Using Short Fantasy Rosters at FSL
Using Short Fantasy Rosters at FSL
At FantasySportsLive we have always allowed you to draft an incomplete (short) fantasy roster of less than 9 players. The only way to be DQed from a league is to not have players from multiple games or events. Fantasy teams consisting of players from a single game or event are not considered a fantasy team and would not qualify for the gambling exemption offered by the UIGEA of 2006, so we are forced to DQ unlawful entries. We are one of the few sites that allow short fantasy teams, but most other sites operate differently than us with just a single or a select few draft structures. The ability to use a short fantasy team is explained in a FAQ and in our rules, but we do get complaints from time to time from new users about confusion over short rosters. I thought I would go into some detail as to why we allow short rosters at FSL.
How does it work for season long fantasy sports?
Since daily fantasy sports is a modified version of season long fantasy sports, you can look to the rules of season long fantasy sports in some cases for guidance. In season long fantasy sports if you are asleep at the wheel, and forget to set one of your positions you will not be disqualified. You will simply not earn any points for that position, just like at FSL. There are significant differences between daily salary cap based fantasy sports and season long, but on the surface we are adopting the season long rules here.
Does it increase the variety for competitive fantasy teams?
Yes. This is pretty obvious I would think. The biggest problem with salary cap based fantasy sports drafts is the chances for similar teams to be drafted. Anything that adds to the variety of draftable fantasy teams is a good thing for salary cap based games.
Is it an advantage to draft a short fantasy roster?
No. Well let’s say that in most cases the answer is no. This seems counter intuitive to most, but it is the case. The only type of fantasy league where it would make any sense to go short would be our performance based ranking cap leagues. Take daily fantasy basketball for example and a 250 pt. cap structure. Each player’s cost is their average fantasy points scored per game this season. If you draft a 7, 8, or 9 player team and spend the full 250 points, your complete team averages 250 fantasy points per game this season. There is no way to go short and end up with a team that averages more fantasy points per game than a complete fantasy team. These are average fantasy team scores, and do not factor in the match-ups. When building a fantasy team you will want to find favorable match-ups or other factors that will make your team score more than 250 points. You can apply your skill at this up to 9 times, depending on how many players that you draft. A complete team allows you to fully apply your skill advantage. An 8 player team only allows you to apply 89% of your potential skill advantage. Are you with me so far? So you must give up some skill advantage, to gain some roster flexibility. So it comes down to if the extra roster flexibility can overcome that loss of skill advantage. I would say in nearly all cases, the extra flexibility is not worth it.
Typically, you would go short to put higher or top priced players on your roster. Are top priced players where the money is made in daily fantasy sports? Nope. Top priced players have much less percentage upside relative to their cap value. If Kobe cost 36 points, he would need to score 72 fantasy points to go 100% over his cost. A player with a cost of 12 and a favorable match-up, just needs to score 24 fantasy points to go 100% over cost. It is just easier to go over your cost by large margins with lower cost players. Higher cost players also have much higher down sides. If they get hurt or have a horrible game you can be giving up a ton of points with a 40 point cost player. Not so much with a player who costs 14 points. If you can draft a team that will outscore its cost by 25% you will get 312 points and have a very competitive fantasy team. Getting 25% over with all high cost players can get pretty tough.
Another problem with drafting more high cost players is that the skill edge is less with those players. Let’s say that you determine that Lebron James is a huge value tonight using your skill advantage. So you draft him, but so will a ton of other players on name recognition alone. Your skill was diminished a bit because it led to an obvious choice. Skill is really maximized with the less obvious “sleeper” type picks that will greatly exceed their cost, and will not be picked by too many other people. These tend to be the lower to mid cost type players. If you are drafting a bunch of players in this sweet spot area, you should always have cap room, and not ever need or want to go short to get under a cap level.
When can it be an advantage?
To be fair, there are a few circumstances where it can be an advantage to go short. These mainly come up on days when there are few games on the schedule. Let’s say that there is just one point guard of any value today, and that drafting two point guards would force you to pick a player whose cost would make them significantly overvalued. Let’s also assume that there are good values everywhere else including some higher cost players. In that case FSL will not force you to draft a player who you know is way over priced just to meet a 9 player roster requirement. The only other case I can imagine would also be for a very short schedule where the highest priced players are really expected to go off to the point where you feel you can’t win without them. Both of these situations would be pretty rare at FSL based on how we set our cap values for players and leagues but they are possible.
Do the best and most profitable players use short rosters?
I guess I could have just answered this one right away, and skipped all the boring analysis. Whatever the top players do, you would assume would tend to work, and they do not typically use short rosters. Top players typically have plenty of options in the low to mid price range, and don’t feel the need to drop a position slot to get under the cap. I am not saying that they never do, but they are not making going short some type of winning strategy. The other thing about going short is that it increases your variance, by decreasing the number of trials from the maximum of 9 allowed. When you are a winning player your only enemy is variance, and you should be reducing this when ever you can. Since you can do this at no cost in most cases, the top players tend to use complete rosters to both maximize profitability and minimize variance.
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About the Writer: After much research and preparation, Blinders turned his vision and passion for fantasy sports into the first Daily Fantasy sports site with Salary Cap based games in June of 2007: FantasySportsLive. He is a longtime online poker player and blogger, and the only daily fantasy grinder who was willing to take on Buffalo66 in his multi-sport fantasy challenge. Last NFL Season Blinders went 71-10 on FanDuel alone.