2020 DraftKings Recap

D3 Northeast

Another Indoors come and gone, which means we get to look back on another year of Indoors DraftKings. Congrats to all who played, but a special shoutout to Winging It, WHO DEFENDED HER 2019 TITLE! In all our years of doing different Blog contests, we have never had anybody win the same contest in consecutive tries! Winging It had the winn(g)ing lineup of Antonio Mora, Sachin Das, Daniel Park, Chaitanya Aduru, Daniel Fouchier and Neil Mabee. Her total was a paltry 44 points, but that’s all it took this year. For reference, the previous winning totals were all more than 50 points and last year Winging It won the title with an absurd 68 total point. The full standings are below, along with some analysis of this year’s tournament. If there’s anything else you’d like looked at, just say the word and I will try to add it to the bottom of the article. 

Most played

  1. Daniel Park (CMS) — 8 points on $6,125 — played 21 times or 45% of the time
  2. Daniel Fouchier (GAC) — 4 points on $4,500 — played 17 times or 36% of the time
  3. Robert Liu (CMS) — 4 points on $7,625 — played 11 times or 23% of the time
  4. Sachin Das (Chicago) — 6 points on $7,750 — played 10 times or 21% of the time
  5. Rajan Vohra (Brandeis ) — 4 points on $5,375 — played 10 times or 21% of the time
  6. Mark Sverdlov (Emory) — 6 points on $4,875 — played 10 times or 21% of the time
  7. Bryan Yoshino (Kenyon) — 5 points on $4,375 — played 10 times or 21% of the time

What this tells us: Honestly, what this tells us is that we as a group were pretty bad at picking players this year! These seven players were all chosen at least 10 times, and NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM registered more than 8 points. In fact, six of the seven failed to score above six points, and not one of them was close to the 1.5x value that is the goal when it comes to making a lineup. I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m scolding you, my team had three of these players on it (and not the one that had eight points) and struggled because of it. It makes sense that mid-range people will be played more often than studs simply because you can afford to have multiple people in the $4,000-7,500 price range than in the $7,500-10,000 range, Most people leapt at the player’s opportunity, as six of the seven people on this list were projected to play singles and doubles. Only Sverdlov was projected to be a singles specialist, but even the freshman played in one doubles match. My other main takeaway from this set of data is that people were playing to win the tournament this year more than to try and pick their friends/team. If you look at these seven guys, they represent six different teams, so it’s not like we had only Emory players being chosen over and over (although that strategy probably would’ve done ok).

Most points

  1. Jeremy Yuan (Chicago) — 15 points
  2. Niko Parodi (CMS) — 13 points
  3. Anthony Kanam (Case) — 12 points
  4. Jeff Chen (Brandeis) — 12 points
  5. Andrew Esses (Emory) — 12 points
  6. Antonio Mora (Emory) — 11 points
  7. J.J. Kroot (Wash U) — 10 points
  8. Anupreeth Coramutla (Brandeis) — 10 points
  9. Jack Katzman (CMS) — 10 points

What this tells us: There are a few takeaways from this list. The first is that props go out to Jeremy Yuan, the only player to win all six matches over the weekend! We had him priced as a top-five player and he didn’t disappoint. Speaking of which, I will once again stop to praise the Blog’s prices once again as the top two scorers were both among the top-five priced players, and two more in the top-10 made this list. In fact, everybody on this list was priced at $6,000 or higher, with two below $7,000 and six of the nine at $8,000 or higher. We also have six teams represented on this list, and they are the teams that finished in the top-six at the tournament. Wash U and Brandeis both lost twice, but are on this list, so it’s not a direct connection, but it stands to reason (duh) that the teams who will be winning more matches should have a player or two on the high scoring list. Yuan was the only one with a perfect weekend, but everybody in the top-5 won at least five matches through the weekend. Finally, shoutout to everybody on this list because you had a successful weekend, as you had to win at least four matches (and at least two singles matches) to make the list at all.

Top value

  1. Oscar Wikström (GAC) — 9 points on $500
  2. Bailey Forgus (Chicago) — 3 points on $500
  3. Neil Mabee (Case) — 6 points on $1,875
  4. Anthony Kanam (Case) — 12 points on $6,000
  5. Aaron Umen (Case) — 9 points on $5,000
  6. Chaitanya Aduru (Case) — 9 points on $5,250
  7. Jeff Chen (Brandeis) — 12 points on $7,000
  8. Colt Tegtmeier (Brandeis) 4 points on $2,375

