Optimizer Customizations:
Projection Source
In addition to RotoWire’s projections, subscribers can upload their own projections. We also offer the option to purchase projections from other sources, which vary depending on the sport.
Min. Projected Fantasy Points
If you’re looking to ensure that no players projected for low fantasy point totals end up in your lineups, it is recommended that you adjust this number. Although, in bigger contests, it’s extremely unlikely that a player with a low projected total would end up in your lineup, you may still wish to avoid cheaper, minimum-priced players who may represent good value on the surface (ex. In NBA, 3K player who is projected for 16.5 fantasy points) that could end up in lineups. This also may be useful in single-game contests, if you do not want to be overloaded with cheap players who will present as good value.
Projection Variance Factor
It’s fairly impossible to pinpoint a correct projection for a player on any given slate, and every player has a range of possible outcomes. Although our projections aim to get as close as possible to their final outcome, adjusting the variance factor will help us take into account this range of outcomes. Adjusting the variance factor will randomize a projection up to the selected percentage. For example, a variance of 5% for a player projected to score 50 fantasy points will result in them being projected for anywhere from 47.5 to 52.5 points when optimizing lineups. Using a higher percentage in higher variant sports would be recommended here.
Add Groups
Depending on the sport, here you will be able to add stacks, groups, or conditional groups. Each of these can be useful in getting your lineups to look how you want. Do you want to stack specific teams in MLB or a certain number of players from that team? Do you want to stack a certain set of teammates from an NBA squad who have a high projected point total? The stacks feature can help make sure you get the pieces you’re looking for in your lineups.
Groups and conditional groups give you greater control as well. Do you want at least two of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen in half your lineups? Just go to groups, add all four players, choose at least two to appear, and at most two to appear, then select what percentage.
Or maybe you believe either Mitchell or Garland is likely to have a great game, but it's unlikely both do and don’t want them appearing in the same lineup. In that case, you would want to use conditional groups. You can add Mitchell to a group, then exclude Garland.
You would then do the same for Garland,
Exclude Players
Here you can choose to exclude specific players, entire teams, or players with an injury designation. Technically, it is easier to exclude players from the optimizer in the player panel by clicking the red X in the EXC column, and it is not necessarily recommended to do that here. You can also remove an entire team’s roster by clicking on that team in the optimizer header, graying them out. Both are likely more suitable to be handled that way. Excluding players with an injury designation could be helpful if you don’t feel comfortable inserting players in rosters who may be ruled out at some point after the slate starts.
Like & Lock Players
Each of these actions is also best done from the optimizer home but may be edited more easily for adjustment from the customizations page. Liking a player will boost their projection by 10% while locking a player will ensure they’re in 100% of your lineups. If a 10% boost is not enough, you can also manually edit a player projection by clicking on their projection in the FPTS column of the optimizer. As for locking a player, although sometimes a player is in a position where not much can go wrong and going all in is a reasonable strategy, it is taking on a lot of risk and can lead to poor results if the player ultimately fails to provide any reasonable value, so proceed at your own risk there.
Adjust Exposures
As with the exclude, like, and lock features, adjusting exposures on an individual player level is best managed on the optimizer home page, using the min exp and max exp columns. Where this customization is best deployed is if you want to set global exposures. If you’re not locking anyone, and want to make sure you have no more than 75% of one single player in your lineup, then adjust the max global exposure. Have you narrowed down your player pool and want to ensure you get at least 10% of every player in your pool in your lineups? Then set the minimum global exposure to that.
Customize Projections
Is there a specific team or two you think is going to crush expectations, or come up woefully short of them? Adjusting player projections by team could be worth an edit. Here you can adjust an entire team’s projection by a certain percentage. So, if you think the Miami Heat are going to get blown out, while the Golden State Warriors will excel, you can edit like so,
Then see the results in the optimizer,
Customize Ownership (RST%)
Our rostership (RST%) is the same as ownership elsewhere. Here you can import your own ownership projections, or set a max total rostership per lineup. Setting a max number there can be useful in making sure your lineups are more unique, and less chalky, which can be beneficial in separating you from the competition in large-field DFS contests. If hundreds or thousands of people are racing to the same goal and following the same path, it is much more difficult to push past them. If you go your own path, or the one less traveled, you may find it to be the path of least resistance and your road to first more achievable.
Generate More Unique Lineups
Here you can add more diversity to your builds by setting a minimum amount of unique players per lineup. Since the optimizer’s goal is to create the highest projected lineups, depending on what adjustments you make in the customizations you may find all your lineups look extremely similar, with only one different player per lineup. This is great if all these players reach expectations, but when they don’t it could ruin your entire slate. Adding multiple unique players per lineup will create a greater floor for your lineups as a whole and give you more opportunities to hit. Adjusting the number of unique teams per lineup will ensure your exposure isn’t consolidated to a certain game or two, unless you want to be, as if a specific game fails to produce, it could also ruin a large number of lineups on any given slate.
Set Game & Team Limits
Making adjustments here will give you further control of your lineups on a game-by-game or team basis. Are you feeling confident a specific game will be loaded with fantasy value? Use the game limits tab to request a minimum amount of players from that game per lineup. If the inverse is true, you can also set a maximum number of players from a specific game. Maybe it’s not a specific game you want further control over, but instead a team. In that case, use the team limits tab to adjust min and max players per lineup from a specific team. If you prefer to take a broader approach and are not concerned about specific teams or players, you can turn to the max players (or batters) per team tab, and just set a general limit of players you’d want from a single team in your lineups.
Control Spend Per Lineup
This section may be most handy on slates with either a lot of value or single-game slates. Most DFS players like to use the full allotment of salary, and rarely like to leave more than a couple of hundred in salary on the table in their lineups. Using a max salary below the actual max allotment should lead to more unique builds that will differentiate you from the field.
Customizing the columns in the player table:
At the top right of the player table of the optimizer, you will have the option to select a view type and an edit tab.
The custom view allows you to adjust what populates the columns in the optimizer. This is a great way to display the stats and or odds that are most important to you when trying to determine your player pool.
Things to consider when building lineups with an optimizer:
If you're just arriving at the optimizer, making zero adjustments, and asking it to build 20, or any other number of lineups, you're probably going to lose your money over the long haul. The optimizer is a great starting point, but the true value in the tool is its customization options.
The main reasons for that are,
1) Projections and what happens are never going to be 100% compatible,
2) The highest projected players on RotoWire, will be the highest projected players more often than not everywhere else. So, you're ultimately competing against very similar lineups. This will make it harder to differentiate yourself and move up leaderboards in contests and leave you falling outside the cash line.
An optimizer's existence more than anything is to help you build numerous lineups the way you want them built quickly. It's much easier to put in the stacks you want, or narrow down the players you want, adjust minimum and maximum exposures and such, and have it generate X number of lineups than it is to build them manually, one-by-one, on Draftkings, Fanduel, Yahoo, etc. That is the number one selling point of an optimizer. It is up to the user of the optimizer to figure out who you want to play or approach the slate.
Yes, you should take our projections into account when deciding who to play, but that is one of many aspects that need to be considered to be competitive in DFS. There are still things like correlation, leverage, and taking into account whether you want to be above or below the field on chalkier plays, amongst other concepts depending on the sport you're playing. Those things do not show up in an optimizer and ultimately are strategies that need to be deployed by the user of it.