Transcript

Hey guys, this is Max Steinberg. I’m a Partner at SaberSim and a Daily Fantasy Professional. And this is part three of my video series, The Road to the FFWC for DraftKings. In my first two videos, I mainly talked about doing research for adjusting my projections and possibly adjusting ownerships and eventually building my lineup on SaberSim’s website. And now we’re actually getting to the point where I’m starting to actually do some things. And what I’m starting to do is I’m going to start adjusting the projections, the ownership that SaberSim already provides in order to make sure that they’re in line with more what I think. And I’m not just completely trusting a model. The model is a good baseline, but it’s not perfect and I want to perfect it using some of the tools that I created that I showed you in the previous video.

And so what I do here is, I basically go to SaberSim’s website. I download the projections, this is going to put them in a CSV, and I put them in this Google Sheet, and copy and paste them right here. So I do this so I can update them in the morning, make sure that they’re as updated as possible. So when I make my adjustments it’s not off of sort of stale data. So then I’m going to start looking at some plays that I want to adjust. And I think there’s two things, two key things that I want to do here is just because I like someone and I’ve noted them as good play doesn’t actually necessarily mean that I’m going to adjust them upward. And I’m just going to repeat this one more time, so I make sure that you get this. Just because I’ve noted someone that I liked does not mean I’m going to adjust them upward.

And the reason is, is sometimes SaberSim has a point projection stance that already is a pretty heavy stats on a player. And one that stands out to me right now is Larry Fitzgerald. So as I noted in my last video and I made some notes here, his expected fantasy points were actually quite high and sort of stood out to me and they’re around 13. Now I look at SabreSim and they actually have him at 13. And I actually feel like this discrepancy between Fitzgerald and Kirk is really, really close. So he’s someone that… Despite the fact that I like him, I don’t think I’m going to really adjust. And even if you don’t have something like expect your fantasy points, I think something smart that you can do is basically look at it from a comparison standpoint. So let’s sort by position and then sort by projection and let’s just see who is close to him in projection.

I’m going to look here. So we see Larry Fitzgerald, he’s close to A.J. Brown, he’s close to Tyler Lockett, he’s close to Dede Westbrook. He’s already with some pretty big names, so I feel pretty comfortable just in fact, just keeping him where he’s at and feeling pretty happy about it. I could honestly even lower him because the fact of the matter is, that is a really strong stance saying that he is as good as those players. So in fact I actually think I will lower him a little bit and just lower him a few percentage points. So this is just adjusting his percentage to this final projection that I have here. And so this isn’t saying that I don’t like him, this is taking a stance that I really do like him, he’s going to be in a lot of my lineups given his DK salary.

But I think we’re actually going maybe a little tight too high here. So I just wanted to show you that nuance just to make sure you realize that just because you like someone doesn’t mean you just auto adjust them up. So in the same time, I’m going to look at some of the plays I made notes on. And we have different people, I have even a tongue-in-cheek thing about Patrick Laird. So I’m just going to go around and look at these guys’ projections and see if they’re in line with everything. So with Patrick Laird 14.3, I think that’s pretty reasonable. I think I like him more than that. I’m going to adjust him up some percentage. Let’s maybe look at another guy like Courtland Sutton. As we said before, I’m seeing 17 expected fantasy points a game for his last five games. I think he’s a total stud.

We only have him at 13, so he’s someone that I feel pretty comfortable adjusting up quite a bit. I might even go more than this. So again, I’m looking through this, seeing a guy, Chris Conley, someone I bolded. So I haven’t looked at these projections. So I’m now taking a look and just seeing if they’re in line. And I sort of had a sense that Chris Conley was going to be projected around 10 and a half. I think he’s someone that I’m very comfortable raising quite a bit. Leonard Fournette, I’ve talked about a lot in this video. He’s someone I’m going to raise quite a bit too. I might even do more than this. And I think what’s important is just what I want to emphasize is two things with SaberSim is making sure that the adjustments that you’re making, makes sense given what SabreSim’s projecting and you’re not just taking an already high projection and making it higher when you’re just going completely overboard.

