We’ve got an extra day to get those NASCAR DFS lineups in. Following more heartache at the end of Chase Elliott, NASCAR and NASCAR DFS resettle their sights again on Charlotte Motor Speedway, this time for nearly half the laps of Sunday evening (208) for the Alsco 500.
Looking Back on Sunday
Expecting the Coca-Cola 600 to look like last year’s Coke 600 turned out to be a bad assumption. After 405 laps, only 4 caution flags were waved as a result of accidents. The average green flag run doubled (39.2 laps) compared to last year’s race. By the end of the race, only three cars failed to finish and just one of those was due to a crash (Clint Bowyer). In the end, this race turned out to be the complete opposite of what I and many others anticipated.
So does this mean we expect a repeat of this race on Wednesday? The safe bet is yes but with a contingency. A point I made with Alex on Sunday is that the Coke 600 is essentially two races. You have the late afternoon race in the blazing sun. Then you have the evening race under the lights and cool air. Combined, they make what is one of the crown jewels of the NASCAR schedule. As such, let’s focus more on what happened late stage 2 and onward with our expectations for drivers on Wednesday night.
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Lineup Construction for a Short Race
Once more, hearkening back to the Intro to NASCAR DFS article, if you’re not adjusting your slide rule for roster building, then you will lose money. We go from 400 laps on Sunday to now just 208 tomorrow night. With a dramatic drop in dominator points, we de-emphasize our need for dominators. In most cases, both DraftKings and FanDuel, you’ll be looking to build around a single dominator. However, as we saw last Wednesday evening at Darlington, with an inverted field, you can get away with no dominators.
Field inversion, at least the top 20, gives us unlikely lap leaders at the front with a gaggle of place differential/dominator options in the late teens. Differentiating one dominator from another is a tough task. However, we will take what clues we picked up from Sunday to help us rank these drivers for Wednesday.
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Inflation in a Post-Corona Virus World
The story of Sunday was the trio of chalk plays following qualifying. In the end, all three ended up picking up 20 spots and being valuable additions to lineups. Well, thanks to the finishing order for cars 21-40 setting their positions for Wednesday night, we’re in a similar situation. Only now the sites can adjust salaries to reflect these starting positions.
Jimmie Johnson starts dead last via his disqualification for having his toe out of line. It sounds confusing but just know that all four tires weren’t evenly spaced or pointing in the same direction as NASCAR wanted. Was Jimmie’s second-place finish the result of that illegal modification? Perhaps but it doesn’t matter because we get a Hendrick driver with the maximum amount of place differential to gain, i.e. all of it. The only issue is that Johnson is now $12,400 on DraftKings and $11,200 on FanDuel.
Johnson’s salary is manageable on FanDuel. However, his salary on DraftKings is a whole other story. Now we can’t just jam in Johnson plus Clint Bowyer, starting 39th, who is the second-highest priced driver ($11,800) and/or Denny Hamlin ($11,200) who starts 29th. DraftKings even bumped up 38th-place-starting Bubba Wallace to an unsightly $8,300. For me, these drivers and their viability are going to come down to value. We know we need at least 5x value from these drivers to be valuable plays.
Put another way, can these drivers pick up enough place differential? Johnson is a big yes as he realistically can pick up 35 spots and score 74 or more DraftKings points. However, at these prices, you need ceiling game results and not mediocrity.
Buy the NASCAR DFS Pricing Dip
Consequently, DraftKings lowered the board on several drivers including potential dominator Alex Bowman ($8,700) plus the gaggle of drivers starting 15th through 20th. Meanwhile, on FanDuel, their salaries are all either jacked up or held static so this is more a DraftKings problem than anything. Regardless, while DraftKings made it tough for Johnson, Bowyer and Hamlin to reach value they’ve lowered that same bar for the likes of Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, and Kyle Busch. Harvick only needs 45-50 DraftKings points to be considered a valuable play — a threshold he can easily cross with a top-five finish.
In the end, DraftKings has done everyone a favor by making pricing very unique. Now the field can’t just jam the same 2-4 guys in the majority of their lineups together. Opportunity cost decisions will have to be made with drivers. Let’s review these lineup decisions for NASCAR DFS this Wednesday evening.
