FanDuel Single Entry Series: Week 4 Recap
The final week of July marked the fourth and final week of the FanDuel Single Entry Series, presented by RotoGrinders. The entry fee for Week 4 was at the $50 buy-in level, which attracted 2,190 unique users across nine game slates.
RG member zshoom raised eyebrows in Week 4 with four top-100 finishes. He will join the other three finalists in Nashville to compete for his share of the $25,000 prize pool on August 20.
Let’s review the rosters zshoom built in Week 4.
Monday, July 25
129.1 points, finished 109th out of 562
Winning score: 205
Zshoom’s first lineup of the week was good enough to cash, thanks primarily to two guys (who were both on the winning lineup in this contest). The first was pitcher Aaron Sanchez, who totaled 54 fantasy points and was rostered by 23.7% of the field. The second was Jay Bruce ($3400), who contributed 44.4 points at 7.5% ownership. zshoom chose three Orioles and two Reds hitters in his lineup, with varying ownership levels. He ended up with three hitters above 25% ownership and four below 8%.
Tuesday, July 26
208 points, finished 4th out of 899
Winning score: 229
Tuesday was a big day for zshoom, to put it mildly. This lineup won $2,000 for finishing fourth, and followed a very similar blueprint to Monday’s team – a Blue Jays pitcher, three hitters from one team, a pair of teammates from another, and go from there. Correlation plays abounded on this squad, with teammates from three different teams, plus a pitcher that could receive the 12 win points as a result of his teammates (specifically, Donaldson & Tulowitzki) doing well. Stroman didn’t end up as the winning pitcher, but the strategy was solid, nonetheless. In the end, this lineup was very balanced, with only two players scoring less than 18 points.
Wednesday, July 27 – Early Slate
190.4 points, finished 3rd out of 449
Winning score: 199.9
Look closely and you’ll spot the trend. There are at least two pairs of hitters on zshoom’s team once again. This time he chose three Marlins and three Tigers. Considering the Tigers only had four runs, getting 22 and 27.7 FanDuel points from two of those three hitters was not too shabby. The 47 fantasy points from Matt Moore (2.9% owned) was HUGE for zshoom. At the same exact price, Brandon McCarthy scored 24 points and was rostered by 26.4% of the field. It was the perfect leverage play because the two were pitching against each other and Moore ended up with the win points, which guaranteed McCarthy owners didn’t get those 12 precious fantasy points. After his second top-10 performance in a row, the voice from the old NBA Jam video game comes to mind: “He’s heating up!”
Wednesday, July 27 – Main Slate
152.9 points, finished 99th out of 674
Winning score: 247.2
Did zshoom roster two pairs of teammates again? He sure did. The Cubs were a very popular stack, and some of the other Cubbies had solid scores, but even without Addison Russell’s 29.2 points for $2,600, or one of the batters below $3,000 that scored over 25 points, this lineup was able to cash because there weren’t any duds on it. A super-low-owned Braves foursome, led by Freddie Freeman’s 53.7 fantasy points at 3.6% ownership, won this contest.
Thursday, July 28
106.3 points, finished 347th out of 836
Winning score: 197.9
Cole Hamels was the pitcher to have on this slate, returning 66 fantasy points for $10,000 at 8.7% ownership. Jose Fernandez, on the other hand, cost $11,800, was owned by 49.6% of the field, and only totaled 27 fantasy points. Zshoom decided to use a mid-priced pitcher instead, locking in Aaron Nola for $8,000. This lineup construction allowed him to fit in two expensive hitters in David Ortiz ($4,700) and Ian Desmond ($4,200). Five of his hitters registered less than 10 fantasy points, which sunk this team. Zshoom ended up rostering two Red Sox, two Rangers, two Twins, and two Giants to keep the pairs-of-teammates streak alive.
Friday, July 29
115.6 points, finished 363rd out of 899
Winning score: 217.1
I could be wrong, but on a 14-game slate, with Max Scherzer pitching, it seems like zshoom’s main goal here was to be contrarian. Only two of his hitters had ownership levels above 12.5%. His pitcher, Marco Estrada, was 0.9% owned. Using Estrada worked out well, as he cost $3,000 less than Scherzer and put up 39 points to Scherzer’s 48. The hitters, though, were a disappointment. Two hitters scored zero, and two others didn’t reach the 10-point mark. A pair of Toronto and San Diego bats were used on this roster.
Saturday, July 30
85.1 points, finished 489th out of 822
Winning score: 214
The Saturday contest was zshoom’s lowest-scoring effort of the week. Anthony DeSclafani ($8100) put up a respectable 33 fantasy points for zshoom. However, at a very similar ownership level, Justin Verlander ($9500) threw a complete game and ended the night with 66 FanDuel points. The two Diamondbacks and three Twins used by zshoom only produced 27.4 points. Many of the lineups at the top of the standings included Cleveland’s Mike Napoli and Jason Kipnis, who both scored 34 points.
Sunday, July 31 – Early Slate
169.6 points, finished 16th out of 562
Winning score: 193.8
zshoom was the leader heading into the final day of contests, with a good chance to improve his total for the week, given that his fourth best score was 129.1 points. He stuck to a familiar strategy, rostering a Blue Jays pitcher, two Toronto hitters, and three Minnesota sticks. His bats were the key in this case, with Martin, Vargas, Dozier, Tulowitzki, and the lone Pirate, Polanco, generating 142.6 points, which was enough to win $125 on this slate, before including Sanchez’s 24.
Sunday, July 31
107.1 points, finished 96th out of 270
Winning score: 183.8
Having increased his weekly total by 40 points earlier in the day, zshoom was surely hoping for a low-scoring slate on Sunday night. Despite the Dodgers scoring 14 runs and there only being eight teams to choose from, this was the lowest-scoring slate all week. Zshoom didn’t have any Dodgers on this team. He again went with a 2-3-1-1-1 strategy for his position players, using three Giants, two Diamondbacks, one Mariner, one Red, and one Padre.
Final Thoughts
Zshoom started off strong and cemented his stronghold on first place with his 16th place finish on the early Sunday slate. He wound up with 720.9 points, outscoring the second place finisher by 45.2. zshoom came in with a well-thought-out gameplan and stuck to it from one day to the next. Congratulations to zshoom for topping the leaderboard in Week 4.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the folks at RotoGrinders and FanDuel who organized the Single Entry Series and thanks to everyone who participated. I really hope to see more DFS contests like this in the future! To the finalists, I hope you have a blast in Nashville as you battle it out for that $10,000 first place prize!