Tackle Breaker
Footballguy
Is it accurate to say that drafters this year are in only 1 of 2 camps? Anti-Fragility 0RB or Value Based Drafting. Am I missing anything?
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Summing up draft season. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Tackle Breaker
- Start date
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
I'm still old school and am taking RB's in my first three picks. To many good RB's falling to the third round this year.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
need2know
Footballguy
Good point.
Your league scoring is paramount. In a ppr of any kind you kind of have to go wr these days
Ilov80s
Footballguy
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
You make decisions based on the information you have at the time. Don't what else to do.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Right but if your strategy is taking the best player but you can't know who the best player is, that's not much of a strategy.
Hawkeye21
Footballguy
Then there are no strategies. What else is there? All we have are projections, it's not like we know what's going to happen.
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
What are you recommending then? Should I just take guys with only 5 letters in their first names?
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Zero RB is a strategy for example. You are taking 5-6 WRs to start the draft because most leagues start more WRs than any position, RBs get hurt/underperform at higher rates than WR so when RBs are hurt/lose their jobs a zero RB team can benefit from the chaos. It's a strategy as you are investing less in the position that aren't scarce, are investing less in positions that have a high turnover and then can profit from the fragility of the RB market place and the high supply low demand TE/QB market.
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Hawkeye21
Footballguy
Yes, zero RB, zero WR and zero QB are all strategies but regardless of which one you are using how do you decide which player to pick? I'll bet you would take who you consider to be the best player available at the position you desire to focus on, correct?
Hawkeye21
Footballguy
LOl Exactly. How else are you suppose to draft players if you don't go by some kind of perceived best player?
Ilov80s
Footballguy
At any pick we need to use adp and a ranking of some sort to choose which person we draft. I agree. Hiwever, I don't think picking the best player available is a real strategy. It's just guessing. We can't eliminate totally eliminate the guessing from fantasy, but we can use it with an actual strategy.
Hawkeye21
Footballguy
No matter what it's all a guess. And not matter what type of so-called strategy you are using it is based off of some kind player projection. You just have to use one of those strategies that you believe gives you the best chance at winning. No one know if any of the "strategies" will actually turn into a championship. When it's all said and done the only thing that really matter is how well you manage your team during the season.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
No one strategy (or lack of one) will win or lose everytime. It's about using data to maximize chances for success. VBD doesn't account for any data we know about RB injury rates or late round hit rates of RB vs WR.
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
Because of the inflated prices of WR this year I will be incorporating the Zero WR strategy in non-ppr. My analysis of hit rates of late round RB's and WR's shows its much easier to find WR1 and WR2 level talent in rounds 5 and later than RB's. I typically do auctions but looking at current ADP I would be perfectly happy with a Miller, Charles, Forte start to a draft and have Maclin, Fitzgerald, Hurns, Locket, M. Jones as my WR's.
But in order to determine which RB's and WR's I like I have to make projections and they are all useless the day the season starts.
Biabreakable
Footballguy
Right side up drafting is not mutually exclusive from VBD or BPA.
If you are playing total points, you should likely be drafting BPA which means the player who will score the most points. This is very different than VBD where you are drafting the players who give you the most points over baseline at a position based on your scoring system and starting requirements.
Positional scarcity is accounted for better through VBD than it is by total points.
ADP cam be a huge factor in your decision as well. While drafting player X may be BPA, if you can still get that player later, then sometimes you might draft a player who do not consider to be the best option at that specific draft slot, because you think you can get that BPA later on (for a lower investment).
I try to quantify player values to help inform my decisions. I try to stay flexible and not be committed to any one strategy because I know all of these strategies can work.
Picking good players is what it always comes down to.
If you are playing total points, you should likely be drafting BPA which means the player who will score the most points. This is very different than VBD where you are drafting the players who give you the most points over baseline at a position based on your scoring system and starting requirements.
Positional scarcity is accounted for better through VBD than it is by total points.
ADP cam be a huge factor in your decision as well. While drafting player X may be BPA, if you can still get that player later, then sometimes you might draft a player who do not consider to be the best option at that specific draft slot, because you think you can get that BPA later on (for a lower investment).
