 (Mon-Thu)	$2	Stack on WAS/NYJ	in progress (11,494)
Total Net Winnings					-$2.20
Sign Up Bonuses Earned					$1.04
Bankroll After Week 3 (ignoring fees for tournaments in progress)					$242.72

Overall, I was just short of profitable, again. What’s particularly frustrating is that I actually had a lineup finish 1st in one of my 50/50’s. If I’d have entered it in the $5K GPP tourney, it would have finished 12th out of 2,873 entries, earning $40. I also had a 50/50 entry finish in 51st place. Sigh.

As mentioned previously, I had two main goals entering the week, based on last week’s lessons.

Identify Backups Forced Into Featured Roles

I identified two players who were forecast to receive more touches than usual do to a late injury or suspension:

Justin Forsett (RB, Baltimore), $5200 … Bernard Pierce was inactive against the Browns, meaning that Forsett and Lorenzo Taliaferro were expected to share the load. The reports I read said that Forsett was expected to be featured. However, Taliaferro ended up getting more carries, and scoring more points. Forsett still produced 8.5 points, so he wasn’t a complete bust, just a bit of a disappointment.
Alfred Blue (RB, Houston), $4500 … Arian Foster’s hamstring kept him out of the Texans’ matchup against the Giants, and Blue filled in with 9.3 fantasy points. Not stellar, but his price per point was under $500, which was perfectly adequate for a 50/50 tournament last week.

Despite Forsett’s disappointing day, all three of my entries featuring him (two of which featured Blue as well) cashed. I think this was largely because saving money at running back allowed me to afford Antonio Brown at wide receiver, and he had a great day (26 points).

So that worked out quite well. I’m going to try this again on Sunday morning.

Stop Coming Up With New “Angles” On The Fly

My last minute ideas haven’t been working so well, so I planned on not entering any lineups on hunches or larks. I was unable to stay disciplined, though, so I did enter a few more lineups based on late ideas. The results were a mixed bag:

I tried to find a team that was a TR Pick against the spread, and which was playing in a game that was a TR Pick to go over. The best I could do was the Eagles, who were a playable spread pick, but in a game that was an unplayable (less than 52.5% probability) Over pick. This didn’t cash, but that’s because I entered it in a GPP, where it finished in the top 20%, but not in the money.
I read reports that Jamaal Charles might actually play for the Chiefs against Miami, so I plugged him into a Thursday lineup, thinking that *if* he did play, I would be one of very few people who owned him. Well … he didn’t, and I finished 82nd of 100 in that one.
I also found something interesting about the Monday-Thursday tournaments this week. The salaries for those Mon-Thu contests were from Week 3. But the Week 4 prices were set and published before the Week 3 Mon-Thu game started. This means I was able to compare prices for players in the Thursday game my Mon-Thu tournament to Week 4 prices for the exact same game. This showed, for example, that Kirk Cousins’ price went up by $1300. So I tried to game the system by making a lineup featuring these underpriced players. The jury’s still out, but after Monday, it’s not doing stellar — 48 points earned from $27,500 worth of salary, with 5 players to go. We’ll see.

The TeamRankings Private Tournament

As I do every week, I also entered the TeamRankings private tournament using the screen name teamrankings, as opposed to my personal account, tr_david. This week I finished 2nd, after a 5th place finish in Week 1.

My strategy was essentially the same as the last two weeks — remove players from teams where we had a strong Under pick or where we we strongly favoring their opponent against the spread, then try to optimize a lineup using the remaining players. I did add a new wrinkle — I also removed players that Rotowire seemed to have strongly overrated, compared to numberFire’s projections. So I basically knocked Rotowire’s outliers, then let them optimize the rest. You can see the lineup here.

What I (Think I) Learned In Week 3

Scouring The News Feeds Sunday Morning Pays Off

In order to figure out what backups I could plug in and get cheap production out of, I checked out the RotoWorld news feed. This is what turned me on to the absence of Pierce and Foster, and allowed me to plug in Forsett and Blue.

Arguably, their advice on which player to plug in for Pierce was wrong, but the late news of him being missing was valuable enough.

I Need To Come Up With A Real Strategy For Which Contests To Play

So far, I’ve been haphazardly coming up with lineups, and entering them in either 50/50’s or GPP’s on a whim. This came back to bite me this week:

Of the 2 GPP’s I entered, I cashed in neither, but would have finished in the top half of a 50/50 with one of the entries.
Meanwhile, of the 8 50/50’s or Double Up’s I entered, I finished in the top half in 4, which is fine, but … one lineup finished first, and two more finished in the top 15%, so I would have received a higher return on my investment if I had entered all the lineups in GPP’s.

Don’t Take Injury Gambles In Thursday 50/50’s

When I read that Jamal Charles might play, I thought it would be a great chance to get solid production out of a player not owned by many people, so I stuck him in a lineup.

However, in retrospect, that was the kind of gamble I should have reserved for a GPP. For a 50/50, I should be looking for players with a high floor, not gambling on finding some high upside.