A lot of our DFS-focused stats—the stuff that’s sport-agnostic—are centered around a concept we call “Plus/Minus” (+/-). Simply put, a player’s Plus/Minus is his actual points minus his expected points. So if Bryce Harper scored 150 points over the past 10 games and his expectation was 120 points, he would have a +/- of 30 total points, or +3.0 points per game.
Cool. So how do we know what to “expect” from each player? We know based on our database of historic salaries and fantasy performances on each daily fantasy site. Instead of using a fragile $/point system (or, even worse, sorting players into completely arbitrary tiers), we use historic performance data to help calculate exactly what to expect out of a player based on his cost. So if Harper costs $5,000, we know he should produce X points, on average.
Using Plus/Minus, we can calculate all kinds of really cool stats and identify league-winning trends. Our Consistency stat, for example, shows how often a player has exceeded his expected points, while our Upside rating measures how often he reaches twice that expectation. Instead of using a “well-how-often-does-he-reach-4x-his-salary?” system that naturally overvalues cheap players, we put every player on a level playing field since all of our stats are adjusted for cost.
