Macro vs. Micro: FanDuel Week 10

 

We are officially on the back nine as we head into the Week 10 main slate. Not only that, but we are less than two weeks away from one of the best slates of the year, the Thanksgiving slate! I feel like I say this almost weekly, but it really is hard to believe how fast the season is flying by.

As for the Week 9 recap, yet again the article’s cover boy exploded for a slate-breaking score. Two weeks ago, it was Bhayshul Tuten, and this past week, it was Kenneth Walker III. Overall, a pretty good week for the pieces in the Micro section last week, and hopefully you had the right plays around them to put up a decent tournament score.

 

Week 9 Micro Recap:

QB: Drake Maye, NE 21.26 points

RB:  Kenneth Walker III, KC 37.30 points

RB: Chuba Hubbard, CAR 11.60 points

WR: Chris Olave, NO 13.30 points

WR:  Christian Watson, GB 29.60 points

WR: Demarcus Robinson, SF 3.70 points

TE: Tyler Warren, IND 6.40 points

DEF: Houston Texans 12.00 points

 

It seems like we have picked up several new readers of this article over the past couple of weeks, and with that being the case, I’ve linked some of those past articles here to wrap up the intro section. Obviously, the Micro sections from those articles won’t mean anything, as those slates have passed. However, hopefully you will find some of the recent Macro topics to be helpful. Some of those recent topics include:

 

• Bankroll Management
• Information Overload
• How many lineups should you play?
• Using the Sims
• Your Weekly Schedule (a homework assignment)

 

As always, feel free to reach out in Discord with any comments or questions, and best of luck in Week 10!

 

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Macro: “Flipping the Build”

The phrase “flipping the build” gets tossed around often in the GPP world; however, I’m not sure it is as well understood as some might think. For some DFS players, understanding it doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to apply it in a way that benefits them in tournaments that week.

That said, we are going to look at both of those aspects of “flipping the build” this week. First, we must understand what it is. Secondly, we must look at how we can use it to our advantage to fade some of the common roster constructions that week, and create the leverage we need to rise to the top of the GPP leaderboards.

 

What does it mean to “flip the build?”

For a GPP player, one of the most dangerous mindsets that you can fall into each week is the groupthink that points everyone in the same direction when building their lineups. That may be fine for cash, but it most certainly isn’t for GPPs. Sure, we want highly projected lineups, and there are other fundamentals that are important to roster construction (correlation, etc.). None of that means that we need to follow the herd, though, and wind up with similar-looking lineup builds.

In a given week, there are numerous things that point people in the same direction. Some of these include content, projections, ownership, the “best plays,” etc. By the time all of the dust settles and Sunday gets here, everything has pointed us in the same direction, to where we have paid down at this position and paid up at that position. Even if we have different players, we often don’t have different builds because of the high-value plays forcing our lineups to the same build.

One example of this might be in a week where we have 2-3 very good values at RB. For example, maybe there was a key injury or two to a starting RB after pricing came out. The result of that is that lineups now play the value at RB, and jam the expensive WRs on the slate. Sounds great, right? Who doesn’t want to be able to jam the Jaxon Smith-Njigbas and Puka Nacuas of the world? Well, guess what? Everyone else is doing the same thing.

Flipping the build means that we are doing the opposite. Instead, maybe during this type of week that I referenced, we pay UP at RB instead of down. That, in turn, forces us to pay down at other positions, like WR, where others are paying up.  

See how that works? It gives us automatic leverage, and a different path to the top that many lineups won’t have. As you get more comfortable with this, and as you will learn in the next section, you can often flip the build and still make some very good lineups that are both different and highly competitive with the common build.

 

How can we use “flipping the build” to our advantage?

Now that we know what this is, let’s look at how we can actually execute this strategy. In fact, I’m going to give you three specific examples that you can put in your toolbox here. Each of these can be used on its own, or in a combination together.

One quick but very important note here: We still want these lineups to project well, obviously. We aren’t flipping the build just for the sake of flipping it. If the lineup isn’t a reasonable points projection, then we aren’t accomplishing much simply by flipping the build. 

 

RB/WR Salary Inversion

This is the exact example I used above about the cheap RBs, so I won’t spend a lot of time on this one. If a couple of RBs are out in a given week, and their backups have strong roles, they likely project well and are good values at lower price tags. That usually results in a build where people pay down at RB and then pay up at WR. Basically, we would do the opposite here. Instead of paying down at RB for the values, we would look to pay down at WR and find values there. We would then pay up at RB and create a different lineup construction than most of the field that week.

 

“Stars and Scrubs” vs. “Balanced”

This is an overall lineup strategy, and isn’t necessarily restricted to any certain position(s) in the lineup. Basically, a “stars and scrubs” lineup would apply in a week with a ton of value, such as what I described above with the cheap RBs. In a week with this much value, the logical build is to play all of the value, which in turn allows you to jam all of the high-priced studs in your lineup because they will actually fit. We would be looking to do the opposite of that by building a more balanced pricing type of lineup. Instead of a lineup full of expensive and cheap players, we would “flip the build” by playing a team full of mid-priced salaries that week. 

 

FLEX Position Flip

Just like there are common lineup builds overall, there are also common positions in the flex in a given week. Again, that depends on what value there is, but since FanDuel’s scoring system is half-PPR, it tends to lend itself to a more RB-in-the-flex build more often than not. This, of course, can often be correct (particularly in cash), but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case in GPPs. Remember, we are going to use projections as a checkpoint here anyway.

If you want to know what the common flex position is for that week, just look at the top projected lineups. Or, better yet, go to the optimizer and run the top 100 projected lineups. These are often within a point or so of each other. Oh, 94% of those lineups have RB in the flex? When you run your own GPP builds, you take a hard look at lineups that DON’T have RB in the flex.

 

When I start my GPP process each week, recognizing what the common build is that week is one of the first things that I do. I want to know where others are likely to funnel to in terms of roster construction, as that is leverage that you can get right away before you ever start looking at individual players. The bottom line is that flipping the build will force you to have players in your lineups that others don’t, because the common build isn’t as likely to get to those players due to salary and position constraints.

Again, as long as you are still making lineups that project well, use the concept of “flipping the build” to your advantage. By thinking outside of the box here in ways that others won’t, you are creating a different path to the top of the leaderboard for your tournaments that week!

 

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Micro: GPP-Winning Upside – Week 10