FanDuel Defense/Special Teams & Kicker Pricing & Performance Review

The salary cap influences every decision you make in daily fantasy, yet there hasn't been much big-picture research done analyzing 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 daily fantasy salary in 2014. Over 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

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

FanDuel D/ST & Kicker Value vs. Other Positions

Defense/special teams and kickers will conclude the FanDuel pricing and performance reviews. I've combined these two positions because they fall in the same salary range and you'll usually be choosing between paying up for either one or the other. Table 1 below shows the average value¹ returned in 2014 by defense/special teams and kickers compared to other positions²:

Kickers provided a better value multiplier than defense/special teams overall, which was heavily influenced by the fact kickers can't score negative points, but defenses can (which brings their average value multiplier down). Kickers tend to provide consistent value overall because their floors aren't in the negatives, but defense/special teams actually hit value more in many spots, as you'll see in the next section.

FanDuel D/ST & Kicker Cash Game Value

As I alluded to above, looking at average value per game is a solid starting point, but doesn't necessarily paint a clear picture of the risk/reward involved with a roster selection. Instead, it is helpful to know what percentage of the time selections "hit value". The percentage of the time defense/special teams and kickers returned at least 2x (cash game) value is shown below (Table 2).

The fact D/ST bested kicker in the $5,000-$5,400 range was surprising. Volatility metrics would lead one to believe kickers -- who are much more consistent than defense/special teams in terms of CV -- would have the edge here, while defense/special teams would have the edge on kickers in tournaments (they do, which I'll discuss in the next section). However, kickers were consistent in a slightly different way than I originally thought: their likelihood of hitting 2x value was the same regardless of pricing tier (excluding the $5,500-$5,900 tier, where the sample size was only 11).

FanDuel D/ST and Kicker Tournament Value

Table 3 below shows how often defense/special teams and kickers hit 3x (tournament) value compared to the other positions:

During previous research³, I came across the fact the top 10 FanDuel scores for D/ST were 46 percent higher than the top ten FanDuel scores for kickers in 2014, so it is no surprise D/ST had a strong likelihood to hit value. It is important not to overlook your D/ST in tournaments; for pointers on how to make optimal selections, check out this article.

Individual Defense/Special Teams Performance vs. FanDuel Salary Cap

Below is a list of the average value returned of all defense/special teams in 2014 (Table 5).

Similarly to DraftKings, the Seahawks couldn't quite overcome their league-high average FanDuel salary to finish in the top 10. All the of the top six teams had an average salary between $4,900 and $5,200. Teams with an average salary of above $5,200 had a higher floor of outcomes (none finished below 18th), but had a lower ceiling of outcomes (none finished higher than eighth).

Individual Kicker Performance vs. FanDuel Salary Cap

Below is a list of the average value returned of all kickers in 2014 (Table 6).

Table 6 does a great job of illustrating just how important game script is to a kicker's success. The top 10 kickers in terms of average value contains only one losing team (the 6-10 Falcons), and the average amount of losses for top 10 kickers was 5.6. Kickers benefit when their teams are in positive game script; if a team is leading, it is scoring (and kickers take part in nearly every scoring play). Also, if a team is in negative game script, a coach may be forced to leave his kick on the sideline when a field goal opportunity presents itself, opting instead to try to cut into the deficit with a touchdown.

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 defense/special teams, 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.

3. https://www.4for4.com/2015/preseason/daily-fantasy-playbook-2015-kicker-strategy