Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! After a long road, we’ve finally come to the season finale, where we’ll see the 2019 Champion crowned. Fortunately, February isn’t too far away, so we’ll be back at it in no time! For now, let’s take a look at what we’re dealing with this weekend.
As always, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my driver list & tools suite, as this article will directly tie into it. If you have any questions, reach out to me in Slack at #nillys-garage-nas-mlb and I’ll be happy to help however I can.
Homestead-Miami Speedway
It might be a 1.5-mile track, but this one is unlike any other that we’ve seen all year. With that in mind, the usual rules don’t necessarily apply here, but that does open the door from some others (looking at you, Larson).
Drivers
You’ll notice that there were several drivers missing from my notes. That wasn’t on accident or because I was lazy, it was because I’m trying to narrow down the field for you guys more than I have been. There are drivers that I don’t think have a good/reasonable chance of being in the winning lineup, so I simply excluded them. I hope this will help you guys & gals narrow down your fields as well!
Dominators
Seeing that this is the championship race, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that about 90% of the lead laps will go to Kyle Busch, Hamlin, Harvick, and/or Truex. I expect them to be running 1 through 4 for most of the race, so look to them for most of the dominator upside. More on them later, of course.
The exception is Larson, because as we all know, this is a track where he can just go bonkers. It’ll be harder for him to do it with the big four all starting in front of him, but if he manages to get there, he’ll be there for a long time. I would probably avoid pairing him with mid/late-race dominators (namely Kyle Busch and Truex), as it’s more likely that he would also be a mid/late-race option. I expect Hamlin and/or Harvick to soak up most of the first half dominator points.
Studs
Kurt and Almirola can serve as general purpose options here, though I do like Keselowski the best for his upside. I don’t think we need him in cash, but I really like him for ladders and GPP.
Johnson also looks like a strong target, mostly due to his price and because he’ll start 18th. That’s not super deep by any means, but it is a few spots deeper than others in his immediate price range.
I think his teammates (Chase, Byron, and Bowman) will struggle a bit to really pay off here, but they could be useful over on FanDuel.
Value studs
DiBenedetto is once again the cream of the crop, and I love him for all formats. Austin is next, and while he can be used for cash games, I’d probably try to save him for ladders/GPP if at all possible. If not, he should be popular enough to soften the blow if he duds. Mostly the same could be said about Stenhouse, though I do think Austin has more upside (Stenhouse perhaps could be the safer basic cash game option).
And Menard, of course, is worth a look, especially since this will be the last time we get to use him. Lean GPP pivot with him.
Value
Ragan stands out among this group, and he would be my first option for all formats. I would get a healthy chunk of exposure to him and rotate the pivots around (and with) him; Hemric, Wallace/JH Nemechek, Preece/Herring, and then McDowell are the options, in that order (I think we could probably fade McDowell this week and not worry about him).
Punts
I’m not in love with the punts this week, though they could useful if we see some chaos. I like Cassill’s chances the best, though the other main four (Bilicki, Hill, Sorenson, and McLeod) technically have higher ceilings since they start deeper in the field. However, for any of them to pay off, they’ll need to finish the race while a decent number of other drivers will need to DNF. I don’t love the chances of that happening.
Lineup construction / correlation
With 267 laps to go around, we’re looking at two dominators for all formats on both sites, though we could run some solo dominator lineups on DraftKings.
Due to the field being set by points, and how pricing was this week, I like balanced lineups in all formats, though we could go a little heavier up top and try for stars & scrubs on DraftKings to try and grab a few more lead laps. I don’t think we need to go dumpster diving, so I would look more at the value drivers instead of the punts for those types of lineups (unless you think there will be some chaos, of course, because the punts could benefit from that).
Either way, there aren’t really any hybrids this week, so we’ll have to look more at dominators being dominators and the studs being studs, which basically just means it’ll be more important to nail the dominators and that we’ll see lower scores compared to the average 1.5-mile track.
