Best Ball Mania VI: Fantasy Football Correlations vs. Value

“Get your guys”. Every fantasy football player is familiar with the saying. If you don’t draft the players you like when you have the chance, someone else will. And, instead, you’ll end up with a bunch of players you don’t like. The implication of the saying is that you should consider reaching to ensure you are building the team that you want. That’s been the war cry of fantasy football aficionados for years.
You combine the “get your guys” attitude with a popular trend in best ball of leaning heavily into correlations, like stacking teammates or Week 17 matchups, and the environment is ripe for getting aggressive. You’re almost encouraged to reach. An optimal team build would have all sorts of correlations, right? That’s how you win.
And there’s no doubting the logic behind correlations. Plus, getting your guys can pay off in a big way if you are right. But, in giant best ball contests, like Underdog’s Best Ball Mania, is reaching to lock down stacks and correlations helping? Or is it actively hurting some drafters? Let’s take a look at the concepts with last year’s winning team to figure out the right way and wrong way to build your dream team.
Getting Your Guys And Correlations
The concept of getting the players you like is pretty simple, so we don’t need much explanation there. You should draft the players you like as if they are stars, with the hope that the right combination of them will unlock the winning formula. You’ve done the research, after all.
The correlations are also fairly simple - the idea is that, in big best ball tournaments, you need MASSIVE spike weeks to win. And that’s especially true for Week 17 when all the big money prizes are decided. When you have a bunch of players on the same team and the team scores a lot of points, that increases your odds of scoring big. When you also have players that play against each other, and those games turn into a shootout, you further increase your odds of your players scoring big. Naturally, gamers want to stack their picks with correlated teammates where possible and stack opponents for late-season matchups when it matters most. The big prizes are all decided in Week 17, so having a bunch of players stacked in that week can pay off huge in theory.
Best Ball Mania V Winning Team Correlations
User LGrewe50 on Underdog was able to beat out over 670,000 other players to win the top prize of $1.5M. Here is the team that he did it with and their final Week 17 scores, per the Underdog Twitter account.
At first glance, it seems obvious how he did it - he stacked up the Bengals and 49ers. And that definitely played a key role in the results. Let’s take a look at the correlations he had below. The team initials that are color-coded in orange and gold are his stacks. And then the green squares are his late-season matchup correlations, where the teams played each other those weeks.
Player | Team | Week 16 | Week 17 |
CIN | CLE | DEN | |
IND | TEN | NYG | |
PHI | WAS | DAL | |
CIN | CLE | DEN | |
KC | HOU | PIT | |
SF | MIA | DET | |
JAX | LV | TEN | |
CIN | CLE | DEN | |
ARI | CAR | LAR | |
SF | MIA | DET | |
CIN | CLE | DEN | |
SF | MIA | DET | |
MIN | SEA | GB | |
CIN | CLE | DEN | |
CAR | ARI | TB | |
SEA | MIN | CHI | |
NO | GB | LV | |
LAR | NYJ | ARI |
His Bengals and 49ers clearly played a big role (only one of Burrow and Purdy could fill his QB spot, but they were the two highest scoring QBs). Ja'Marr Chase and Brock Purdy did not crack his lineup in Week 17, but Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, Chase Brown, George Kittle, and Ricky Pearsall did.
He did not have any players with a Week 17 matchup correlation that made his lineup (James Conner and Demarcus Robinson combined for 1.8 points). In Week 16, James Conner and Adam Thielen were in the lineup, but Ty Chandler and Noah Fant were not. So there was a little bit of help in Week 16 from matchup correlation, but not much. That doesn’t mean those correlations can’t be helpful in an alternate universe, but like any correlations, they aren’t 100% necessary if you just hit the top players that get hot at the right times.
For example, the team that finished second in BBMV, winning $750,000, only had two teammate stacks of Justin Fields with Roman Wilson and Jayden Daniels with Terry McLaurin. Roman Wilson didn’t make his lineup the entire season, and McLaurin had only one catch for 5 yards in Week 17. Daniels with McLaurin certainly helped get him there, but it was uncorrelated plays like Tee Higgins, Malik Nabers, Ricky Pearsall, Brian Thomas Jr, Bucky Irving, etc. that pushed him up that final scoreboard.
What Is More Important - Correlation or Value?
There’s no doubt that having the right team stacks or late-season matchup correlations can create additional value. But, based on Underdog pick by pick source data, a LOT of teams that made it to the final week had combinations of those players. For instance, there were over 30 teams in that final week that had combinations of Joe Burrow and Tee Higgins, so over 5% of the teams. There were at least three teams that made the final day that not only had Joe Burrow and Tee Higgins, but they also had the Week 17 correlated Marvin Mims coming back the other way, who scored two touchdowns and 26.2 fantasy points. So why didn’t those teams win?
