Wednesday, December 06, 2017

2018 Fantasy Nascar Profile: Ryan Blaney

Welcome to TimersSports

Driver Name: Ryan Blaney

Car #: 12

Make: Ford

Season Debut: 2016 (First-Full Season)

Number of Championships: 0

# of Career Starts: 90

# of Career Poles: 2

# of Career Wins: 1

# of Career Top 5s: 8 

# of Career Top 10s: 25

# of Career DNFs: 12

# of Career laps led: 332 

Career Average Finish: 19.3  

Career Average Start: 12.9

# of 2017 Wins: 1

# of 2017 Top 5s: 4

# of 2017 Top 10s: 14

# of 2017 Poles: 2

# of 2017 DNFs: 5

# of 2017 laps led: 301

2017 Average Finish: 17.2

2017 Average Start: 10.3

2017 Fantasy Recap -  It was a very interesting 2017 for Ryan Blaney. He was wildly inconsistent for most of the season, but still posted his first career win at Pocono. I will be honest, I was little surprised that his career win came at Pocono. Logically, you would have thought it would have been at an intermediate-type of track. But instead, it finally came on a flat track in Pocono. Otherwise, he had some really good runs early in the year. He was very strong at places such as Texas and Kansas. He led the most laps in both races, but never could put it altogether though. Still, he still really potential. After Pocono, he never really showed that same level of competitiveness. Sure, he was good but I don't recall him truly contending for another race win after the month of June. He had some good runs, but not that good. As the season progressed (especially during the playoffs), it seemed like Blaney was more predictable and got the finishes he deserved!

Strong Tracks - Chicago, Kansas, Talladega and Pocono  

Weak Tracks -  Homestead, Richmond and Dover 

Yahoo Grouping Tier prediction: A-list grouping tier

2018 Fantasy Outlook - Blaney will move to Team Penske in 2018 from the Wood brothers. This was pretty much expected from Penske to make this move, as they didn't want him escaping them to some other team. And to be fair, Blaney has earned his shot with Penske. He deserves to be in that 12 car full-time. Where can you expect to Blaney to be strongest? I would have to say the intermediate tracks and the plate tracks. Both kind of venues stand out as the strongest for Blaney so far in his career. I think he will also have some really good runs on both kind of flats. With that said, I also think there will be some inconsistency as well. It is pretty much expected that he will make mix results from time to time though. Personally, I would be disappointed if he didn't get back to victory after the year he had in 2017. He is more than capable of winning a race and adding on his numbers from that solid 2017

*All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18