Show Me The Best Ball Data - Friday 7/26

Defining the Best Ball landscape one week at a time

Jul 26, 2024

Hot Best Ball Summer on Underdog Fantasy is officially here! Joe Burrow has blond hair, Sean Payton is already whipping beat reporters into shape, and Anthony Richardson got the Steph Curry comp. We are off to the races.

Each Friday I send out a newsletter recapping the different tools I use to define how the Best Ball landscape is evolving. Ideally, as time permits (an 8-month old baby who is anti-sleep doesn’t help here), I’ll toss out a few longer form articles throughout the week as well.

New Contest Alert!

Underdog released The Bulldog and The Corgi, two contests that are slightly unique in their structures. Both of these do not have min cashes, which I love. The Corgi is $5 contest that is a 2/12 → 1/10 → 1/5 advancement that doesn’t pay out until you make the Finals. Week 17 is truly all the matters. The Bulldog is a $75 contest is a 2/12 → 2/10 → 2/10 with a nice small 20 person final. Gotta make it to the 2nd round to make money here. Both do not grade well in the tool (because they take zeroes in categories being graded), however I love both of these structures and am excited to see UD switching it up every now and then!

“Scroll the Eff Down” Friday

I introduced this concept about a month ago, so if you missed that article please feel free to read it here. Generally speaking, we are trying to identify the low-owned players who will help provide us leverage on the field. We can combine Establish the Run’s BBM ownership projections with Hayden Winks Percent Drafted optimization curves to help us solve for this.

Last week I talked about Audric Estime being on the Braelon Allen timeline, and this week he’s up 16 spots in ADP and has the same ADP as Allen. Get on board while you can.

The WR group has still been pretty consistent throughout the offseason so far. I’ve noticed QBs being less available in R18 than usual, so I am trying to find stacking options here more and more. Jalin Hyatt is still the guy I say I want to click a lot and then don’t end up clicking enough. Click him!

I’m still pretty out on this TE group, I’d rather be done with the position by here, however there has been positive news out of early camp reports on Michael Mayer, Dawson Knox, and Greg Dulcich.

ADP Velocity - Risers be Rising

Checking the ADP Velocity tool every day has been one of the most helpful things that I’ve added to my routine. As I introduced in mid-June, I think there’s a lot of nuance to be had in deciphering the ADP Risers and Fallers, and I think this tool does a really good job of providing context.

We’re definitely starting to get some action here, so let’s dive in a little bit further into each category.

When looking at the Topped Out category, I am generally trying to convince myself whether I am in or out on these players at their new cost. Here’s my current breakdown:

IN: Will Levis & Tyler Boyd - Gimme all the Titans possible, still too cheap. Nick Chubb - Squat Video makes ADP go brrrr, PUP list hopefully makes it drop again soon? I still want to have a lot of Chubb.

OUT: Dontayvion Wicks - I’m only writing him here so I can try and convince myself to stop clicking him at his new cost. He’s my highest owned player, I will probably still be drafting him a lot.

The Still Rising and Still Falling categories are fun because it’s all about trying to be dynamic in your drafts. I’ll try and identify angles on how I’m playing these situations each week.

Daniel Jones - Probably still underpriced by a couple rounds even if he doesn’t make it to Week 17. Definitely still underpriced by a couple of couple rounds if he plays Week 17.

Antonio Gibson, Troy Franklin, Malachi Corley, Braelon Allen, Javon Baker - These are all players I am very excited to see getting cheaper in price. Since ADP is a zero sum game, in order for some people to move up, it means some people need to move down (for no real reason). Important to be aware of that dynamic.

Jordan Addison, Ricky Pearsall, Kendre Miller - No real reason to target hurt (or probably suspended) guys if they are still falling. Just wait it out.

Josh Palmer & Rashod Bateman - Already wasn’t planning on drafting a lot of these guys, and now their cost is going up. No thanks!

When looking at the Bottomed Out category, I want to look for players who I have been previously underweight on and see if their new cost makes sense. I am in on all of these WRs, except for QJ.

Fun little caveat seeing the course correction on Christian Watson and Javonte Williams. I’m still buying both of them.

As you can see this week, the Rising/Falling categories are way bigger than the Topped/Bottomed categories. This makes sense, we are starting to get real news and ADP is definitely moving and shaking. Fun little validation for me that this tool works as intended!

Adjust The Ranks!

Every night, I cruise through the Coachspeak Index Twitter account and the 32BeatWriters.com Daily Article. I am looking for information that makes me want to adjust my ranks vs. information that is noise/double counting etc. Here’s a sample of the actionable items I picked up on this week:

Portfolio Review - Running Back Rooms

As the NFL trends towards more and more Running Back By Committees (RBBC), I think it probably means that we need to be a little bit more cognizant of our exposures across the team RB rooms. Here’s where I’m currently at across all 32 teams and how I want to keep approaching them to finish out the summer.