An argument can be made that where LGrewe50 REALLY separated himself from the pack was on the “closing line value” for his players. Closing line value is basically what the final ADP ends up being before the season starts, when the most information is available to us. When you look at the winner’s team vs. closing line ADP, you can see that he was not only able to stack players, but he did it with virtually every player coming at cost or at a steep discount.
Player | Pick ADP | Closing ADP | Difference |
1.04 | 1.06 | -0.02 | |
2.09 | 2.02 | 0.07 | |
3.04 | 2.04 | 1 | |
4.09 | 4.06 | 0.03 | |
5.04 | 2.08 | 2.96 | |
6.09 | 5.06 | 1.03 | |
7.04 | 5.08 | 1.96 | |
8.09 | 8.06 | 0.03 | |
9.04 | 6.03 | 3.01 | |
10.09 | 9.06 | 1.03 | |
11.04 | 8.08 | 2.96 | |
12.09 | 15.07 | -2.98 | |
13.04 | 11.03 | 2.01 | |
14.09 | 15.02 | -0.93 | |
15.04 | 12.09 | 2.95 | |
16.09 | 14.02 | 2.07 | |
17.04 | 16.01 | 1.03 | |
18.09 | 15.01 | 3.08 |
In fact, the only player he “reached” more than a round for was Ricky Pearsall. And, if you remember, Pearsall’s closing line plummeted at the end of the summer after he was shot on August 31st. At the time of the winning draft, Pearsall was very likely picked at or close to ADP. The only other reach was Jermaine Burton, who was a complete non-factor for his team - he had four catches total on the season.
Yes, James Conner and Adam Thielen did have that great Week 16 correlation. James Conner finished as an RB1 on the season despite being drafted as the RB18 on Underdog, and, once Adam Thielen returned from injury, he was the WR13 in this scoring format through the end of the season. The Week 16 correlation was a nice bonus for sure, but getting those players with 3 rounds of value was likely a huge difference maker vs. the rest of the field. Of the 536 teams to make the final day, 41% of them had James Conner (including mine, which finished 226th). Only one of those teams got James Conner in the 10th round, so LGrewe50, getting him in round 9, was about as close to peak value as you are going to see. Similarly, no player who made the final day got Adam Thielen later than round 15, where he got him.
If you really consider the draft in context, he chose value over reaching for stacks at multiple junctions. At pick 7.04, he could have reached one round to stack Joe Burrow with Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, but chose to roll the dice and take the value on Brian Thomas Jr (a player that appeared on nearly 60% of teams that made the final day). He then got Burrow at cost. Only three teams made the final day reaching more than a full round for Joe Burrow while 73% of the final day teams got Burrow in the 8th round or later.
In a similar fashion, he could have taken Brock Purdy at his ADP to stack with Kittle in round 9, but took the huge three-round ADP value on James Conner instead. Brock Purdy and Chase Brown both ended up falling to him anyway, also beyond their ADPs. Those stacks were undoubtedly helpful, but he doesn’t win the tournament without taking the values on Brian Thomas Jr and James Conner first.
2025 Best Ball Mania VI Example and Advice
This year, I’ve noticed more than ever a trend of reaching for stacks and forcing correlations. When you see someone with Bengals and 49ers stacks win the top prize in 2024, your natural inclination is to attempt to recreate something similar in 2025. Here’s one example I’ve seen in drafts early this year.
The Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Commanders game in Week 17 has appealing shootout potential. But a number of those pieces are all picked within the first few rounds - especially with Terry McLaurin, Jayden Daniels, and George Pickens all going within fairly close proximity. So I’ve seen teams start drafts with their first four picks being something along the lines of the following:
- CeeDee Lamb (ADP 6)
- Terry McLaurin (ADP 30)
- Jayden Daniels (ADP 39)
- George Pickens (ADP 50)
None of those picks is a reach by a full round. What we need to understand, though, is that these players are being drafted in 100% of leagues. There are 672,672 drafts so there are 56,056 copies of these players out there, and correlations are incredibly popular. If someone else gets those four players at ADP without reaching, they can also get an additional value in the second round, like this Reddit user that posted those four players stacked but also with AJ Brown in the second round. And the scary part is, the nature of ADP means that someone out there could be getting additional discounts that allow for stacks at an even CHEAPER value, like the winner of best ball mania last year. It’s entirely possible to get Jayden Daniels in the 5th and George Pickens in the 6th if things break right.
By now, I’m sure you understand the simple advice I’m giving. Have a list of “your guys”. Understand what the correlations are in terms of their teammates, their late matchups, etc. As you do more and more drafts, you’ll understand the flow of the drafts. But keep in mind how crucial VALUE is to your success. And how correlations aren’t the end-all be-all. If last year’s winner reached for his QB stacks, he would not have won. If he opted for more Week 17 correlations instead of value plays like Adam Thielen, he would not have won.
If you take this seriously and plan to put in a lot of entries, have some patience. Collect the value plays and, hopefully, the correlations will fall to you at value. Let the rest of the field do the reaching so that you can reap the rewards.
Check out the 2025 Fantasy Draft Guide
Player News
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