With our Trend tool, you can see current and historical matches for players in matchups that meet the specified criteria. This makes it pretty easy to track performance within the result set. In this series, I thought it might be cool to take it one step further. I will be creating a Trend early in the week, playing the “Current Matches” in my lineups throughout the week on FanDuel and then reviewing the Trend at the end of the week.
This Monday, I created the following Trend:
Description
This week, I’m taking a look at players who have been the most consistent over the past month’s worth of games. Without really considering matchup, if someone’s price point does not match their recent level of production due to increased opportunity or “getting hot,” wouldn’t it make sense to just keep riding the wave? Using this trend, I have matched players who have added the most Plus/Minus value over the last 30 days.
Here is the filter that I used to create this trend:
• The Month Plus/Minus is Between 100-137
In other words, any player who has accumulated 100 or more points over what they were expected to score, based on salary, qualifies here.
Results
The screenshots below are from teams I entered into FanDuel’s $5 Layup
2/1
Several of these players are in a similar circumstance – they were underperforming due to nagging injury and now that they are closer to full health, their salaries have been slow to catch up on FanDuel.
Monta Ellis was said to be over a knee issue and had just scored 50+ fantasy points in consecutive games while costing under $7,000. That helped him rack up a ton of Plus/Minus points and is a big part of why he appeared in the Trend. Tony Allen was also about a week removed from ongoing knee issues which had sunk his salary as low as $3,500 on FanDuel.
If there’s such a thing as a “bad match”, Ryan Anderson is it. He had been able to score a ton of Plus/Minus points thanks to three games that Anthony Davis missed within the last 30 days leading up to 2/1. However, those games were basically irrelevant with Davis back in the lineup for this game against the Grizzlies. If anything, his price was a little bit too high as a result, up $700 over that time.
Aaron Gordon represents a third type of player that this Trend will match – a young player who had only just recently seen an increase in playing time, leading to several huge Plus/Minus scores. This type of play is obviously very visible and even with the worst matchup on the board on a nine-game slate, Gordon was 19% owned in this GPP.
The results were not great, but I didn’t really mind any of the plays, excluding Anderson and possibly Ellis, who had an unfavorable matchup and a price tag that was starting to get up there in cost.
2/2
Robin Lopez was probably the best play I made all week and I only played him because I had to. Sometimes weird stuff happens in DFS. If you look at his game log over the last month, he has been very boom-or-bust. But the busts kept his price down, and the booms gave him a ton of Plus/Minus points. Whereas other players will go in and out in terms of qualifying for this Trend, I wouldn’t be surprised if Robin sticks around as a long-term match just due to the type of player he is.
Booker is the same type of play that Gordon was yesterday – young, talented player making the most of an increased opportunity – a very visible, obvious play.
2/3
On 2/3, there were eight matches and several of them were repeats (Parsons, Gordon, Ellis). Here are the first-time qualifiers:
Jokic, Ish, and Turner qualify as players who are seeing increased opportunity lately. Here, Jokic is another example of why I love the center position on FanDuel. Sure, @Utah is a tough matchup especially for a big, but he was coming off consecutive games of 35.5, 39.2, 49.8 and was still available at 3.5% ownership.
Boogie was still questionable when lineups locked, which is why he was only 2.5% owned. In the 30 days prior to this game, Cousins had racked up a cumulative +136 score, which is just ridiculous. In fact, the highest score we have in our system is +137. It was a good opportunity to take a chance on Boogie, and the move paid off.
2/4
Robin Lopez Week continues with another ridiculous game, Holiday and Booker continue to roll right along, but Harden had a surprise dud against Phoenix.
It’s pretty hard for someone who is consistently priced so high to rack up a +100 score over 30 days (except Boogie). Harden’s last three scores of 57.75, 76.75, and 59.50 only just brought him over the threshold as he came into this game at +103 over 30 days. Looking at Harden’s game log, he does seem to routinely follow monster games with slightly underwhelming ones, which is something to consider moving forward.
Conclusion
Overall, 11-of-19 plays exceeded their projection this week, which is a pretty low percentage compared to some of the other Trends that I’ve looked at in the past. If you remove Robin Lopez, the results are pretty unimpressive. I think this Trend is best used, not as a standalone, but instead combined with a strong matchup-oriented one.
