A “value play” is a player projected to outproduce their salary relative to the rest of the slate — not just a cheap player, and not just a good player, but a specific ratio between the two. Chasing pure salary efficiency without context is how you end up rostering a punt play with no real path to a useful score. This page explains the concept once; each week’s post below applies it to that week’s real slate.
The math, plainly
The number most DFS tools show is value per $1,000 of salary:
projected_points / (salary / 1000). A $5,000 receiver projected for 12
points scores a 2.4. A $9,000 receiver projected for 18 points also
scores a 2.4 — same efficiency, very different role on your roster.
Value on its own doesn’t tell you:
- Floor vs. ceiling. A cheap player with a high floor is a cash-game value. A cheap player with a wide range of outcomes (touchdown-or-bust) is a GPP value. The same value score can describe either.
- Salary relief vs. genuine alpha. Sometimes the highest-value player on the board is there because they’re the best real play at their price, and sometimes they’re there because the field is priced up around a name and the algorithm hasn’t caught a real role change yet. Both show up as “high value” — only one is worth building around.
- Matchup context. A cheap player’s value spikes when the matchup data supports it (see the matchup analysis hub) — a favorable matchup is often why the projection is high enough to clear the value bar in the first place.
How to use a value board without overreacting to it
- Start from the top of the value list, but check why each player is there before locking them in — role, matchup, injury status upstream of them (a backup only has value if the starter’s actually out).
- Weigh value differently by contest type. Cash games want value with a real floor; GPPs can afford to chase a volatile, high-ceiling value play the field is under-rostering.
- Treat salary relief as a tool, not a strategy. The point of finding value at one or two spots is to afford a stud elsewhere on the roster — not to fill every slot with the cheapest efficient option and end up with a lineup that has no real ceiling.
This week’s board
Each week during the season, a new post below applies this to the real, current slate — real salaries, real projections, real value_per_1k, sourced directly from my own weekly projection pipeline. Published before lock, so treat it as a starting point for your own research, not a lineup to copy blindly.