I try to quantify player values to help inform my decisions. I try to stay flexible and not be committed to any one strategy because I know all of these strategies can work.
Picking good players is what it always comes down to.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Prices aren't inflated, they are just beginning to catch up to reality. I looked at the top fantasy seasons over the last 10 years for RBs and WRs, here is an interesting point of note: Of the top 20 WR fantasy seasons of the last 10 years, 65% of them happened between 2013-15. 46% of the top 50 WR seasons happened between 2013-2015. Of the top 20 RB fantasy seasons of the last 10 years, 25% of them happened between 2013-15. Of the last 10 years, 24% of the top 50 RB seasons have happened between 2013-15.
I know those are arbitrary cutoffs, but I think they demonstrate the point that RBs are becoming less valuable and WRs are becoming more valuable. A great RB season is worth less than it was 5 years ago. A great WR season is worth more. As a more anecdotal show of this. In 2010, there were 12 RBs that finished with more than 200 points. If you add up 2014 and 2015, it's only 10 RBs over 200 points. In 2010, only 2 WRs finished over 200 points. There are six WRs that did in 2014 and another six that did it in 2015.
Dan Lambskin
Footballguy
Draft a team and hope for some luck along the way is my strategy
need2know
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
need2know
Footballguy
Damn. Maybe we should just draft wr early regardless of scoring. It might just be that simple. Numbers don't lie.
kutta
Footballguy
So if less RB's are putting up high scoring seasons, doesn't that make the ones that have a good shot of doing it more valuable, not less?
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
I don't think your numbers paint the entire picture. It is true that WR scoring is up over the last 3 years, however the top WR's still trail behind the top RB's in points per game in non-ppr. In the last three years 2013-15 the top three RB's have out scored the top three WR's every year by an average of 2 ppg. Comparing RB12 to WR12 over the last 3 years for both the average was 11.9 ppg. RB24 average 9.7 vs WR24 average pf 9.2. RB36 average 8.3 vs WR3 7.7.
Also, I hear WR's are more predictable or there is less turn over, but I don't see it looking at the numbers on a PPG basis. I wanted to see how many RB's and WR's have had multiple elite seasons in the last 4 years. The average top 6 RB finish on PPG over the last 4 years is 14 points per game and the average top 5 finish for WR is 14 ppg so that's what I used as my metric for elite performance. There have been 8 RB's to have multiple elite seasons over the last 4 years, and 3 of those had elite performances in 3 of the four years. 5 WR's have had multiple elite performances over the 4 year span and zero of them have had more than 2 (this isn't fair to OBJ as he is 2 for 2).
On the claim that WR's are less injury prone. I looked at the number of games played for the top 48 RB's and WR's on a ppg basis over the last 3 seasons. RB's average 13.26 games per 16 game season (83%) and WR's average 14.6 games played per 16 game season (91%). Last year for RB's was the worse in the last 3 years with an average of 12.52. However, WR's are also dependent on their QB as any Brown owner will tell you from last year. The top 24 QB's in ppg averaged 13.88 games played of 16 (87%). So if you count the missing QB time against the WR's you have 79% of the time with your WR at full strength which is less then the average RB.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Agree and we have also seen plenty of WRs perform fine when there were changes at QB.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
The most valuable fantasy players are the 1-4 RBs that end up having elite years and end up staying healthy for most of it. They are not so easy to predict and a higher chance of being injured. Rotoviz and DynastyFootballFactory both did longterm studies comparing RB and WR injury rates. It isn't pretty. Essentially, fantasy relevant RBs are 30-40% more likely to miss 4 or more games due to injury than a WR. The difference becomes even worse as you look at the top 24 drafted at each position. Rotoviz numbers suggest those top 24 WRs are less likely to be hurt than average WR and top 24 RB are more likely to be hurt than an average RB. The gap ends up being a difference over 200%. So the more RBs you draft early looking for the next 2014 Demarco Murray, the more risk you take on.
