Welcome to a fun little segment of the Optimal Lineups I’m going to call “Hedge Funds,” where we have the benefit of knowing ownership percentages from DraftKings’ Wednesday night NASCAR DFS contests. DK has opened up NEW contests for Thursday night’s race so if you want a little more action using the ownership numbers that we have, by all means, join me! However, this is still a tough time so you don’t necessarily need to play a second slate tonight. Here is a look at the ownership numbers from the $555K - $100K to first place GPP on DK:
That screenshot comes courtesy of Mike McClure (@Mike5754) and we can expect those numbers to be consistent across other DK GPP’s. I know for the Happy Hour and Slingshot contests those numbers match up.
Now plenty of you will ask “What do I do with my FanDuel lineups?” Great question. The answer? Very little. FanDuel didn’t lock their contests, which I’m not a fan of, but everyone has a differing opinion on it. The scoring and the pricing is very different between both sites. For example, Alex Bowman is a much better play on DraftKings than FanDuel. DraftKings rewards 0.5 points per lap for fastest laps and 0.25 points per laps led. Bowman’s in a great position to rack up a ton of those and, as has been mentioned numerous times, he is $8,700 on DraftKings, roughly 17.4% of your roster budget for six drivers. On FanDuel, where they do not reward for fastest laps and laps led are just 0.1 points, Bowman is $12,200 and roughly 20.33% of your budget for five drivers.
Given what we know about the scoring/salaries and how this is a race to target position differential on FanDuel, Jimmie Johnson’s ownership should be higher on FanDuel GPP’s than Bowman. Johnson is $1,000 cheaper on FD so he’s going to be chalkier because of his massive position differential. As far as my own exposure? I was hilariously heavy on Alex Bowman on DraftKings Wednesday night. I made 26 lineups and he was in 21. And that’s embarrassingly heavy, I fully expect you all in the chat to laugh at me tonight lead up to lock. And of those 26 lineups, Johnson was in four. But on FanDuel, where I made 17 lineups (that I probably won’t touch too much), Bowman was in four builds and Johnson was in 14 of those. The scoring/pricing on FanDuel caters to Johnson more than Bowman. And the reverse is true for DraftKings. So don’t panic and alter your FD lineups based on the ownership percentages for DK.
Honestly, I’m actually proud of the Example Lineups Selz and I put forth for Wednesday night’s contests. Hopefully you didn’t just copy and play them yourself, but I’m putting my faith that you added some pivots yourself. Sure my DK GPP lineup ate chalk with Truex, Bowman, and Blaney (all over 48% owned). But we got variance with Kevin Harvick (28.58%), Brad Keselowski (12.48%), and Michael McDowell (3.98%) who will go backward, let’s be fair. It’s a lineup with five studs, and one scrub and two of the studs are under 30% owned.
Selz’s GPP build looks great with Hamlin, Bowyer, and Bubba who were all priced up, but the ownership was soft on Wednesday night, which is great for a GPP lineup. So check back in later tonight because I’m going to offer up another DK GPP lineup or two that’ll be for Thursday slates. Don’t worry about your lineups from Wednesday’s contest simply because I’m changing things up. I’m adding a new build based strictly off the ownership numbers from Wednesday night to put us in the green Thursday night as well.
More Exposure: Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace, Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson (not much, but a little), Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer, and Erik Jones just a bit.
Less Exposure: Truex, Chase, Bowman, Blaney… I have a ton of exposure to these drivers from Wednesday and will still get exposure on Thursday night, but I’ll be more responsible about it. With the exception of Chase, the other three guys were in at least 65% of my DK lineups. I may also lighten my exposure on Reddick and Bell. I was heavier than them on the field, which I do like for the Wednesday builds, but I’ll decrease exposure just slightly for Thursday contests.