Points scored by fantasy starters while they are benched by their fantasy team do not help their fantasy team. This truism, while obvious, does not play much of a role in fantasy analysis. This article introduces a new stat, Real Points. A player’s real points are simply the total of fantasy points scored in games in which the player was a projected starter.
It is obvious that some players’ total point production is identical to, or at least not far off from, their point production when starting – because those players are never benched when active. Other players may have wasted a significant portion of their production because they were widely benched in their most productive weeks. Think Keelan Cole, who scored 132.8 fantasy points in 2017 without earning many starts, or, as discussed on this website, Alex Smith in 2017, whose lack of fantasy value in 2017 was largely attributable to ranking below the top 12 QBs in his most productive weeks.
The Fantasy Value Project 