The (poorly named) Cancel-Out Theory empirically proven!

[llanofft 1]

It has been several years since I've been active here (I believe I used to just be Llano, but I have no idea what email that was linked to, so cannot recover it). Back then, there were occasional flame wars over the Cancel-Out/cancellation theory. It is a poorly named theory, and there are variations on it, but at its core it says -- if you have one of the two players that make up a QB-WR1 on a team while your opponent has the other, and you are confident that the rest of your roster can beat your opponent's, you should play your side of that QB-WR1 combo. This is particularly true if you expect big numbers from your opponents part of the QB/WR1 tandem (which is primarily where the "cancel out" name came from, but again, it is a poor name; it should be called the correlation theory). Many people got hung up on the name (again, it is a poor name, see above) and so rejected it out right and resorted to name calling of anyone who subscribed to it. And now, we have empirical data to back it up (which helped a guy win $1 million, no less) --

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2016/09/21/how-the-winner-of-draftkings-millionaire-maker-built-his-winning-roster/ : As for Benjamin, recent research has shown that the strongest positively correlated stack is a passer with his No. 1 wide receiver. For example, a QB/WR1 stack produces in excess of 50 daily fantasy points 15.3 percent of the time, more than twice the frequency of a quarterback paired with the No. 2 receiver on his team.

 

Flame on

[murf74 461]

Ummm

[tanatastic 2,061]

Iv been "confident that the rest of my roster can beat his" and lost by a mile more times than I can count. Its FF, anything can and does happen. Your top rated stud can be outscored 10 points by Fozzy Wittaker and his kicker could have 20 in a bad matchup. Corrolate my bunghole with having a stinky finger, theres more of a connection.

[zac3434 5]

What a twat. No one was arguing over DFS here years ago, because no1 gave a about DFS several years ago. And you've clearly been away at uni studying and improving your reading comprehension in those several years away.

[BufordT 371]

Duly noted

[llanofft 1]

Dear zac434, please improve your reading comprehension skills, as the post is about a theory that relates to regular fantasy. The article is driven by DFS, but the referenced data is just data about player performance and therefore it applies to both DFS and regular fantasy. Had you been on the forums those years ago, you would have seen massive and fairly regular debate on this issue, which usually devolved into massive flame wars.

 

Uni? I didn't realized Europeans played fantasy football. Glad to see the game is spreading across the pond.

[zac3434 5]

All that your changed font section says is that the qb+highest projected wr tends to put up large numbers twice as often as the qb+second highest projected wr on the same team. So we've shown a clear difference between an NFL teams wr1 and wr2. How does that show anything between whether to start one wr1 vs another wr1 on a different team.

[llanofft 1]

First off, not true -- sentence with the link in that quote indicates QB+WR1 = highest correlation of any stack. Second off, not true -- this does not just show difference between WR1 and WR2 (which is not an interesting observation, as it is reflected in the number after WR). It shows that a QB's score is most highly correlated with his WR1's score. Click through to the link (same link as original, just directly provided here) and see for yourself -- http://www.4for4.com/fantasy-football/2016/preseason/definitive-guide-stacking-draftkings. The correlation between QB and WR1 fantasy point scores is the core of the strategy, and now it has been empirically demonstrated.

[Quickolas1 80]

We all know QB-WR points are related (and are good stacks in DFS).

Did you even read the article?

 

“Between the end of the 4 p.m. games and the Sunday night game, I saw I was in 18oth place out of 277,000 entires, and everybody in front of me that had 60 player minutes remaining had a tight end spot or a defense spot left to play — no one had a running back or wide receiver. While Lacy may have a higher floor from week to week, Diggs’s big-play ability made it more likely that Diggs had a 30-point game than Lacy, and I needed over 30 fantasy points to win.”

[zac3434 5]

All that your changed font section says is that the qb+highest projected wr tends to put up large numbers twice as often as the qb+second highest projected wr on the same team. So we've shown a clear difference between an NFL teams wr1 and wr2. Still true, as that is exactly what you said.

 

You aren't coming here with anything new. The highest projected wr tends to score more points than other wr's on a team. A teams rb does better when the qb is scoring. When an oppossing team's qb is scoring points they tend to need to throw more often.

 

The only thing any of this is about is what situation gives you the best odds when setting up your DFS stacks as it only looks at possible stacks on a per game basis.

[sirensong 111]

yeah, i'm going to have to disagree with "empirically proven" at this point. you have a lot of work to do--both statistical and argumentative--before making that claim. the 'cancel out' aspect wasn't even tested. you're going to need simulations for this.

[TimHauck 1,801]

Yeah the quoted section in the OP has nothing to do with the "Cancel Out" Theory argument, as it does not compare the "stacked" player to players on other teams, which is the basis for the "start who you think will score the most points argument. But not sure if there's an "empirical" way to do that at all. But even people who sometimes utilize the Cancel Out Theory such as myself admit that it's certainly possible another lineup option can score more points, but I only use it as a tiebreaker in cases where I am undecided on a QB and am facing a good WR. It's not about "guaranteeing" more points, it's just about giving yourself a better chance of winning your matchup by reducing the risk of your opponents WR having a huge game and your QB putting up a dud.

 

I can't see the Washington Post article as somehow I am out of free articles (if anyone wants to copy/paste that'd be nice but I'm not that concerned), but that other article does raise some other interesting points that are somewhat related to the Cancel Out Theory although not often mentioned. For example it mentions that the opposing QB is also more likely to have a good game when the other QB does. This of course is somewhat common sense but at least there is some data behind it.