Man + Machine: All About Value

This article is part of our Man + Machine series.

I also looked at two early-only lineups for the games Thursday and wanted to share them. Because it is a popular lineup tool, I suspect there is potential for dialog about how you use it. After all, the goal is to consistently build competitive lineups and sharing techniques and strategies is helpful in that regard.

The comments are open, and you can always hit me up on the Twitter machine.

Hitter Values

It is time to revisit the hitter values I've collected, which includes 215 players dating back to July 17.

Here are the breakdowns: 108 players were tracked at DraftKings with 45 of them returning at least 5.0 fantasy points. At FanDuel, 107 hitters were tracked, and 47 of those hitters scored at least 1.5 points.

Those aren't earth-shattering totals, but given the salaries from the collected player pool, even the minimum (1.5 FD and 5.0 DK) is a plus-return. The goal -- at least for me -- when utilizing the value players is to provide cap relief for a top-tier starter or batter.

I also don't typically rely on value plays at catcher and corner infield. Third base has emerged as a powerhouse position this season, and first base is always deep. Catcher is often viewed as a punt position in daily fantasy, but there just seems to be a solid top-12 seasonal option available for cheap every day. Perhaps it is because they rest frequently, which skews the prices, but that is just a guess.

Regardless, loading in a low-priced middle infielder and value play or two from the outfield has been the strategy I've used to open cap space.

When you check the results below, you'll notice 22 value players recorded from both FanDuel (over 4.5 points) and DraftKings (over 10 points) returned tremendous value. Those are contest-saving or contest-winning results. If your more expensive players performed as expected, those value selections would have put you over the top, whereas they could have also made up for a dud from a stud to buoy a lineup.

To break it down into percentages, 42.8 percent of the value players returned the value benchmark of 1.5 FanDuel points or 5.0 DraftKings points. However, 20.5 percent hit the 4.5 and 10.0 fantasy point marks, which are nice odds to take a speculative stab at a huge return.

The name recognition is more appealing among the FanDuel values. It is a lot easier to slide Evan Longoria, Gregory Polanco and Pablo Sandoval into your lineup than Sam Fuld, Austin Hedges and David Lough, for example.

The different pricing and roster structures of the two sites significantly impact the value results the optimizer spits out. There is a greater variance in DraftKings' prices, and the optimizer recognizes lower-priced hitters as better values. As a general rule, hitters are more expensive at DraftKings than FanDuel.

With that said, you often only need one value play at DraftKings to provide cap relief, while it can take two or even three at FanDuel. Hunting for the best value-salary combo has become my strategy when looking for cap wiggle room.

Perhaps the best aspect of the optimizer's value results is it ensures you don't overlook anyone, and there is a lot to be said for that.

Pitcher Rankings

The collection process was the same as last week, and I tracked another three nights. 28 pitchers are included this time, though, as the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates were rained out Monday. The zeros returned by Jon Lester and Francisco Liriano are not included, and Tyson Ross and Garrett Richards replaced Lester and Lirano as top-five pitchers Monday.

Here are the averages from this week's results:

The average point total at DraftKings was 16.70, and with the top-five and lowest-five scores removed, the average was 16.26. 10 of the 15 pitchers ranked in the top five returned a top-five showing.

At FanDuel, the average point total was 10.26 fantasy points, and with the top-five and lowest-five scores excluded, the average return was 10.00. 10 of the 15 pitchers ranked in the top five returned a top-five showing.

We'll track another week to increase the sample size, but from the results available, the optimizer has a high accuracy percentage for ranking top-five arms.

Looking specifically at Wednesday (Aug. 5), while the optimizer had Johnny Cueto ranked first and Carlos Martinez fifth, they had much more difficult matchups than Madison Bumgarner, Matt Harvey and Danny Salazar. It is a good example of why there is "man" in the title of this series, and a reminder to never blindly follow the machine.

Clayton Kershaw has been the only top-ranked arm to return the top score over the six nights tracked. Last week, he was the pitcher I referenced as the exception when suggesting just because a pitcher is the most expensive or No. 1 ranked arm doesn't mean they're the best option. Well done, Kid K.

The point remains, and while the optimizer has been considerably reliable, you should weigh all angles with your pitchers. After all, they almost always have the highest ceiling and greatest impact on your final point total.

Thursday Lineups

These two lineups were entered into cash contests, so while Zack Greinke is likely to be owned by close to 95 percent of teams, there isn't a lot of incentive to stray.

Shane Peterson, Carl Crawford and Scooter Gennett were top value plays of the afternoon. And circling back to the catcher discussion above, Victor Martinez and Derek Norris serve as strong examples of that point.

Small slates can be tough, but you'll notice each hitter has a high value, which has been something I've strived for in my lineups over the past few weeks. It is also something to look at going forward.

Previous Results

What's next?

The plan is to continue tracking the pitcher rankings and look closer at constructed lineups. I don't anticipate the projected point totals will be very accurate, however, there are sure to be a few worthwhile findings comparing the value total of various lineups and the differences between sites.

As always, feel free to fire any questions you have, or topics you would like to see covered, my way.