How to play and win Yahoo Daily Fantasy Football

Written by: Football Futopia

Understanding How to Pick Yahoo Players

Understanding how to pick Yahoo players takes practice, but fortunately there are some rules of thumb you can follow to help. After reading this article you will know the types of players that you should be using in your lineups, as well as the ones to avoid.

Glossary- read before you read

If you have never played Daily Fantasy before, it is a good idea to get familiar with the terms used. Below are common acronyms used when discussing Daily Fantasy. All stats are listed in per 90 units, which is a measure of how much of each stat a player would be expected to score in a 90-minute period. For a full explanation, see this article.

Sh = Shots

SoT = Shots on target

CC = Chances created

Crs = Successful crosses

TW = Tackles won

Int = Interceptions

FW = Fouls won

FC = Fouls conceded

Pass = Successful passes

Blk = Blocks

YH Points = Yahoo fantasy points

Great = 90th percentile

Above average = 75th percentile

Average = 50th percentile

Below average = 25th percentile

Poor = 10th percentile

Floor = the minimum amount of fantasy points you can reasonably expect a player to score

Ceiling = the maximum amount of fantasy points you can reasonably expect a player to score

Slate = the list of matches that you can select players from for a specific contest

GPPs= Guaranteed prize pools (contest which don’t need a minimum number of players to join before starting)

Yahoo Points Scored by Position

The graph below shows a comparison of the Yahoo points scored for different player types during each game of the 2016/17 Premier League season. It has been split up according to Yahoo position later to make it easier to understand. In this section, we will go through the key statistics for each position to see the types of players that you will want to use in your lineups. The following analysis is just a guideline and every slate is different, but remembering these basic rules of thumb will give you a good foundation to help build winning lineups.

How to Pick Goalkeepers

The win and clean sheet bonuses are hugely important for goalkeepers, so the safest goalies for cash games will usually be the ones with the best matchups. The salaries for goalkeepers are directly correlated to their win and clean sheet chances, so it often makes sense to spend up at the position in cash games to get the best combination of floor and ceiling. Cheap goalkeepers usually won’t have a realistic shot at a win or clean sheet; they can get points from saves but they will also lose points too from conceding multiple goals and can even score negative fantasy points on occasion. The goalkeepers with the best matchups often won’t need to make many saves, so their ceiling can sometimes be lower than some of the mid-tier options. The table below gives some basic guidelines to help with goalkeeper selection.

How to Pick Defenders

The graph above shows a comparison between centre-backs and fullbacks in terms of Yahoo fantasy points scored for games in the 16/17 season. You can see from the graph that whilst centre-backs are viable, in general you ideally want to use fullbacks instead when possible. Looking at the per 90 stats confirms this below.

Sh=Shots, SoT= Shots on Target, CC= Chances Created, Crs= Successful crosses, TW= Tackles won, Int= Interceptions, FW= Fouls Won, FC= Fouls Conceded, Pass= Successful passes, Blk= Blocks, YH Pts= Yahoo points.

All stats per 90 mins.

What this means is that a ‘poor’ fullback in terms of fantasy scoring will perform similarly to a ‘below average’ centre-back, and a ‘great’ centre-back will still perform worse than an ‘above average’ fullback. Centre-backs do score slightly more goals than fullbacks (0.15 per 90 for a ‘great’ CB, 0.12 per 90 for a ‘great’ fullback), but the difference between the two is small and is therefore counteracted by the fact that centre backs don’t get many assists.

Throughout our lineup we want to target the ‘high-event’ players, i.e. the players that score ‘above average’ or better in one or more of the main stat categories. For fullbacks, it makes sense to target players that are heavily involved in the attack, as they are more likely to generate successful crosses, shots and assists.

If using a centre-back, it makes sense to target players that are likely to get the clean sheet bonus and will have a lot of possession of the ball – 20 extra passes from your centre back will lead to an additional fantasy point. Players on heavy favourites will typically have more opportunities to score from set pieces, too. Defensive actions such as tackles, interceptions and blocks are also valuable, but harder to predict.

There are a few fullbacks that are great plays every day, but this is mostly a position where matchup and salary will play a big role player selection. Good matchups for defenders lead to more opportunities to score points from attacking stats, as well as the clean sheet bonus.

Unlike goalkeepers, matchup isn’t the only factor that determines defender salaries, so if there aren’t any expensive players that stand out it makes sense to save a bit of money at the position. Because a lot of defender scoring comes down to opportunity, actual player talent is less important than their salary. Don’t be afraid to use a backup defender if they make a surprise start and are available for a cheap price on Yahoo, as Yahoo Fantasy lets you swap out players from when the lineups are released until kick-off.

How to Pick Midfielders

Yahoo have done a good job of making all player types viable, and you can see from the graph above that DMs, CMs and wingers all performed similarly in the 16/17 season in terms of median fantasy points scored. However, attacking midfielders were far superior, and you want to try and use as many AMs as possible in your lineup on a typical slate.

Attacking midfielders are usually taking set pieces, leading to a high floor from crosses and shots. Wingers aren’t as heavily involved in the defensive metrics as DMs or CMs and they don’t make as many passes either, but they make up for it in other areas with shots and crosses. Both wingers and attacking midfielders have upside from goals and assists, too. Shots, shots on target, chances created and crosses are the most important stats for midfielders.

Players that scores highly in all four categories are usually great fantasy options; shots and crosses give them a high floor, whilst shots on target and chances created lead to goals and assists. The best players to use are typically the ones that take set pieces and play centrally in a number 10 role.

How to pick forwards

At the forward position, strikers have a lower floor than wingers and attacking midfielders, as they rely heavily on goals and assists to generate fantasy points. Strikers do have a high ceiling due to goals, however, so they are much more viable in GPPs. When using strikers, you ideally want them to have a high shot volume to help increase their floor and ceiling. You will sometimes see wingers listed at the forward position on Yahoo, so it can often make sense to use these players in cash games unless you can find a goal dependent player with a good matchup.

How to use the utility position

At the utility spot, you want to target the highest floor/ceiling players that you can find; this usually means attacking midfielders. It is rare that there will be more than three elite options at defender on most slates, and if you use three goal-dependent strikers you will decrease the floor of your lineup significantly unless each player has a high chance to score. Having said that, any player is viable here if they will give your overall lineup the best combination of safety and upside.

There will often be slates where not all the matches start at the same time. For example, an EPL slate might include the late 17:30pm GMT match as well as the games that kick-off at 15:00. If you are using a player from the late game, make sure he is in the utility spot if you can! Yahoo has a ‘late-swap’ feature, so players aren’t locked into your lineup until their match has started. Using the late player in the utility spot will give you much more flexibility if you want to swap him out later for another player at a different position.

Cheat Sheet

The table below contains a cheat sheet summary of the previous section that you can use to help you create lineups. Remember that this is only a guide and you shouldn’t just blindly follow the recommendations here, but this should give you a good starting point.