Hyped and Overrated Players in Daily Fantasy Sports

Avoid Hyped and Overrated Players - Tips to Finding Good Value
by Adam, Pro DFS Player, RotoPicks.com

The key to winning daily fantasy sports games is to get the most you can out of the salary cap that is available to you. You are trying to squeeze as much juice out of the orange as you can. A small orange that squeezes half a cup of juice is more valuable than an orange 10x its size that squeezes a full cup of juice. In other words, the multiple of points to salary is the most important factor to winning daily fantasy sports.

Many times, players are hyped or overrated. This can be due to any number of reasons. Hype typically follows when a top prospect is called up and people expect a Mike Trout type of performance right off the bat. Hype may also follow an exciting player who contributes defensively as opposed to offensively, or a player who is elite in only one category and people get fixated on that. Overrated players are usually the names you know. A career of good production does not always mean the production will continue, especially as that player gets older. Players are not like a fine wine that gets better with age.

Determining if a Player is Overrated or a Good Value

So now the key to winning DFS contests is to score the most points under the salary cap. It follows that each position or roster slot can be treated as a separate entity, and when your lineup is complete, you can tweak as necessary if you have salary cap room. What you want to do is determine the overall amount of points you need to win in the contest you are playing in, and divide that by the salary cap to determine how many points you need for each $1,000 you spend. It is important to note that you will need less points in double ups and 50/50s than in Guaranteed Prize Pool tournaments (GPPs) because more of the entrants get paid in a double up than in a GPP.

DEPOSIT $100-$600 AND GET A 100% BONUS AT DRAFTKINGS (PROMO CODE: ROTOPICKS)

Once you have the necessary points needed per $1,000 spent, you can start to see which players are overrated. You can even do an analysis on the multiples of all players via a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, as explained in our RotoPicks DraftKings Lineup Export article, which shows you step by step how to export the salaries of all players and quickly calculate that multiple that we need to show whether a player is a bargain or not. Basically, the more anticipated points you can get for each dollar you spend, the better.

You will often see that the most expensive players, even if they score the most points, are actually not the best choices. Sometimes it is better to have a lineup of mid-priced players as opposed to a lineup of a few studs with a few duds. This is especially true in double ups. Those expensive players are technically overrated in that they do not provide the same amount of points per dollar spent on them. If they only got you a point per $1,000 and your salary cap was $100,000, then you end up with 100 points. Meanwhile, a team full of players who can get you 1.5 points per $1,000 spent would get you 150 points, assuming you get close to the salary cap.

Bottom to Top Approach

The best way to avoid overrated and hyped players is to do the opposite of what many beginners do: instead of starting from the top of the salary list and picking your favorite studs, start from the bottom of the list for each position, find your UNDERRATED players and sleepers as you work your way up the salaries, and then when you are done filling out your roster, you will have salary cap room, and you can tweak your roster to get some better players in.

This bottom to top approach naturally shields you and protects you from accidentally picking an overpriced player (hyped or overvalued) because chances are, you will have a full roster before you even get to the price level where overpriced players sit. So, in essence, going from bottom to top is safer and usually a more intuitive way to approach your daily fantasy sports lineup creation.

Fantasy Baseball Betting

Featured Articles

MISC and FAQ