As you now know, I'm in the midst of a series examining each of the primary daily fantasy sites, their roster structures, scoring systems, and the types of players that are most useful for each particular site. Last week was Daily Joust and the week before, Fan Throwdown. This week, I'm working on DraftDay.com. (Fan Throwdown recently added an extra pitcher spot, so note that the Roster Quirkiness rankings have been adjusted accordingly.) Previous Profiles: Daily Joust | Fan Throwdown DraftDay Profile Uniqueness: 9th (Hitting), 1st (Pitching) Scoring System Quirkiness: 6th (Hitting), 2nd (Pitching) Roster Quirkiness: 9th Pitching Premium: 6th DraftDay is, as you can see, a pretty polarized site. Uniqueness Uniqueness is a measure of how differently players score on a particular site relative to the average daily site. Uniqueness serves as a good estimate for how much your strategy needs to change when playing on a given site, like DraftDay. (Note: Pitching Uniqueness only includes starting pitchers despite some sites utilizing relievers.)

Site	Hitting Uniqueness
Daily Joust	4.4%
	3.6%
	3.2%
	3.1%
	3.1%
	2.7%
Fan Throwdown	2.5%
	2.4%
DraftDay	2.2%

DraftDay is interesting in that it is the most unique site in terms of pitching but the least in terms of hitting.  If you're new to DraftDay, you'll find that there's a learning curve when it comes to the pitching (or, spun in a positive way, that there is ample room to outperform your competition by paying attention to the site's quirks). With the value of hitters, however, your composite knowledge of player value from playing on other sites will be a near perfect baseline for valuing hitters on DraftDay. Scoring System Quirkiness (Hitting) Scoring System Quirkiness is a measure of how much a given site's scoring system differs relative to the average daily site. Since sites award points on different scales (i.e. DraftDay gives 20 points for a HR; FanDuel gives 4 points for a HR), category values are listed in relative terms (all relative to the number of points awarded for a home run. So if a single is worth 1 point and a home run is worth 4 points, the value of a single is said to be 25 percent.)

Category	DraftDay	Average
1B	25%	26%
2B	50%	50%
3B	75%	76%
HR	100%	100%
H	Note Used	3%
RBI	25%	33%
R	25%	29%
BB	25%	22%
SB	50%	50%
CS	-25%	-11%
HBP	25%	21%
K	Not Used	-8%
GIDP	Not Used	-6%
SAC	Not Used	5%
Out	-5%	-3%

Despite possessing the lowest Hitting Uniqueness score, DraftDay is a bit higher up in terms of Quirkiness thanks to the use of a couple categories that stray from the majority.  They are one of four sites to use Caught Stealing and Outs in their scoring system. The use of Outs would seem to lend an advantage to low-power hitters with good batting averages.  Of course, these types of hitters often come with a helping of speed to make up for their lack of power, and so the use of Caught Stealing cuts against that value -- likely why DraftDay's Hitting Uniqueness is so low. Of course, there are some players who hit for high averages without much speed, and these guys may hold a relative advantage over the similarly average-inclined hitters who steal bases and lose points from the times they get caught.  Think guys like Omar Infante, Marco Scutaro, Placido Polanco, Nick Markakis, and David Murphy.  Of course, since strikeouts aren't used, these guys don't get a huge boost, making DraftDay pretty vanilla overall in terms of hitters. Scoring System Quirkiness (Pitching) Scoring System Quirkiness is a measure of how much a given site's scoring system differs relative to the average daily site. Since sites award points on different scales (i.e. StarStreet gives 15 points for a win while DraftStreet gives just 1.5 points for a win), category values are listed in relative terms (all relative to the number of points awarded for a win).

