Saturday, November 26, 2016

2017 Fantasy Nascar Profile: Kevin Harvick

Welcome to TimersSports


Driver Name: Kevin Harvick

Car #: 4

Make: Ford

Season Debut: 2001 (First full-season)

Number of Championships: 1

# of Career Starts: 574

# of Career Poles: 17

# of Career Wins: 35

# of Career Top 5s: 154

# of Career Top 10s: 284

# of Career DNFs: 27

# of Career laps led: 10,225

Career Average Finish: 13.6

Career Average Start: 16.3

# of 2016 Wins: 4

# of 2016 Top 5s: 17 

# of 2016 Top 10s: 27

# of 2016 Poles: 2

# of 2016 DNFs: 3

# of 2016 laps led: 1,384

2016 Average Finish: 9.2

2016 Average Start: 11.7

2016 Recap - Kevin Harvick had a very good 2016 season. His numbers were down on across of the board, but it was expected for him to see a decline in production though. As he had an dominant 2015 season, one that very few in day and age will be able to match. In 2016, he did for the most part produce strong numbers. Once again in every category, he was near top of the board. He was ranked inside the top 5 in wins, top 5 finishes, top 10 finishes, laps led, average finish and average start. This shouldn't surprise anyone at all, as Kevin was consistently at front of the field contending for wins. If there was a downside to Kevin in 2016, then it was he wasn't as dominant as he was in his first two seasons with SHR. The numbers says he didn't see much of decline and I would agreed. Minus the laps led, he stayed pretty stable overall. With that said, he didn't dominant races like we saw in 2014 and 2015. This was obvious too by looking at his laps led too. He only led 1,384 laps in 2016. Which is a far cry from his 2100+ in each of his first two seasons. Still, he was ranked at the top in laps led. However, there were some left to be desirable when thinking back on it. I am not saying, I am upset at the numbers he posted. As they are very impressive in their own right, but I just felt the #4 car just wasn't what it was in 2015 or 2016. All-in-all, it was an awesome season for Harvick and co. 

Strong Tracks - Phoenix, Kansas, Michigan, Dover and Charlotte 

Weak Tracks - Martinsville and Bristol

Yahoo Grouping Tier: A-list Grouping 

Overall Value Prediction - High upside with constant winning potential

2017 Fantasy Outlook -  Many people has wondered down the stench of 2016, weather or not changing from Chevy or Ford will effect Harvick next season. I am personally not worried at all. Not the first time a team swapped and won't be the last either. Most recently, Penske changed from Dodge to Ford (in 2012) and FRR (commonly known as the #78 team ; also #77 team now) switched from Chevy to Toyota in 2016 as well. How did they fair? Truex had his best year ever and was constantly in the mix for the win on a weekly basis. And Keselowski had his worst year ever, but he did start off the year with 8 Top 10 finishes in first 9 races, before falling off. Still pretty solid numbers overall, not like he fell away off from what we normally expect. More importantly, he won a race. So I am not too worried about Kevin switching to Ford. He is no longer getting support from Chevy and HMS, but he still has a great Crew Chief though. Rodney Childers is one of the smartest guys in the garage. I consider him the mastermind in that organization. Long as they have him and Harvick together, I think they both will be fine overall. I do expect decline in production much like I figured last off-season, but I don't think it will be as large as many are thinking though. 

**All stats are from DriverAverages.om 

Twitter - @JeffNathans18