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Daily Games Review: Trust Tracker

I use the Trust Tracker to publicly track the usefulness – or lack thereof – of the recommendations I made in my most recent Daily Games Cheat Sheet article.

For a more detailed introduction, check out my first and second posts here and here.

Players are measured according to their p/K (points per thousand dollars spent). Depending on their p/K and the approximate number of points needed to win a 50-50 league that night, players are rated as either "helpful", "competitive", or "harmful".

On a normal night with a full slate of games (roughly 10 or more), you will need to score between 240 - 250 points to win a 50-50 league. On those nights, a p/K of 4.8 or higher is helpful, a p/K between 4.0-4.8 will keep a roster competitive, and a p/K below 3.5 is harmful.

Those are our baseline benchmarks, but it is important to adjust my analysis so that it reflects the night in question. While there is always variation from contest to contest, the scores required to win each one on any given night are usually very closely grouped, regardless of entry cost. Last time I wrote the Daily Games Cheat Sheet, Wednesday, December 3, the scores required to win most contests were between 250-260 (104% of the 240-250 range). As such, I will proportionally increase expectations for this analysis:

  • Scores above 5.0 p/K are helpful
  • Scores between 4.2 and 5.0 p/K keep a roster competitive
  • Scores below 3.6 p/K are harmful

In Wednesday's article, I recommended 11 players for use:

  • Six players (55% of those recommended) recorded p/K values above 5.0.
  • Five players (45%) recorded p/K values above 5.5.
  • One player (9%) recorded a p/K value between 4.2-5.0.
  • Three players (27%) recorded p/K values below 3.6.
  • The best recommendation was Greivis Vasquez, who recorded a p/K of 7.6. He registered the 12th highest p/K in the league Wednesday night.
  • The worst recommendation was Marc Gasol. It was not announced until after Wednesday's game was over that Gasol was battling through knee pain. By the time the night was done, his 21.75 fantasy points marked a new season low, and his 25 minutes tied his season low. His 21.75 fantasy points corresponded to a 2.4 p/K.
  • Kyle O'Quinn, my third-worst recommendation from last Wednesday with only 9.25 points for a 2.8 p/K, was ejected in the first quarter for a flagrant foul.

Overall, 64 percent of my recommendations were of competitive value or better, 55 percent were actively helpful, and 27 percent were damaging. Most of the helpful players (45% of all recommendations) scored far above the minimum threshold for helpful.

The team that I entered Wednesday on DraftKings was created using only players highlighted in my Wednesday article. In what was clearly a clairvoyant effort to be fair to my readers, I included all three harmful recommendations in my own lineup. I tallied only 213.25 points for an overall p/K of 4.3.

Season total

Through 10 articles this season, I have recommended 127 players for use.

  • 77 have been helpful (61%)
  • 93 have been competitive or better (73%)
  • 24 have been harmful (19%)

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