Building Championship Sunday Lineups With the Vanboni Sports DFS Optimizer

Championship Sunday is here, and if you are playing daily fantasy for the Cup Series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, you want to end the year on a high note. The Vanboni Sports DFS optimizer ran the numbers for Sunday, November 8, a 267-lap race on the 1.5-mile intermediate, and this time it had real starting spots to work with.

Cup qualifying is in. Chase Briscoe is on the pole, Denny Hamlin starts second, Tyler Reddick third, Kyle Larson fourth, Austin Cindric fifth, Christopher Bell sixth, Chase Elliott seventh, William Byron eighth, Ryan Blaney ninth, and Daniel Suarez tenth. Brad Keselowski qualified last, 40th. Practice on Friday and qualifying on Saturday both had all 40 drivers logged, and the optimizer is working off real qualifying data now, not historical estimates.Kyle Larson

The core of every top lineup is the same. Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, and Ryan Preece show up together in the best DraftKings lineup, the second-best DraftKings lineup, the best FanDuel lineup, and the second-best FanDuel lineup. That is not a coincidence. Those three are the value engine for this race, and Keselowski is the reason why.

Hamlin is the anchor. On DraftKings he is $11,000 with 48.3 projected points, the top projection on the platform. On FanDuel he is $13,500 with 61.7 projected points, again the top projection. He is expensive, and he is worth it, because the optimizer has him clear of the field. When your most expensive driver is also your highest projected scorer, you build around him and find value elsewhere.

Keselowski is the driver who makes the build work, and it is all about where he starts. He qualified 40th, last in the field, and the optimizer projects him to finish 20.4. That is almost 20 spots of place differential, and place differential is points in DFS. On DraftKings he is $7,100 with 46.8 projected points, which is 6.6 points per thousand, the best rate on the platform. On FanDuel he is $6,200 with 56.7 projected points, 4.8 points per thousand. He is the second-highest projected driver on both platforms, and he costs less than half of what Hamlin costs on FanDuel. That is the play of the week.

Preece is right behind them. He is $7,700 on DraftKings with 43.1 projected points, 5.6 points per thousand, and $6,800 on FanDuel with 57.1 projected points, 4.5 points per thousand. Preece is the kind of play that lets you afford Hamlin without punting a spot, and the optimizer puts him in every top lineup for a reason.

Corey Heim is still in the mix, and he is the fourth piece on both top lineups. He is $8,300 on DraftKings with 35.8 projected points, and $8,000 on FanDuel with 54.5 projected points. He was the value engine in the early read, and he is still a strong play, but Keselowski passed him once qualifying was in, because Keselowski starts last and Heim does not.

Here is the top DraftKings lineup, the optimizer's balanced build, at 250.5 projected points for $49,400. Hamlin at $11,000, Keselowski at $7,100, Preece at $7,700, Bubba Wallace at $8,700, AJ Allmendinger at $6,600, and Heim at $8,300. That leaves $600 on the table. Wallace at 39.6 projected points and Allmendinger at 36.9 are the fillers here, and both are at 4.5 and 5.6 points per thousand. If you want a stars and scrubs version instead, swap Wallace and Heim for Ryan Blaney at $10,500 and John Hunter Nemechek at $5,500, and you still get 249.8 projected points for $48,400. Blaney starts ninth and is projected for 41.5 points, and Nemechek at 33.2 projected points is 6.0 points per thousand, the second-best rate on DraftKings.

FanDuel only takes five drivers, so the build is tighter. The top FanDuel lineup, the max points build, is 284.4 projected points for $45,000. Hamlin at $13,500, Preece at $6,800, Keselowski at $6,200, Heim at $8,000, and Wallace at $10,500. That leaves $5,000 unused, which is a lot on FanDuel, and it tells you something. The optimizer could not find a fifth driver worth spending that money on over Wallace. The second-best FanDuel lineup is the same core, with Christopher Bell at $12,000 in place of Heim, at 283.1 projected points for $49,000. Bell starts sixth and is projected for 53.2 points on FanDuel.

The value plays change a little by platform. On FanDuel, John Hunter Nemechek is the best points per thousand driver in the whole pool, $3,000 for 49.7 projected points, which is 7.7 points per thousand. That is a remarkable price for a driver projected that high, and he is the kind of cheap play that opens up a stars lineup. Cole Custer is next at $4,500 for 44.3 projected points, and Noah Gragson and Ty Dillon are both at 5.4 points per thousand. On DraftKings, after Keselowski and Nemechek, Preece and Allmendinger are both at 5.6 points per thousand, and Gragson is at 5.5.

Now for the fade, and it is a big one. Kyle Larson is the most expensive driver on both platforms, $11,500 on DraftKings and $14,000 on FanDuel, the highest salary on either site. The optimizer projects him for just 33.8 points on DraftKings and 49.6 on FanDuel, which is 2.9 and 1.6 points per thousand, the worst value among the top-priced drivers on both. That does not mean Larson cannot win the race. He starts fourth, and he is racing for a championship. It means at that salary, the optimizer would rather spend the money elsewhere, and if you play Larson, you are betting he beats his projection by a lot.

The pole sitter is a fade too. Chase Briscoe starts first, and the optimizer projects him for just 23.6 points on DraftKings and 44.4 on FanDuel, 2.4 and 1.5 points per thousand. Briscoe has nowhere to go but down on place differential, and the optimizer punishes that. He is in neither top lineup on either platform.

Daniel Suarez is worth a note here, because he was in the core of the early read and he is not in the top lineups anymore. Suarez starts tenth, and at $6,900 on DraftKings and $6,500 on FanDuel, the optimizer found better value elsewhere once qualifying was in. He is still a fair play, but he is not the must-have he looked like before qualifying.

One more thing to check before you lock anything in. The No. 77 is a mess across the two platforms right now. On FanDuel, Carson Hocevar is listed at $8,200 with 44.3 projected points. On DraftKings, the No. 77 shows as Justin Haley at $6,200 with 21.4 projected points, because Haley is driving the car at Homestead after Hocevar was suspended by Spire for the finale. The optimizer's DraftKings projection list still shows Hocevar at 21.7 points, but with no DraftKings salary attached to him, so do not build a DraftKings lineup around Hocevar. Haley qualified 26th, and Hocevar does not appear in the qualifying list at all. Check the No. 77 entry on each platform before you submit, and make sure you know which driver you are actually getting.

So here is the simple version. Build around Hamlin, Keselowski, and Preece. Use Heim and Wallace to fill out FanDuel, and Wallace, Allmendinger, and Heim to fill out DraftKings. Use Nemechek to save salary on either platform. Fade Larson and Briscoe at their prices, unless you are convinced one of them wins going away.

Here are the top lineups, all in one place.

DraftKings, 250.5 projected points, $49,400 of the $50,000 cap: Denny Hamlin $11,000, 48.3 projected points; Brad Keselowski $7,100, 46.8; Ryan Preece $7,700, 43.1; Bubba Wallace $8,700, 39.6; AJ Allmendinger $6,600, 36.9; Corey Heim $8,300, 35.8.

FanDuel, 284.4 projected points, $45,000 of the $50,000 cap: Denny Hamlin $13,500, 61.7 projected points; Ryan Preece $6,800, 57.1; Brad Keselowski $6,200, 56.7; Corey Heim $8,000, 54.5; Bubba Wallace $10,500, 54.4.

For entertainment purposes only. Projections are based on historical statistics and carry no guarantee of accuracy. Daily fantasy sports involve financial risk, so never play with money you cannot afford to lose, and please play responsibly.