What this tells us: Ummm, we may have underestimated Case?! Four Spartans in the top-eight is really impressive. In all honesty, I don’t think the players were priced all that poorly either. The fact that Umen and Aduru are both on this list even though they both only played singles is really impressive. If either one of them had lost just a single match, they would’ve dropped from this list and all the way down to the middle of the player pool in terms of value.  We weren’t sure Mabee was going to play doubles, and even if we were we would’ve bumped him slightly, but not more than the $2,500-3,000 range. Kanam is the only one who I regret keeping so low, he probably should’ve been in the $7,000-7,500 range. That said, he was only played six times so it’s not like the public saw this as an egregious  pricing error either. Other than the Spartans, two Judges made the list, Jeff Chen simply because he won five of six matches against top-10 teams, and Colt .45 due to his two doubles wins and low price. However, I want to specifically highlight both Bailey Forgus and Oscar Wikström, who top this list. Jaird Meyer was in my cheat sheet article from before the tournament, as he was our projected Chicago #7 singles player and most likely to get a chance at a singles match if something went wrong. Instead, it was Bailey Forgus who got a shot and came through at #6 against Brandeis in the 3rd place match. A decent amount of people used the $500 player method when making their lineup this year, and Bailey Forgus was one of a few who got the opportunity to see the court and one of only two who managed to win a match. The other, well he went 3/3 at #6 singles and would have been a slate-buster if more than one person had rostered him. Big shoutout to Blog enthusiast BMac who too a chance on Oscar Wikström, also the only player with a special character in his name, only to see the freshman PICK UP THREE SINGLES WINS ALL IN THREE SETS!!! That’s nuts, and I’m pretty sure he was the only player in the tournament to win all three singles matches in three sets. It’s not like he had easy matchups either, beating Kenawi 7-5 in the 3rd, taking down Parrado 6-0 in the 3rd against Wash U, and then finally clinching the team win and 7th place finish with a 7-6 in the 3rd win over Dean and Kenyon. His value was unmatched this weekend, and we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the young Swede going forward.

Underperformers

  1. Ben van der Sman (Wash U) — 0 points on $7,250.
  2. Ninan Kumar (Chicago) — 0 points on $4,625
  3. Mark Wu (Wash U) — 0 points on $4,000
  4. Joshua Xu (Chicago) — 3 points on $9,125
  5. Luis Andres Platas (Kenyon) — 2 points on $ 6,375
  6. Daniel Li (Wash U) — 3 points on $7,125
  7. Matthew Chen (Case) — 4 points on $8,250
  8. Indraneel Raut (GAC) — 3 points on $6,000
  9. James Hopper (Case) — 4 points on $9,625
  10. Alejandro Rodriguez (Chicago) — 3 points on $5,875

What this tells us: Injuries suck? Players not on a team’s roster probably shouldn’t be owned in fantasy sports? Good players can have tough weekend against competition this strong? I’m not going to try and draw too many deeper conclusions from this list, but let’s start with the obvious. Ninan Kumar is no longer on the Chicago roster (more on this developing story to come). It’s exceedingly difficult to score fantasy points when you don’t play for a team. Luckily only one fantasy team had Kumar this weekend, even though I cautioned against it in the cheat sheet article. Next, Xu, Li, Chen, Raut and Hopper all play top-3 for their respective squads and all failed to net more than four points over this weekend. That said, every one of those guys has been great in clutch situations in the past, and I’m not worried about them through the spring. Looking more at the above list, one thing that has to be mentioned is that four of the 10 biggest underperformers came from Wash U. The Bears didn’t have a good weekend, no other way to spin it. However, even though they finished a distant 6th, a potential bigger loss comes from Ben van der Sman’s injury. BVDS got hurt late in his first doubles match of the weekend, with him and Neves leading Coraberg 7-5. Ben went down, and stayed down for a few minutes. Instead of retiring, he gutted out the rest of the match, unable to move or really put any weight on his injured leg. He would pop in a very slow serve, move out of the way while Neves attempted to play 1 vs 2 against one of the best doubles teams in the country. He gets full marks for heart (and stones) and then some. The rumor going around now is that the injury is serious (possibly a torn achilles) and if so would obviously be lost for the season and then some. This is a brutal blow to Wash U, but it makes Ben’s actions on Friday all the more inspiring.

Optimal Lineup

  1. Niko Parodi (CMS) — $9,750 — 13 points — played only 3 times, never with another player from this list
  2. Jeremy Yuan (Chicago) — $9,500 — 15 points — played only 3 times, once with Kanam & once with Mabee
  3. Jeff Chen (Brandeis) — $7,000 — 12 points — played 7 times, once with Kanam
  4. Anthony Kanam (Case) — $6,000 — 12 points — played 6 times, twice with Mabee & once with Chen
  5. Neil Mabee (Case) — $1,875 — 6 points — played 6 times, twice with Kanam & once with Yuan.
  6. Oscar Wikström (GAC) — $500 — 9 points — played only 1 time, never with another player from this list

What this tells us: This is the highest scoring lineup you could possibly make, and it involved spending close to the max. $34,625 would’ve netted you a whopping 67 points. Yet again this says something about this year’s field and price distribution. The MAXIMUM TOTAL SCORE you could have possibly received in this year’s game is STILL LOWER THAN WINGING IT’S ACTUAL SCORE FROM LAST YEAR!!! I could toot my own horn about our pricing again, but there’s also something to be said for all the tight matches played at this year’s tournament. In the eight matches played on Saturday and Sunday, we had results of: EU def. Deis 5-4, CMS def. Chicago 5-4, Case def. Kenyon 7-2, Wash U def. GAC 6-3, EU def. CMS 5-3, Chicago def. Deis 6-3, Case def. Wash U 5-2, and GAC def. Kenyon 5-4. So many close matches makes it all the more unlikely that a player would be able to cruise through the weekend. Yes, there are two Case players in the ideal lineup, but one of those was something of a specialist/punt play and only two people had both Kanam and Mabee in the same lineup. Only five total lineups had two players from this list on their team, and nobody had more than two players from this team. Once again, what this tells us is that we as a collective group of general managers were not very good this year!

One thought on “2020 DraftKings Recap”

  1. Joe Tegtmeier
    February 26, 2020 at 4:40 pm

    Good wrap up. I’m educated. Thx.

    Reply

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