Sunday, February 16, 2020

2020 Fantasy Nascar Sleepers & Dark Horses (Daytona)

Welcome to Timerssports

Well folks, I had a lot planned for this offseason. However, I just wasn't up to it after writing up a couple driver previews in late November. I suppose the 2019 Nascar season just wore me down too much. Plus, work and football had me pretty busy. Then of course, things in my personal life kinda had kept me pretty occipued for the most part! With all of that said, I am gonna try to write much Fantasy Nascar content as humanly possibly in 2020! Now I cannot make any promises to anyone as the warmer weather get here.

I am super excited for the 2020 Nascar season, I am probably more excited for this upcoming than I had been over the past few seasons, honestly. So what better way to start the 2020 season, then with my personal favorite fantasy's article? That's right! We are digging into some sleepers and dark horses!

So what do these terms exactly mean in fantasy Nascar? Excellent question! Sleepers and Dark Horses are commonly confused with each other pretty often. When we are talking about sleepers, we are talking about value more than potential. In simplier terms, they are drivers who are typically under the radar and outproduce their expected fantasy's projections. Good examples of that would be guys like William Byron, Ryan Newman and I guess to lesser extent someone such as Alex Bowman, etc. Dark Horses are based on potential and upside. They are typically drivers that could challenge for the win, but they aren't expected to win the race. It's the potential that they COULD win, which makes them such exciting propects! Good examples would be guys like Ryan Blaney and Erik Jones. They always have that high potential to challenge for the win, but most weekends they aren't expected to pull it off!

Sleepers -

William Byron - I really liked what I saw from Byron in 2019! He showed flashes of mega potential at times in 2019, but he just couldn't put together on a consistent basis. In 36 races, he posted 5 top 5 finishes and 13 top 10 finishes with 14.2 average finish. In addditon to that, he also had 23 top 17 finishes and only 10 finishes worse than 20th place. I love the fact that Chad Knaus will be caling shots for him in 2020 once again! Many (including myself) thought the William/Chad combo would be awesome. I think the first year together was a learning curve for both of them, but I probably have higher hopes than most. Byron showed he could challenge for top 5 (at times) and was a contender for top 10 finishes more often than he get credit for. I think he will take another step in 2020 and suprise some people! Some far at Daytona, he has shown some speed during speedweeks and seems to be pretty good at this superspeedway thing,too. He has very limited expereince, so it is hard to judge him by his record here.

Ryan Newman - Newman was probably better in 2019 than your average fan realizes and he will most likely get that same direspect in 2020! Why? Because he isn't with a top tier team and doesn't run in the top 5 very often. However, he still remains to be one of the toughest drivers to pass in the series and has a history of being a consistent driver! In 2019, he posted 14 top 10 finishes and held 14.56 average finish in 36 races. He also posted 23 top 15 finishes and 28 Top 20 finishes. Like usual, Newman was very consistent and very few times did he finish outside of the top 20. In fact, 15 of the first 21 races he finished 17th or better. We should expect more of the same in 2020! And I really like him at Daytona this weekend! His record is really appealing here, too. Sure, does it really mean that much at Daytona? Not nearly as much as most tracks, but you want a good survival rate here on this type of track. That don't automatically translate to a good result, but it gives you a little more confidence in your picks. In his last 9 races at Daytona, he has posted 7 finishes of 15th or better. In 6 of those 7 races, he compiled finishes in the top 11(!).

Michael McDowell - Man the final spot in this portion of the article was really tough between Ty Dillon and Michael McDowell! I mean really tough, I don't think you can go wrong with either driver honestly. Dillon has posted 3 straight top 6 finishes at Daytona currently and including 6 straight top 17 finishes at superspeedway races. I think Dillon has better numbers overall, but I have this really strong gut feeling about McDowell. In 8 of his last 10 races at Daytona, he has finished in the top 15. In his last 4 races at Daytona 500, he has finishes of 5th (2019), 9th (2018), 15th (2017) and 15th (2016). See a trend? His finishes at the 500 are actually getting better as the season goes by. This doesn't mean he will automatically have a great finish, but like I said I have a really good feeling about McDowell!

Dark Horses -

Ryan Blaney - In 2019, I thought Blaney was really good at times and probably let a few too many races get away from him. He may not had won those races, but he certainly could had a strong finish, though. He will have to fix his inconsistency issues in 2020, if he truly want to contend for a championship! Blaney might be the most dangerous pick in the field, but so very often he is mixing it up at front of the field at Daytona and Talladega! Sure, he might have one of the highest DNF rates of any driver in the field. But I love his potential! Now, I personally wouldn't gamble on him but man the pay off with guy could be huge. His issue isn't skill on this type of track, it is actually having some luck and able to seal the deal. If Blaney is still running at end of the event, I am willing to bet he will have a very strong finish. With all of that said, he has 4 DNFs in his last 5 races at Daytona. Like I said, he is a very dangerous pick but he usually jump off the page in these races though. Don't believe me? Go back and watch some of the recent plate races.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr - I think Stenhouse is easily one of the most talent drivers on this type of track, but he is so disrespected because of his driving style. Yes, he is very aggressive at times and he tends to get himself in trouble. But let's be real here, he has been really good here on these superspeedways dating back before his cup season's debut (in 2013). So it's not like, he has just recently started to run well at Daytona and Talladega. Throw all the disrespect you want at him, but he should be considered a strong threat to win in Sunday's race! He has led in 5 straight races at Daytona, even though he has no finishes better than 13th in his last four races. Like I said, he is very aggressive and has a knack for getting himself in trouble. With all of that said, I am still very high on him and think he could steal a win here in 2020 at Daytona or Talladega!

I guess there's several guys I could had gone with in this article and it probably depends on who you consider a sleeper or a dark horse pick! Anyways, I hope everybody enjoyed my article today!

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

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