Biabreakable
Footballguy
abbotjamesr,
Who were these 8 RB you identify as having more than one season of 14 point/game performance?
jvdesigns2002
Footballguy
Go to any draft with a general knowledge of which players that you really want and like. With that being said--you should not go into any draft with a tunnel vision strategy that does not allow you to capitalize on the way the draft is materializing. If you play in a 10-12-14 team league--there will undoubtedly be a few owners that will surprise you with their picks--and this can open up lots of opporunities for success. Do not prevent yourself from being nimble enough to take advantage of the unpredictability of drafts.
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
Jamaal Charles - 15,14,13
Adrian Peterson - 15,13,12
LeVeon Bell - 15,14
Matt Forte - 14,13
Marshawn Lynch - 14,13,12
Demarco Murray - 14,13
Eddie Lacy - 14,13
Adrian Foster - 14,12
Nifty fun fact, of the 7 of the above that are still active only 1 has a first round ADP currently.
WR's
Brown - 15,14
Jones - 15,13
OBJ - 15,14
Johnson - 13,12
Demarius Thomas - 14,13
Biabreakable
Footballguy
I wanted to say I think you did a really nice job using combined analysis based on the 3 year average by points per game. Which was 14 points. This sets a nice baseline that you can measure player performance against.
I notice you give some leeway for seasons that were close but not quite 14 points per game in a particular season, but the combined PPG of the 3 seasons works out to 14 and that makes sense, even if a player may have fallen a bit short in a given season.
There are some issues with this however, as far as matching up to the end of season stats. Peterson only played one game in 2014. There should be some minimum number of games played to qualify as being successful for the season.
I did a similar analysis of this over a larger sample size that combined VBD and PPG scoring here. I didn't find the success rate of RB to be as high as your evaluation for them over the last 3 seasons, this is largely due I think to some of the players in your sample playing too few games in that season to qualify in my evaluation.
I notice you give some leeway for seasons that were close but not quite 14 points per game in a particular season, but the combined PPG of the 3 seasons works out to 14 and that makes sense, even if a player may have fallen a bit short in a given season.
There are some issues with this however, as far as matching up to the end of season stats. Peterson only played one game in 2014. There should be some minimum number of games played to qualify as being successful for the season.
I did a similar analysis of this over a larger sample size that combined VBD and PPG scoring here. I didn't find the success rate of RB to be as high as your evaluation for them over the last 3 seasons, this is largely due I think to some of the players in your sample playing too few games in that season to qualify in my evaluation.
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Insoxicated
I think picking a strategy before the draft starts is a fools errand... let's say you decide to go stud RB, and you're watching the top 4 RBs go off the board before you.... same with stud WR...
IMO you pick BPA for the first round or two, then evaluate what's left, and develop a draft strategy based on how things are flowing. Exceptions include being in leagues where you KNOW your league-mate's tendencies going into the draft and can formulate a strategy based on their likely tendencies.
IMO you pick BPA for the first round or two, then evaluate what's left, and develop a draft strategy based on how things are flowing. Exceptions include being in leagues where you KNOW your league-mate's tendencies going into the draft and can formulate a strategy based on their likely tendencies.
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
I used 4 games minimum to qualify in my analysis. I had to pick a number for Elite production and 14ppg seemed like a nice round number. Your right that not every season was exactly 14 for the top 6. The last for years 14ppg included 5,7,8,5 RB's and 5,5,4,1 WR's.
When I am looking at the first two or three rounds in a draft I am looking for predictability and upside. I see the RB's as having the greater upside still even as the league has switched to a passing league. I know some of the elite backs that have repeated are starting to get older this season, but I think there is still great upside in Peterson, Charles, Forte, Foster this year that is priced extremely well. The top WR's seem to be pretty predictable as well, however there upside historically is less. Which is fine if the price is right, but it is not this year.
The mid level RBs and WRs are worth about the same amount to me, however it seems the low WR1's and high WR2's are being valued higher than the comporable RB's despite the lower upside and similar expected PPG.
This year my general strategy will be to take BPA but am expecting to take mostly RB's early unless one of my high upside WR's falls to me at a decent spot. I have a list of high upside WR2's to go after in rounds 5-10.
