DraftKings Tight End Pricing & Performance Review

The salary cap influences every decision you make in daily fantasy, yet there hasn't been much big-picture research done that analyzes player performance relative to the cap. For every cap dollar you spend, what is the return on investment? Do returns vary based on position, price point or even individual player?

I compiled data on how every player performed relative to their FanDuel and DraftKings salaries in 2014. In the past few weeks, I have been taking a position-by-position look at player performance relative to the FanDuel and DraftKings salary caps. Links to each report can be found below as they become available.

FanDuel Pricing & Performance Reviews: QB, RB, WR, TE, K, D/ST

DraftKings Pricing & Performance Reviews: QB, RB, WR, TE, D/ST

Editors Note: If you open a new account with FanDuel with a minimum $10 deposit, you’ll receive a free one-year subscription to 4for4! Details here.

DraftKings Tight End Value vs. Other Positions

Let's take a look at DraftKings tight ends. Table 1 below shows the average value¹ returned in 2014 by tight ends compared to other positions.²

At $6,000 and above, tight ends returned poor value relative to other positions, although there was a much smaller sample size of tight ends at those price points than at other positions. I recently wrote about how top tight ends struggle for volume relative to other positions, and this explains why the most expensive tight ends tended to not return good value on DraftKings -- the full point-per-reception really favors the positions that see more volume.

DraftKings Tight End Cash Game Value

The percentage of time a player "hit value" is a good way to measure player consistency versus the salary cap. Since you generally need to score around 150 points on DraftKings to win cash games, I calculated the percentage of time players hit 3x value. The results are shown in Table 2 below.

The best range to select tight ends instead of another position was in the $4,500-$5,400 price range. This intuitively makes sense, as this is where you'll find tight ends who saw enough volume to escape the pits of the minimum or near-minimum salary tier, but aren't priced high enough to where they'll have trouble competing with other positions that see much more volume.

The $3,500-$3,900 tier was also extremely fruitful last season, especially early on. Of the 77 instances where tight ends that were priced in this range throughout the season, 50 occurred in Weeks 1-8. DraftKings opened the season with tight ends priced very low, and as the season progressed, the better tight ends lifted themselves out of this tier. This again looks to be the case in 2015, as DraftKings even lowered their tight end minimum to $2,500.

The main takeaway is that you don't need to pay up for tight end in cash games on DraftKings, especially early in the season.

DraftKings Tight End Tournament Value

Table 3 below displays how often players hit 4x value on DraftKings in 2014.

The $4,500-$5,400 range also provided incredible tournament value as well. Tight ends are the most inconsistent fantasy position, and DraftKings had no problem lowering even the top tight ends' salaries after a bad game or two. For example, the tight ends that finished ranked 3-4-5-6 in fantasy scoring -- Greg Olsen, Antonio Gates, Martellus Bennett, and Julius Thomas -- found themselves in this price range a combined 16 times in the second half of the season alone.

I mentioned that you don't need to pay up for tight ends in cash games, and it turns out you didn't need to in tournaments, either. Tight ends were priced $6,000 and above 38 times last season, and only one of those hit 4x. One!

While 4x value will usually leave you in the money in a tournament, it took an average score of around 250 to take down a Millionaire Maker. Table 4 below shows how often players hit 5x value.

Hitting 5x value is a very rare feat regardless of the position, so not too much can be gleaned from the table above. The one thing that jumps out is the value that tight ends in the $3,500-$3,900 range provided, as they hit 5x more than any other position in that range. Remember, the expensive tight ends did not provide good tournament (or cash game) value, so if you're trying to take down the Millionaire Maker, it'd behoove you to take some shots with some of the near-minimum priced tight ends in this range.

Individual Tight End Performance vs. DraftKings Salary Cap

A list of the average value returned of all tight ends in 2014 is shown below in Table 5.

You know expensive tight ends aren't a good look when not even Rob Gronkowski can crack the top five. The top of this list is littered with tight ends under $5,000. The consensus top-3 tight ends coming into the season -- Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham, and Julius Thomas -- finished 9th, 24th, and 26th, respectively.

Editors Note: Liked this article? You can also check out the Daily Fantasy Playbook 2015 series here (Links will be updated as they become available): QB, RB, WR, TE, K, D/ST

Footnotes

1. Value = Fantasy points per one thousand salary dollars, or [fantasy points/ [salary / 1,000].

2. The sample size is in Appendix 1 below. For quarterbacks, only starts were used. For running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends, the challenge was eliminating minimum-priced players from the sample who wouldn't have been considered as fantasy starters, such as fullbacks or wide receivers who played only on special teams. Ultimately, I settled on removing all players at the minimum price who registered zero points. This method isn't perfect, as some players who wouldn't have been considered viable at minimum price remain if they registered any stats, but it was the most consistent way to eliminate many of the irrelevant data points at minimum salary while keeping the research process sane.