RADIO
This is it. The NASCAR Cup Series season comes down to one final race at Phoenix. Will it be Christopher Bell, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, or Joey Logano who claims the Cup Series championship after Sunday’s race?
It’s been a really fun season of NASCAR action, so I just want to take this chance to thank everyone who’s followed along with our coverage here at RotoBaller. This has been the most unpredictable season of NASCAR that I remember, and I’ve been watching the sport for 21 years. Before this season, who would have thought that Ross Chastain would be a title contender? Or that so many drivers would have wins? From Austin Dillon’s walk-off win at Daytona to Christopher Bell winning multiple must-win playoff races, it’s been a wild year.
Below are my NASCAR DFS lineup picks for DraftKings and FanDuel this week. This slate locks on 11/06/22 at 4:34 p.m. ET. If you have any questions or want to talk about NASCAR, you can find me on Twitter at @juscarts.
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DFS Lineup Picks - DraftKings, FanDuel
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Christopher Bell
Starts 17th - DK: $10,700, FD: $13,500
Two playoff drivers ended up starting outside of the top-15. The way Phoenix—and Homestead before that—has worked in this current format is that at some point, the playoff drivers make their way to the front and are battling for the win. Other drivers give them a little more leeway, and their teams give them the best equipment they can.
So, I think we should find a way to fit one of Christopher Bell (starts 17th) and Ross Chastain (starts 25th) into our lineup for that reason.
Bell’s probably the better play though, largely because we’ve already seen Bell win a must-win playoff race twice this year. If momentum exists, then Bell has the most momentum in the series. He finished ninth in this race last year, and he’s won here at Xfinity. The place differential upside makes me prefer him over Elliott and Logano, even if I think they’re a little more likely to win.
Joey Logano
Start 1st - DK: $10,700, FD: $12,500
We have Bell as our place differential playoff driver. Now, let’s grab Joey Logano as our laps-led playoff driver. Logano will fire off from the pole, and he has teammate Ryan Blaney next to him and a Ford driver behind him in Chase Briscoe. There’s no reason Logano shouldn’t dominate the first stage of this race. Once pit strategies get involved, who knows what’ll happen, it’s possible Chase Elliott has better long-run speed than Logano, but I’d expect to see Logano lead a good chunk of those early laps.
In the only other Cup race here with this current car, it was Blaney who was on the pole, and he led the first 27 laps of the race, and then ended up swapping the lead back and forth with Hendrick drivers for much of the day.
Also notable is that Logano has two Cup Series wins here, and he’s found himself out front a lot, leading over 100 laps here in the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 races.
Ryan Blaney
Starts 2nd - DK: $9,100, FD: $10,500
While we’re talking about Penske cars, let’s talk about Ryan Blaney, who starts second. Logano should be the one to lead early, but Blaney’s also there on the front row and he’ll be hungry.
This is Blaney’s last chance to win a race this season. If he fails to win on Sunday, it would be his first winless season since 2016. Blaney’s been good this year, but he just hasn’t managed to seal the deal yet, despite the fact that he led 143 in the first Phoenix race, plus 128 laps at Richmond. Blaney’s speed seemed to evaporate over the summer, as he had a span of seven races where he led double-digit laps just once, and then immediately followed that up with another seven-race span with just one such race.
But this is a good track for him. He has four top-10s in a row here and four career top-fives at the track. This is as good a shot as Blaney’s had all year of ending up in victory lane.
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Bubba Wallace
Starts 23rd - DK: $7,300, FD: $7,800
Wallace starts 23rd in this one, and it offers him a decent amount of place differential upside. And there’s…really not too much else to say here. In this same price range, you have a bunch of drivers in similar equipment to Bubba starting ahead of him, so there’s a little bit of a PD edge from playing him over someone like Aric Almirola or Brad Keselowski.
In terms of his track record here at Phoenix, Wallace has largely struggled, with just one top-10, which came back in 2018. His finishes here with 23XI Racing are 16th, 39th, and 22nd. And 23rd ties his best qualifying effort here.
But despite never qualifying in the top-20, Wallace has four top-20 finishes in nine starts here. I think that’s a little bit encouraging.
Erik Jones
Starts 30th - DK: $6,800, FD: $6,500
Jones starts 30th in this one, in what was a pretty bad qualifying effort for the two Petty GMS cars. But Jones has consistently outrun his qualifying efforts this season, with an average start of 20.7 and an average finish of 16.3.
Jones had some good runs at Phoenix early in his career, including a fourth-place finish in 2017, but things have dried up lately. In his last five races here, his best finish is 20th.
But while the track record stuff isn’t great, I just think the metrics for Jones this season are pointing in his favor. He’s somewhere around the 15th-best driver this year in the Cup Series and he’s starting 30th—I’ll put track record aside when there’s that kind of place differential upside.
Ty Dillon
Starts 32nd - DK: $5,600, FD: $4,000
Dillon makes his final start for Petty GMS on Sunday after a disappointing year with the team. While Erik Jones found his way into victory lane in the 43, this 42 only had one top-10 finish all season, with Dillon posting an average finish of 22.5.
But Dillon starts 32nd on Sunday, so a finish at his average would be a plus-10 place differential. When it comes to identifying a deep value play, I’m looking for that kind of PD upside, and Dillon offers more of it than Corey Lajoie or Todd Gilliland, plus Cole Custer, Ty Gibbs, and Harrison Burton all start in the top-10 and thus have negative upside from a PD perspective.
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