Under advanced settings we have a setting that changes the exposure settings. The default setting is "group" exposure which will behave as you describe as FC will try to make the highest projected lineups possible. However, if you switch to "each" exposure your players will be more spread out throughout your 100 lineups. Give it a try and let us know if this works for you.

With the most recent update, you can merge crunches by moving the lineups together. So why not lock Millsap and create (0.15 x total # of lineups you want) lineups with him in one crunch. Then in another crunch exclude Millsap and calculate the rest of them. The merge them together.

Or, alternatively if you have a group of power forwards that you want to rotate about (let's say 5 of them), make a group with the rule "must select exactly 1 of these players in every lineup" then set their exposures to slightly over 20% (you can do exactly 20 if you're confident in your math).

Absolutely, for method one: Let's say you want to create 50 lineups, and you know you want EXACTLY 5(10%) lineups with James Harden. So you want to create the best Harden lineups. So what I would recommend is calculate 5 lineups with James Harden locked, then in a separate crunch, create 45 lineups with James Harden excluded.

Then you can merge the crunches as shown in this clip: http://recordit.co/QwmoC954jP

For method two, let's say you want to have a close to even spread of lineups between LeBron, Westbrook and Harden (only one of each in a lineup). What you can do is create a group (under advanced options) with the 3 of them and set the first dropdown menu to "exactly" as shown below:



What this does is forces every lineup to use exactly one of these players. Now, if you set max exposure values of all of these players so that no two of them add up to 100%, but all 3 values must add up to at least 100%, then all 3 will have to be used.

For example you can set them all to 34% but you cannot set them all to 33% because 33 x 3= 99% so you can't account for 100% of the lineups. You can set them all to 49% but not 50% because if you have two of them at 50%, then you aren't forced to use one of them. Also note, these values don't have to be the same, I just did that for simplicity sake. You cannot use 60%, 40%, 30%, but you can use 59%, 40%, 30% because 60+40=100.

The math becomes a lot more annoying the bigger the group gets, and if you choose to use "at least" instead of exactly. So I highly suggest using method 1 because it's far more intuitive and gives the user more control.

Now for uniqueness, this adds the restriction that every lineup produced must be at least x players different from all other lineups produced. This is useful because you don't typically want lineups that are almost identical to each other, but when you have an optimizer with very few restrictions and a very large pool (default lineups), the top lineups can be very similar to each other. This is a feature you definitely want to use if you don't have many restrictions. But if you set it too high, you can run out of lineups really fast.

As for randomness, this just means that between each lineup, the optimizer will move your projections up to the amount you set. So if you set it at 2%, that means it will optimize based on a different set of projections between 98% and 102% of the original projection for EVERY lineup. This adds a little bit of randomness so it may get you away from playing the same stuff as other people, and it can speed up the solves (if you want me to explain why, I can do that, but it's not too important).

There are a lot of reasons for this, and it's pretty hard to figure out without looking at exactly what you did. I wrote an entire article explaining some of these reasons:

https://www.fantasycruncher.com/articles/2016/10/08/ties-thoughts-running-lineups-on-fantasy-cruncher/

If you're still having trouble, let us know.

Tai,

So when setting up lineups, do you recommend leaving it at 100% with 1 unique and 2%? Seems like 100% gives me a lot of 100%'ers if they're projected highly. Problem is, I dont want to be over-exposed to one single guy. Boban is going to do that to me today....follow! Also, what are the thumbs for? Up and down.

Thanks again,

I suggest setting your max exposures to numbers you are comfortable with for each player. The higher the exposure to a single player the greater the risk (and potential for profit). There is no set rule for setting exposures. Personally, I would set at 3 or 4 unique with a max of 50% exposure to any given player I was not certain about. Thumbs up increase the projection when calculating. Its a quick way to increase it by 8% for each thumbs up.

What randomness setting do you use Oreo? I see you at the top often...

Depends on how much confidence I have in the specific day. I often go up to 100%.

Oreo or Taicheeze,

Can you go into more detail on the randomness setting please.

The randomness setting adds more diversity and variance into your lineups. Your lineups become less optimal but they tend to be a bit more different from your other optimal lineups. Combining this setting with our unique player setting and exposures results in much more diverse lineups. The higher you go on randomness and unique players (and lower on exposures) and you will see more and more different lineups. However, at the same time lineup quality will decrease rapidly if you go to the extremes (low exposure, 100% randomness, 7+ unique players). To combat this, my best tip is to set a minimum salary floor(95% of salary cap) and remove all players you are not interested in playing from the player pool.

I think it'll be easier to explain using an example. Say you're crunching 100 lineups. There's a player projected at 50 fantasy points. If you set your randomness to 10%, that means that this player will have a projection between 45 and 55. Between each of the 100 crunches, the player gets a new projection between 45 and 55. All other players will have new projections that are in the +/- 10% range as well. So players projected at 10, will get projections between 9 and 11.

Because projections are being shuffled, you're more likely going to get different sets of players being the "best projected lineup". For example, you have 2 players, Player A projected at 40 and player B projected at 50. If you set randomness at 10%, Player A can go as high as 44, and Player B can go as low as 45 so player B will never be projected lower than player A. However, if the randomness was set higher, say 20%, then player A can go as high as 48, and player B can go as low as 40, so SOME of the time player B will be lower than player A. Now imagine this with your full roster pool, and it's easy to see why you get a lot more variety when you increase randomness.

20% of 40 is 8. So his projection can go +/- 8 from 40. So you get a range of 32 to 48.

Hi, me again!

OK so looking at this variance, in looking at that 40 DK projection with a 20% +/-, what exactly is that doing? I know its providing variance to the overall projections, but will this affect my thumbs on a player as well? So if I have a 40 with two thumbs up and a 20% randomness setting, what do that do? Does that now give me 20% off of 46? Just trying to understand this better. Or am I overthinking things here?

Whats the point of the randomness slider? Seems like variance up or down would negatively correlate to roster construction. Am I missing something?

Really appreciate the prompt responses. Is there a way to reset all my work in the cruncher, ie thumbs, exposures etc?

Hey Guys,

This may have already been asked or posted and I apologize if so, but I looked and couldn't find an answer. I am starting to try to do the mass entry while utilizing the advanced tools. This is limited to MLB. What I am attempting to do is limit my global exposure to around 60% but while also creating a group of pitchers I want to only use. Basically I am narrowing down to about 5-6 potential pitchers I want to use on DK. However, what ends up happening is the 60% global exposure also applies to those select pitchers in the group. I don't really care nor want to limit exposure to that group of pitchers since I've hand selected the guys I want. Is there any way to utilize the global exposure but prevent that from applying and limiting the groups created? Or is there a better approach? Hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance for the help.

Awesome, thanks. Easy change, sorry I overlooked it.

Hi Guys,

I was just wondering what everyone's opinion on the Global Exposure Setting choosing between "Group" or "Each." I am pretty new to the mass multi entry contests but have been somewhat successful in MLB over the last couple of weeks using the optimizer. I typically set it to 3 unique players and have always selected the Global Exposure Setting as "Each." It seems to be working ok but I'm not sure it is optimal. What are your thoughts and personal selections for these settings.

Thanks!