Monday, December 07, 2015

2016 Fantasy Nascar Profile: Ricky Stenhouse Jr

Welcome to TimersSports

Driver Name: Ricky Stenhouse Jr

Car #: 17

Make: Ford

Debut: 2013 (first-full season)

# of Career Races: 112

# of Career Poles:  1

# of Career Wins: 0

# of Career Top 5s: 3

# of Career Top 10s: 11

# of Career DNFs: 7

# of Career Laps led: 38

Career Average Finish: 21.9

Career Average Start: 21.2

# of 2015 Wins: 0

# of 2015 Top 5s: 1`

# of 2015 Top 10s: 3

# of 2015 Poles: 0

# of 2015 DNFs: 3

# of 2015 laps led: 3

2015 Average Finish: 24.2

2015 Average Start: 23.6

2015 Fantasy Recap: Look at his numbers as a whole, they are not very good. His 24.2 average finish is ugly, but let not judge a book by the cover. He was very productive fantasy option in 2nd half of the season and was often a top 20 finisher. In the final 21 races of the 2015 season, he had 11 Top 20 finishes. He had 4 in the first 15 races of the season. If there was a high point for RFR in 2015, then it had to be the streak of top 20 finishes that Stenhouse had from Richmond to Talladega (7 races). He also rolled off 5 straight top 13 finishes from New Hampshire to Talladega. Those stench of races was glances of what he potentially could be. Those were flashes of the 2013 Ricky who contended for top 10 and top 15 finishes on a weekly basis. Maybe we will see him again sometime?

Strong tracks: Phoenix, Bristol and Chicago

Weak Tracks: Martinsville and Indy

Yahoo Grouping Prediction: B-list Grouping Tier

2016 Fantasy Outlook: I have higher hopes for Ricky Stenhouse Jr (I will go deeper into details in the 2016 Sleeper list in January) than most probably do. I do expect Ricky to be inconsistent like he was in 2015. But I do believe that RFR will be better off as i stated with Biff's profile.  i don't expect the world from Ricky, but i do think he has the potential to get back to a top 20 driver. Most weekends that will be his limitations. However certain tracks, he will have a chance to be a top 15 driver. Most of these tracks are smaller like Bristol, Phoenix, etc. Last season we saw, he was able to get something going late in the season with some quality finishes. Maybe he could use that as momentum and build on 2016 with it. How he does in 2016 is unclear, but he will be one of the drivers i watch early in the season.  You all know how I love employing sleepers early in the season.

Twitter - @Garryy12