FanDuel Lineup Construction
Unlike DraftKings, FanDuel decided the chalk in the back didn’t need manual adjusting. Now you can jam in Johnson, Bowyer and Wallace together for just $25,200 and still have loads of room for your final two selections. Thus, if FanDuel isn’t going to force us to get cute, then don’t force yourself either. The starting grid is dictating a finishing position/place differential build tomorrow night, a direction I will gladly follow.
DraftKings Lineup Construction
We’re staring at DraftKings the same way we did last Wednesday evening. How much should I really value a dominator(s) when the race will barely run over 200 laps? Furthermore, how much do I value dominators when so many drivers have place differential upside?
So you have two paths. Oddly enough, because of the inverted grid, these paths cross over one another depending on who you select.
First, you can go with a single dominator and then add on drivers with high finishing position plus place differential upside. Your second option is to just go after these drivers with the finishing position/place differential combo. The cross over is that several of these drivers in the teens have appeal as a potential dominator while also possessing the ability to gain 10 spots and finish in the top five.
Top NASCAR DFS Potential Dominators
If you watched Sunday evening’s race, it’s going to be hard to ignore Bowman starting second. After an early two-tire stop, Bowman inherited the lead and ended up leading the most laps. As evening transitioned into night, Bowman continued to run strong. He was well on his way to a top-three finish before a bad restart in overtime sent him shuffling to the rear of the lead lap.
In a head-to-head matchup against teammate William Byron, I will take Bowman. Should this race stay green, as it did Sunday, Bowman could easily lead half or more of this race. At $12,200 on FanDuel, you’ll need a dominating night from Bowman, but it’s easy for him to be optimal at just $8,700 on DraftKings. For what it’s worth, Byron led the first 31 laps in last year’s Coke 600 from the pole. The only hesitation is what I saw in his car versus that of Bowman from Sunday.
Every single driver starting 15th through 20th has the potential to lead with the strong likelihood to finish in the top five. Instead of writing a paragraph about each one (do you really need me to tell you that Truex is a smash play at just $9,400?), here is how I have them personally ranked. This is based on the price, likelihood to lead and win probability.
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Chase Elliott
- Kevin Harvick
- Kyle Busch
- Ryan Blaney
- Brad Keselowski
NASCAR DFS Place Differential Options
On FanDuel, the play is Wallace and you don’t overthink it. For just $5,000, you won’t find a better floor play. His salary makes just about everything open up. Accept it and move on with your life. However, for DraftKings, the question is whether you see a 17th-21st place finish out of Wallace. Anything short of that and Wallace probably doesn’t make 5x value outside of some rogue fastest laps.
The easier pill to swallow for DraftKings is Ryan Newman starting 27th. Though his floor is lower due to 11 fewer spots to gain, his ceiling is ultimately higher as we can see a finish in the 13th-to-17th range in Newman’s possible outcomes. The tournament pivot off of Newman is going back to the risk well with Tyler Reddick. After qualifying top-10 on Sunday, Reddick did a stand-up job maintaining position all night. Now in 13th, Reddick has a little place differential to gain while being a dark horse for a top-five.
For the sake of redundancy, we don’t need to hash out why you should or shouldn’t play Johnson and or Bowyer. Yes, these two can easily knock down the top fantasy scores on Wednesday. However, will they score enough to be that much more valuable than those previously mentioned drivers starting 15th and beyond?
Punting
If you look at salaries on DraftKings, you can see where starting position directly impacted salaries for these underfunded teams. J.J. Yeley is $4,700 while Josh Billicki is $5,300 and everyone in between went up an increment of $100. For me, if I need to punt, I will side with Joey Gase who has been one of the better punt options this year. Besides Billicki, Gase has the most place differential to gain of this flotsam. Outside of Sunday night, Gase has been around a perennial 30th-place finish.
However, the story is to mix and match with these drivers. Any one of them could spike through attrition so better to take chances on them all instead of focusing your gaze on just one.
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