It’s an exciting time here at RotoViz with the site redesign, all of the awesome NFL offerings and the addition of PGA apps. I’ve been getting quite a few questions on how to use the Sim Scores and Pivots app so I figured I’d explain how I use it in a couple of different ways during my process each week. If you’re familiar with our Box Score Scout, you’re familiar with the general concept of what the pivots app does in a different application. Basically what we’re doing is putting all of the stats a golfer has compiled, whether it’s “All Time” – which dates back to 2014 – or over the past three events and seeing who’s stats match up with the player you’re researching.
Using the “All Time” Filter
Let’s say, for example, you want to find golfers who’ve performed similarly to Dustin Johnson across the entire dataset. So I plug in DJ up at the top and click “All Time” and here’s what it spits out for me.
The Sim Value is a score out of 100. A score of 100 means they have all the exact same stats across the given time period. As the score goes down, the chosen stats start to deviate. As of right now, all of the following stats are included:
- Made Cut Percentage
- Driving Accuracy (Average)
- Driving Distance (Average)
- Greens in Regulation (Average)
- SG: Putting (Average)
- SG: Tee to Green (Average)
- SG: Total (Average)
When you click on one of the comp players, you can see all of the stats side by side to compare yourself. This part is important because you can see if there’s a large discrepancy in a stat that you’re targeting in your analysis. 
From a golf fan perspective, it’s fun to play around with the long term filter and see who a golfer is most like over the span of the past five years. This feature does have utility for DFS purposes as well, though. I like to look at the last five winners at a given course and see who pops up as a similar player for that week. It, of course, then needs to be cross-checked with recent form but it gives you a starting point. Most of the time it can help identify a worthy GPP flier you may have overlooked otherwise.
Using the “Recent” Filter
It’s a bit of a grind to do what I just mentioned with past winners at a given course. The recent filter is where I think the pivots app really shows its utility for DFS. Whether you look at the Yahoo! or DraftKings article – or preferably, both – during the week, you’ll see me using the app in a couple of different ways. The first way is to find price arbitrages for another golfer. In the Yahoo! article, I take a look at the top two or three priced guys in their salary scale. Then, I check to see who can save you some salary cap with similar recent form. The whole process is the same as the all-time filter. The only difference is that it uses those stats over a golfers last three starts instead of a longer time frame. For the DraftKings article, I do the same thing with golfers that I project for high ownership during that week to find ownership discounts.
Play around with the app yourself to see if you can find some pivots of your own!
