Hello, I'd like to welcome everyone to the first of my four part
series on value based drafting. The purpose of these articles is
to outline what I believe is the next step in the science of fantasy
football. The topics here are not appropriate for those owners who
are happy "doing all right" on a year to year basis; these articles
are for the owners who are willing to put in the time to become
the best owners in their respective leagues. The owners who know
that fantasy football so much more fun when you are winning every
league you're in. If that is you, read on.
This article is in a four part series. In this, the first portion,
I'd like to introduce you to the subject and give you a theoretical
background for the rest of the information. The next two sections
will introduce you to the main body of the drafting system that
should be the most precise of any available. The last section will
try to put the techniques in the context of what other owners are
doing and how you can use this, or any other, value based drafting
model, to take advantage of your draft.
Before we go any further I'd like to present a quick history on
the science of fantasy football. Value Based Drafting is the creation
of fantasy football icon Joe Bryant. Value Based Drafting, or VBD
is a technique for comparing players who don't play the same position,
through putting an overall numerical value on all players. Back
in 1996, Bryant wrote the first articles on the subject, the most
recent version of which you can find at Cheatsheets.net.
However, since Bryant took that first important step, the theoretically
basis of the system has not really been improved on- until now.
I would highly recommend everyone read Bryant's articles on value
based drafting, they are the originals and they will put everything
I write about into an appropriate context. Also, if you are interested
in checking out more of Bryant's stuff, you can do so on his site,
www.cheatsheets.net.
In the "real" world, Value Based Drafting is an economical principle
called The Law of Comparative Advantages. Basically it says that
the value of an economical product is the difference between that
product and the consumer's alternative product. This is an gross
under-simplification, but we aren't interested in how this effects
textile supply-chain models, so we will leave it at that.
General Overview of VBD
The theory behind all value based drafting systems is a simple but
important series of suppositions. The first says that fantasy football
is not just a game of scoring a lot of points, but a game of scoring
more points than your competition. Accepting that premise
should be a no-brainer. Second, fantasy football is a game played
with specific positions, where opponents compete with the same number
of each specific position playing at the same time. That isn't so
much of a supposition as it is a fact, but it is a very important
detail. While there are a few leagues that allow positions to vary,
VBD flexes for this by putting those positions that can be substituted
for each other into a common pool. Lastly, since each player is
competing against a player from the same position, the value of
a player is exactly the number of points that he will outscore the
other players at his position. I think an example can really
highlight this point.
Let's say that you have a league with two teams, and each team starts
one quarterback, one running back, one receiver, and one kicker.
Furthermore, let's say you know how many points each player will
score. Quarterback one will score 24 points, quarterback two will
score 21 points; running back one will score 22 points, running
back two will score 19 points; receiver one will score 14 points,
receiver two will score 13 points; kicker one will score 16 points,
kicker two will score 11 points. Go ahead and pick against a friend,
and see which player ends up being the most valuable. The results
may surprise or the may not, but if you did it correctly you should
have realized that the most valuable player in that league would
have been the first kicker. This is because he has a greater comparative
advantage than any other player does.
The first problem about applying this method is obvious: we don't
know how many points a particular player will produce. But this
is a problem that fantasy football players deal with all of the
time since we never know how many points any players will
produce. We predict naturally in fantasy football, what VBD asks
is that we find some way of putting our predictions into numbers
so that they can be compared. Statistical prediction however, is
a science in it of its own, and an evolving one at that. In this
article I will deal with a couple of methods for predicting statistics,
but there is no lack of solid methodologies available so it won't
be my primary focus. Generally, what you would do for value based
drafting is to predict seasons statistics for each player, and then
use those as the basis for your VBD ratings.
Generally coming up with the VBD ratings is a three-step process.
First you come up with your projected stats for each player; next,
you pick a baseline (a player at each position to whom you will
compare every other players production); lastly you subtract a players
projected stats from the baseline player's, giving you their VBD
rating. The baseline player traditionally is the last player who
would be available at a position (if you waited until the last round).
The other problem that is apparent with this version of VBD is the
fact that people predict stats for entire seasons, not one game
at a time. But leagues don't play one player's season to another's;
they play one game at a time. Which means you are actually predicting
as if you never substituted or rotated any players. Along the same
line, VBD does not take into account the ability of an owner to
substitute players, or add new players through trades or the waiver
wire. That is the problem that "Value Based Drafting 2000" will
take the first step towards fixing.
VBD 2000: The Theory
In the past it was assumed that roster and lineup changes should
be left out of VBD drafting because you could not quantify their
affect on a season. In some ways this is true, since I have no idea
which breakout players I'll pick up or what trades I'll make. So
maybe it is true that the changes you make to your roster are more
difficult to quantify. However, what changes you will make to your
starting lineup is predictable, or at least can be planned.
Additionally, in most VBD systems, all positions are looked at equally.
For example, a kickers VBD rating is still his projected number
minus the baseline, despite the fact that your prediction for him
is less likely to be correct than for other positions. Or what if
you rotate quarterbacks and are able to increase your total QB production
by twenty-five percent using this? Then each individual quarterback
should be worth less since it conjunction they equal more. It may
sound funny, but increasing quarterbacks value by twenty-five percent
through planned rotation actually knocks each individuals value
down twenty percent.
The actual value, or comparative advantage, of a player is his traditional
VBD number, multiplied by the chance that the predicted number will
be reached, divided by the amount that can be reached by rotating
players. Seem complicated? It really isn't too bad once you start
doing it, just two numbers to mix with your normal VBD projections.
What's Next?
The first aspect of VBD 2000 that you will learn about are the new
techniques for projecting a players stats, including looking at
the three-year VBD position distribution, and learning how to use
that to your advantage this year. More importantly, you will learn
how to modify your VBD ratings by other factors that come into play
during a season. We will start this in article two, which will be
posted next week.
The most important technique of VBD 2000, which will be gone over
extensively in part 3 of this series, is how to adjust a player
VBD rating depending on your ability to rotate or substitute a player
during the season. You will learn how to do this in part by becoming
very well acquainted with the 2000 NFL schedule and in part by learning
the statistical tendencies of each position. Like real football,
fantasy football is increasingly becoming a game of matchups.
Additionally you will learn how to adjust a players value depending
on the varying likelihood there particular position will meet your
expectations. In other words, given your predictions for, lets say
wide receivers, how often will that position in general come close
to their expected results? The higher the chance a player will meet
your expectation, the more valuable he will be.
Lastly, we will spend a full article on the tendencies of your other
owners, and how to take advantage of them. We will look at average
draft locations of all players in beginner, amateur, and expert
drafts, and examine which picks are made with good value and which
picks aren't.
So strap your self in and get ready for a ride - you'll never look
at fantasy football the same way again.