And I’m not going to lie, I’m a professional. I have a lot of sources of data. I use different projection systems, I use different resources, I follow a lot of sharp people, I follow sharp sports betting people. So I have a lot of different avenues to get things. And I think what’s important if you’re the type of person who can’t afford to subscribe to multiple production systems, this is the only thing you are looking at is get a sense of what different projections really mean. And maybe even look at the detailed data of these projections. See, okay how receptions does this mean? How many receiving yards? Do these look normal? And make sure that you’re actually looking at this as what am I actually projecting up or down here?

And then what I said before is just looking at comparisons like I did with Larry Fitzgerald is compare him to other wide receivers. And compare him and just see where he’s at. Because at the start of this video, I liked him and then I decided to actually project him down, which I think is totally, totally fine. And that still means I actually like him. So a couple more guys, I’m just going to talk about some guys that I really like and are going to be some of my biggest adjustments. Christian McCaffrey. I kind of think he’s not going to be this high end. He’s facing Seattle, they’re big underdogs and I think our ownership projection is just overvaluing this because he’s been owned in the past. I’m not sure exactly what goes into it. So I’m going to minus his ownership.

I think this is probably more reasonable and I’m going to boost him a lot. I think he should actually be close to third project out 30 fantasy points. So I mean I get him in my lineup. Other guys I like, I think Kansas City as well. These are players that I want to get in my lineup. Patrick Mahomes I think if we organize this by position, we’re going to see he’s the top QB. And I hope that’s true and if he’s not, I’m going to make him the top QB. Because I do think he is the top QB, especially this week with no Lamar Jackson on the slate. As I showed you in that previous video when I was talking about pass above expectation, I think he’s hit kind of a lull here with Casey sort of just getting to game scripts where they’re running the ball a ton. And I still think they’re the most pass heavy team in football and are going to play that way this week.

So I like that he’s so high projector over everyone else. So he’s a guy that I’m not going to actually adjust up but I’m just happy to see that. But someone I do really like is Tyreek Hill. I think he’s really hard to evaluate. He’s kind of been injured the season. He played limited snaps some parts of the season. I think he might be the best fantasy wide receiver in football when healthy. And despite the fact there is some snow in the weather, it seems like it’s pretty good. He’s a guy I’m going to adjust up quite a bit and possibly hope that I get him in my DraftKings lineup. That’s one more guy like. I think one guy touched on in the video with Tyler Higbee, I liked him a lot. This is a pretty high projection for a tight end. I probably will go a little more. He’s someone I like a lot.

And one last thing is, I think this is a great bounce back spot for someone like Julian Edelman. I noted him in some of my favorite plays of the week. I think if you actually look at his expected fantasy points since Josh Gordon and Antonio Brown have been off the team, he’s really, really been quite good. And I think he’s going to be sort of just overlooked and underrated even though they’re playing Cincinnati. He’s a terrible defense and he’s obviously has a pretty eye-catch projection. So he’s someone I like a lot and if I got a Tom Brady, Edelman stack, I would not complain. So I’m not going to go through all the adjustments I make or the ownership adjustments I’m going to make. I’m going to look more closely at ownership and make more adjustments there and probably come over basically every player since it’s obviously a very important weekend. And by the end, I’ll have my projections perfected. And then in the morning I’m actually in to build the lineup and show you what I’m going to build.

So I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you learned something a little more about my process. This obviously doesn’t cover all of the adjustments I’m going to make. I’m going to make a whole lot more, but I just wanted to show you how I sort of set myself up to make those adjustments and how I sort of look at things by either just intuiting how much someone should be projected using comparing to other projection systems if you have them. But yeah, I just wanted to show you how I do these things. So thanks again for watching this video. Again, SaberSim is offering a free three day trial that… By the way, if you’ve tried this before, the clock is totally reset and you can try us again. So try this out this weekend, make some lineups, see how you do. Good luck tomorrow. Anyone who is in the FFWC, please don’t copy my lineup. And good luck and good luck to everyone. See you.