Category	DraftDay	Average
W	100%	100%
Outs	10%	13%
K	30%	28%
ER	-30%	-31%
H	-10%	-9%
BB	-10%	-9%
HBP	-10%	-8%
SV	Not Used	33%
BS	Not Used	-9%
CG	50%	23%
SH	50%	13%
L	-50%	-14%
No No	50%	19%
PG	50%	6%

As you can see, DraftDay makes liberal use of an assortment of pitching categories -- some are only on the list because of DraftDay. No other site, for instance, offers points for Perfect Games.  Only one other offers Shutouts and No-Hitters.  Only two others offer Losses and three others Complete Games.  When it comes to the commonly used categories, though, DraftDay pretty much toes the line set by the other sites, differing in their value by no more than 3 percent anywhere. This creates the problem, for daily players, of pitchers putting up unique scores relative to other sites but those scores being harder to predict.  Most of the bonus categories that DraftDay offers are highly variable and, to a large extent, random.  Of course, they're not completely random, most notably Losses, Shutouts, and Complete Games. If you're playing on DraftDay, it would be wise to target pitchers with high-powered offensive support to minimize the chance of taking a loss.  It would also be wise to shell out for the high-priced, elite pitching options who have a higher chance of throwing shutouts and complete games.  While it's a myth that high strikeout rates drive up pitch counts, high walk rates definitely do, so you're better off going for Cliff Lee (1.4 BB/9) or Doug Fister (1.4 BB/9) than Gio Gonzalez (3.6 BB/9) or A.J. Burnett (3.5 BB/9) since they'll be more likely to pitch deep into games and ultimately finish them out. Roster Quirkiness Roster Quirkiness is a measure of how the roster structure of DraftDay differs from the average daily site.

Position	DraftDay	Average
C	1	1
1B	0	0.3
1B/DH	1	0.6
3B	1	0.9
1B/3B	0	0.2
2B	1	0.9
SS	1	0.9
2B/SS	0	0.2
OF	3	3.0
U	1	0.7
SP	2	1.3
P	0	0.6
Total	11	10.6

While DraftDay is certainly a site with quirks, they are far removed from its roster structure.  They are, in fact, the least quirky in terms of the positions they require players to field, as close as possible to average at every single position.  They use one spot at each position around the infield, three in the outfield, a utility, and two pitchers.  Not a single quirk to be found.             Pitching Premium Pitching Premium is a measure of how valuable each pitcher spot is relative to each hitter spot based on each site’s scoring system. So for Fan Throwdown, the average pitcher is 47 percent more valuable than the average hitter.

Site	Pitching Premium
	76%
	75%
	71%
	62%
Daily Joust	56%
DraftDay	49%
Fan Throwdown	47%
	34%
	25%

You might think that DraftDay would be higher on the Pitching Premium list given all of the bonuses they dole out, but because those categories are relatively rare and because DraftDay is so normal in terms of the common categories, they're merely middle of the pack here.  In terms of quantity, their rosters require two pitchers, which is also par for the course, so there's really little else to note here.  Hitting is slightly more important than pitching, relative to other sites, on DraftDay, but the overall effect is very small.             Methodology for Creating Each Stat If you’re like me and want to know what goes into the sausage, here is how I arrived at each stat that I created. If you don’t care, then you’ve reached the end of the article. You are now free to leave. Uniqueness is calculated by first looking at how every player scores in each of the nine systems. They are then re-calculated on an index scale, comparing each player to the site’s average player so that all sites are using the same scale. Then a new average is created for each player of his score on each of the nine sites. We examine how far each site’s score is from the nine-site average as an absolute value. When we average these out for all players for all sites, we get an estimate of each site’s “uniqueness.” I used full-season data for all hitters with at least 300 PA, all pitchers with at least 10 Games Started in 2012. Scoring System Quirkiness is calculated by first putting all stats on the same scale (relative to Home Runs for hitters and relative to Wins for pitchers). I find the nine-site average value of each stat, compare how each stat’s scoring varies from that average, then average out all the categories for each site (with each category weighted the same). Roster Quirkiness is calculated by finding the nine-site average of how many players are required at each roster position, then comparing how each site’s roster structure varies from that average, and average out all the roster spots for each site. Pitching Premium is calculated by first scoring out the average daily line for all hitters with at least 3 PA in game (a proxy for starting the game) and all starting pitchers for each of the nine sites. I then compare how much more valuable pitchers are than hitters. I used data from a recent six-year stretch of games on DraftDay.