The Greatest “Cheat Sheet” In DFS
Each week in The Oracle, OWS team members will take on the key strategy questions from that week’s slate :: sharing their thoughts on how they plan to approach these critical elements from a roster-construction, game theory, and leverage perspective.
A weekly staple of The Oracle, what makes this slate particularly unique?
I actually really like this week. It feels like a “light week of work,” in terms of prep for my rosters, as I currently only have three quarterbacks on my “tight build” list, and I have a running back who may be locked onto 100% of my rosters. I see a lot of high-ceiling plays coming in with low ownership and a lot of “high-confidence, but relatively low-ceiling” plays coming in with high ownership. I don’t mind having a losing DFS weekend (we all have to play with that mindset, after all), so I don’t mind it when a week like this turns against me: the higher-risk, high-ceiling swings all miss, and the “high-confidence, but relatively low-ceiling” plays end up being the better way to build. That happens, and it’s fine. But what also happens sometimes is that those “high-confidence, but relatively low-ceiling” plays hit their middling range on a huge number of rosters, while the low-owned plays with legitimate “separator ceiling” hit on our rosters. When this happens, we’re competing against a much smaller group of rosters, with a much clearer path to a first-place finish. Of course, this specific component is not particularly unique (we see weeks like this multiple times each season), but pairing a week like this with a couple spots where my list is really tight is a very nice setup. With a broad list AND a need to hunt through higher-risk, higher-ceiling plays, you can end up in that situation where your higher-risk, higher-ceiling plays hit, and you nevertheless finish out of the money, because you got your other plays wrong trying to guess across a broad range of viable players. Since I have a relatively tight range of viable players, I end up with a greater chance of the math working in my favor if the higher-risk, higher-ceiling plays pay off this week. This isn’t the “Josh Allen vs Philly” week or the “cheap Tank Dell” weeks, etc., where we were just huge favorites to have a big weekend as a community; but this is a week in which the path to first place appears very clear, and if things break a particular way, we can be positioned to take advantage.
That there isn’t a single game I’m really excited to play. Most slates there are a couple of games that I see as the clear best spots – on this slate, every game has some kind of reasonable knock against it. BUF/KC is the highest total game, but KC’s offense has been underwhelming all year and their defense is elite. SF/SEA could easily be a blowout. Lots of low total games. The list goes on. I think the term “ugly slate” is often overused…but this feels like an ugly slate to me.
The biggest contributor to this uniqueness of this slate is information, and we’re likely to see the field placed broadly into two buckets regarding that information this week. First, the people that crave more information. Those people are worried about weather and the multitude of questionable players, in addition to those ruled out late in the week. Then there are those that are likely to be overwhelmed by information this week with so many moving parts. Being able to take all that information in, parse it accurately and intelligently, and then make the best decisions is likely going to be a massive contributor to expected value on this slate.
For me, the unique thing about this slate is how much I love a spot that feels obvious to me but, based on current ownership projections, is going overlooked elsewhere. Josh Allen has the potential to blow the slate away again here and the Chiefs ruling out Isiah Pacheco increases the chances of this game turning into a true shootout with both teams slinging it all game. Usually when we have these spots that I expect to have a chance to score 70+ points with both teams throwing it all over the field, it is a spot that is garnering heavy ownership and attention from the field. I’m sure there will be more interest in Buffalo than the projections are currently showing, but having the game I am focusing on being lower on the list of priority for the field is unique to this week.
We knew entering Week 13 that Zack Moss at $4,600 was going to be extremely popular. He was projected for ownership in the mid-50% range but the growing use of “Sims” and optimizers in the industry along with the desire by the field to fit Tyreek Hill in lineups while he was facing the league’s worst pass defense pushed Moss all the way up to the 70% ownership range in large-field MME play while he got up in the 80% range in some smaller field and higher dollar tournaments.
Obviously we have the benefit of hindsight now, and Moss turning in a bad game creates some bias in itself, but with the information we now know what are your thoughts on Moss as a play? A player in that spot at that price tag, if you know the ownership is at that extreme of a level would you play him? I think this extreme example can be a great opportunity to learn and grow for all of us, so I’m curious to hear the different takes on this.
