Building Lineups Using Consensus Rankings
Derek Farnsworth, aka Notorious, is one of the most recognizable names and faces in all of DFS, thanks in large part to the great advice he gives on a daily basis in RotoGrinders.com’s Grind Down for NBA and MLB as well as the First Look column that gives a preview of the day’s games from a DFS perspective. Before joining the RotoGrinders team, Derek received a Masters Degree from the University of Utah. When he’s not busy providing content, he’s dominating the industry as evidenced by his consistent top rankings in multiple sports. Farnsworth provides expert analysis for RotoGrinders Premium members on a daily basis during the NBA season and has also been nominated for five different Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association (FSWA) awards.
For as long as I’ve played weekly fantasy football, I have created my own set of projections each and every week. While I had some mild success in my first few seasons, I always seemed to miss out on the big paydays, whether it be in cash games or GPPs. Projections are useful, but they have their drawbacks. Trying to assign values and weights to different statistics can be challenging and relying solely on a points-per-dollar basis for your decisions can lead you in the wrong direction. It often lends itself to more of a balanced lineup approach, because the highest priced players each week typically don’t stand out in a points-per-dollar sense.
Last year was the first season that I strayed from the projections approach and it was by far my most profitable year in fantasy football. I still created my own projections, but I didn’t assign an arbitrary projection to each player. Instead, I created a ranking system that allowed me to compare player ranks to their salary ranks on each of the respective sites on which I was playing. For instance, let’s say that I had Julio Jones as my second-highest ranked receiver for the week. If I compared that to his salaries and saw that he was the most expensive wideout on FanDuel and the third-most expensive wideout on DraftKings, I could immediately see that he was a better play on DK than on FD. If I relied solely on a points-per-dollar projection, I probably would have avoided him in both sites.
As the season went on, I knew that I didn’t want to rely solely on my player rankings. Remember, there are smarter people out there in the industry, so why not take advantage of it?
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