Cash games
This is a decent track for cash games, and both basic cash games and ladders alike are in play here. It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to roll out two cash lineups (if you’re into that sort of thing), with one of them using a high-upside dominator for ladder purposes. If not, well hey, just skip to the GPP section!
Basic cash games
Though all four of the championship drivers should be good for a strong top-10 performance, I think we can look at Hamlin and Harvick as the most likely to grab a chunk of lead laps to go along with their strong finishes. Due to him starting on the pole, and the huge wave of momentum he has coming in, I’d probably lean towards using Hamlin if only running a single cash lineup. If you’re running two basic cash lineups, you could split ownership.
Ragan is my favorite lower-end option, and for cash games, I see no reason to go any lower than him. We have several strong mid-ranged options after that, including DiBenedetto, Austin, and Stenhouse. I would grab some pieces of those guys, then decide if you want to pay up for another dominator or go with some studs to complete your lineup.
Ladders
Hamlin and Kyle Busch would be the two I look at here for ladder upside dominators. Hamlin because he’s got the pole and could see the lead for half the race, and Kyle Busch since I believe he has the most potential upside of the four championship drivers. While I do think Larson can match his upside, I think the chances of that are a bit lower, so I’d save him for GPP use.
The same low/mid-range guys are in play here (Ragan, DiBenedetto, Austin, and Stenhouse), but we can also look at some pivots like Hemric, Wallace, or whichever guy(s) you didn’t use for basic cash games.
After that, go for high-upside guys like Keselowski or a secondary dominator to go with your primary dominator.
Tournaments
As usual, the GPP approach is basically to keep going with how you approached your ladders; keep adding upside while slowly lowering your floor.
For the dominator stacking feature, I think the best uses would be with the dominators (bet you didn’t see that coming) or with some of the studs/value studs/value drivers. Not all of them at once, but maybe take the highest ceiling drivers of those three groups and have the DS stuff in at least 1-2 of them into every lineup. You’ll need to take manual control of the actual dominators in that case, of course.
Multi-entry
As I mentioned earlier, I think we can expect the vast majority of lead laps to be soaked up by the four championship drivers, so those would be the main targets. For pure upside, Kyle Busch has the most, followed by Hamlin/Harvick and then Truex. For their chances of actually hitting their ceiling, I think I would say Hamlin/Harvick followed by Truex/Kyle Busch. It’s mostly splitting hairs, honestly, though I think Kyle Busch’s theoretical max ceiling is a few notches above the others.
The exception here, of course, is Larson. I think his ceiling is every bit as high as Kyle Busch’s is, though his chances of hitting it are a bit lower, due to the fact that he’s not one of the four trying to win a title here. But as we’ve seen before, his chances of dominating are higher the closer he starts up front, and this is certainly a time for him to shine.
While I do think that Keselowski could see some lead laps, I don’t think he’ll sit up front for a long time, so we don’t really have to treat him as a dominator. Use him as a stud and take any lead laps he gives as a bonus.
Aside from those guys, it’s mostly the same here, but we can start to sprinkle in the other guys. Pricing isn’t super tight, so feel free to just give some likes on the DS and let it flex its muscles a bit.
Single entry
If you’re going single entry, I would either hedge your cash lineup(s) with the dominator(s) here or really dive into some game theory on how this race will play out, because it’ll be a lot harder to nail them with just one shot.
That said, the same guys are in play here, but I think this would be a good chance to get some exposure to Harvick, Truex, or Larson if you haven’t done so already, as they might not see as much ownership as the other two will.
After that, it’s mostly the same as the rest; look at guys like Keselowski, and look for a pivot from the lower range (i.e. Hemric, Menard, or JH Nemechek). Finish up with another high-upside dominator or stud, and hope the lead laps go your way!
Closing thoughts
I hope you all had a great season and enjoyed these articles, as well as the changes I’ve been making to them here and there. Let me know what you liked or didn’t like over the course of the season so I can try to make 2020 even better. Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!