Finding players who are undervalued: Part 2 - defenders

This time I ran the regression using only defenders. I categorized them based on price and ranked them within their price bracket based on how undervalued they are based on last year's PP90. Note: The "rank" column shows the player's overall rank with only defenders in the regression.

Collin comes in as the number 1 overall undervalued defender despite being in the top price bracket. He also has the highest expected PP90 with the next closest (Bernardez) with a PP90 10 percent lower. I wasn't planning to have any defenders priced at 6m in my squad, but I just can't see how we can pass Collin up given that he is one of the most underpriced players in the game. Bernardez also stands a good chance of making my squad at this point.

 There's no real standout undervalued player in the 5.5m price bracket. For me, examining the Houston defenders is the key point here. If we compare Taylor, Ashe, and Boswell, Taylor is the best value and also has the highest PP90. Ashe was originally in my team, but this has convinced me to find the extra cash to bring in Taylor instead.

The 5m bracket is where things start to get a bit more convoluted. Even though Burch is on top of this bracket, and second overall, he shouldn't make anyone's team because he will not be the starter in Seattle unless Gonzalez gets injured. McCarthy and Tierney come from an interesting New England team that quietly kept nine clean sheets last season. I'm not exactly sure who will be the starters for the Revs, but having one of those two in your side might be useful. There's a slew of useful options in Hedges, Hurtado, Gonzalez, Parke, Harvey, Williams... basically there are a ton of decent choices in the 5m bracket that you should adjust these projections based on how you think defenses will fare relative to last season and also take a look at the difficulty of upcoming fixtures.

And finally, we have our budget options. The trick here is finding players that will be starters. Woolard (should be owned by far more than the mere 4.8% that do at the time of writing) and Jazic are the only ones at this point I have any confidence in starting. Korb could start in DC if the Riley transfer rumors are nothing more than rumors. New York has a couple players that could end up as starters, I think Lade has a better chance than Kimura at this point.