September 10, 2015

Fantasy Rounders

Rethinking the Thin Red Line

by Doug Thorburn

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Back in April, I wrote about the “Thin Red Line,” a theoretical threshold for fantasy points on DraftKings that was meant to represent the typical point-values that are needed to make a profit. I set the line at 100 points based on previous experience and average point values that I had needed to finish in the black, while acknowledging that the thin red line is a moving target that is sensitive to the whims of each day's performance. The 100-point barrier was easy to calculate in terms of setting a roster, as the $50k budget meant that I was aiming to get two points for every $1000 of cap room spent on that day's lineup, and often times I would check the combined FPPG of the players on a given roster to get a ballpark feel for the strength of that squad. If was all neat and tidy, and while the 100-point barrier was not set in stone, I did think that it was a relatively stable approach from a theoretical standpoint.

I was wrong. The thin red line has moved, such that 100 points is no longer expected to return my investment on a day-to-day basis. The bar has been raised, perhaps significantly, given the frequency with which I finish with a roster that scores 105-to-115 points and still ends up below sea level. Meanwhile, the FPPG scores of a typical lineup have seemingly remained unchanged, as fielding a squad with more than 100 points of expected performance is difficult to fit within the confines of the $50k budget, The conclusion: it's not the scoring environment that has changed, but rather the efficiency of DFS managers in producing lineups.

Every lineup that I create carries an expectation that it will crack the squad's FPPG, thanks to platoon splits, picking soft opponents (especially pitchers), recent performance, etc. The results have born out with an average score that sits between 105 and 110 fantasy points per lineup, which in previous seasons would have kept me theoretically within the profit zone, but I have found that the 100-point goal is not a path to profit after all, but is actually a route to a slow death for your bankroll. My lineups are technically beating last year's performance but they have too often fallen short, due to an improved playing field of DFS managers that are becoming more efficient as a group, and which have the financial clout to enter more contests and thus proliferate expertise across the DFS landscape.

At the core of this phenomenon are the projection systems that are designed specifically for DFS baseball. As I alluded to in last week's journal, DFS baseball is a different beast than it's football cousin, as the 180 days that make up the baseball season allow ample opportunity and sample size for such systems to bear out a profit, whereas the football slate consists of 17 weekends where performance might be driven by whimsy as much as (or more than) careful planning. A football projection system would carry intrigue due to the simple facts that computers are better than humans at crunching the numbers and that people like making money, but the opportunity to reap an advantage with such a system is miniscule compared to the opportunity provided by baseball.

The systems themselves are really well done. BP alumnus Derek Carty has created THE BAT to optimize lineups for DFS baseball, with adjustments that can be made to reflect the various sites. I have seen some of the recommendations that are made by THE BAT, and though I initially scoffed at some of the outputs of the system, I have become convinced through the continued accuracy of the projections for these lesser-appreciated players. My ego and Baseballholism were difficult to put aside, as these elements represent my own theoretical advantage in the competitive environment of DFS baseball, but the reality of today's game is that projection systems will likely win over the long haul while more and more managers are using those projection systems to garner an edge.

The increasing difficulty of the environment has caused me to shift my focus away from roster construction and onto elements such as scouting the pros, avoiding them altogether, and scouring for profit opportunities within the pool of DFS managers. The adjusted focus was enjoyable at first, in the sense that I felt that I was appreciating the outside elements that went beyond baseball, but here we are in September and putting these strategies into action has become exhausting. Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of the basic tenets of fantasy baseball, and rather than constructing a dynamite roster that I think will score highly, these days my time is consumed with finding tournaments that will hopefully be kind to my bankroll. Perhaps this is more of a personal problem, in that I have yet to discover the path to profitability and have been looking in all the wrong places, but I also get the sense that the game is being taken over by a select few, like Agent Smith making copies of himself in the Matrix. I haven't achieved Neo status yet, so like other mortals I find that going up against Agents is a losing proposition.

Doug Thorburn is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @doug_thorburn
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