Career VBD Equation: Dynasty Value Measurement (1 Viewer)

[Concept Coop]

Here is a simple VBD exercise that I have used to calculate career VBD for dynasty purposes. It is not to be used as a definitive ranking tool, rather as a reference tool.

Here is the equation: Points/year x years left, divided by baseline points/year x years left.



To established baselines:

Age: Average age of the top 15 dynasty options at each positions.

Points/Year: FBG historical average, with a few exceptions.

Projected Expiration Date: I used my gut, using oldest productive players as reference.

To establish projections:

Points/Year: Project per year average.

Years Left: Subtract actual age from projected baseline expiration date.

Example:

Arian Foster: 4 years remaining (30 - 25.9) x 250 (projected per year average) = 1,000 career points/ Baseline years remaining (4) x baseline points/year (150) = 166%

Preface: There is no exact science to calculating dynasty value, even if we have the assumed outcome. Drew Brees will score less than the baseline QB over the duration of their careers. But, certainly, he is more valuable than a baseline QB. The reason being - the end goal is to win, not amass the highest career VBD possible. However, I think this exercise is great as a reference. It helps to compare VBD across positions, relative to production within each position.

Adrian Foster is a much safer bet than Trent Richardson, and will likely score much more, short term. But, if Trent Richardson ends up being a top 5 RB for 8 years, he will provide much more career VBD than Foster. What we as owners do with that information is up to us. But this provides a measurement, given that we provide the projections. There is a lot of subjective information that goes into the equation, so the outcomes should be used with that in mind.

I used dynastyrankings.net's rankings and age information.

Results:

Running Backs

Baseline: 25.25 Years Old; Projected Expiration Date: 29.25 (4 years of production), 150 points/year = 600 career points

Foster: 250 x 4 = 166.66%

McCoy: 230 x 6 = 230.83%

Rice: 230 x 4.5 = 172.5%

Mathews: 220 x 4.5 = 165.%

Richardson: 200 x 8 = 266%

Quarterbacks

Baseline: 28.5 Years Old; Projected Expiration Date: 36 (7.5 years of production), 288 points/year = 2160 career points

Rodgers: 7 x 460 = 149%

Newton: 13 x 420 = 252%

Stafford: 11.5 x 420 = 233%

Brees: 2.5 x 460 = 53.25%

Luck: 13 x 400 = 240.7%

Wide Receivers

Baseline: 25.8 Years Old; Projected Expiration Date: 33 (7 years of production), 130 points/year = 910 career points

Calvin: 6 x 240 = 184%

Julio: 9.5 x 200 = 208%

Green: 9 x 180 = 178%

Fitz: 4 x 200 = 84%

Dez: 9 x 165 = 163%

 

[Danish Bengal]

Very interesting topic as I myself is looking into how to turn my 2012 projections into a Dynasty ranking. A couple of observations:

You have McCoy >>> Foster and Rice, which I presume you do not want. The three of them are neck to neck in Dynasty ADP, so they should be neck to neck in the rankings too. The problem with your calculation is that you implicitly weights each year equally. But we can all agree that we'd rather have production now than later. I mean, if you had to choose between player A (with these projections: 2012: 250p, 2013: 200p, 2014: 150p) and player B (150p, 200p, 250p) we would prefer player A. Their total career points are identical and we would obviously prefer getting the points now vs. later. A solution to this is to reduce future production by some factor, say 10% pr. year. Player A's career total would then be 566 (250 + 200*0.9 + 150*0.0*0.9) and player B's would be 532. Ideally the factor should be some function of the players age, so that when e.g. a RB is approaching 30, is depreciation factor would be bigger than 10%

Another issue with your method is rookies. If you project a rookie's career performance by extrapolating their year-1 projections, you vastly underestmate them. We have to project a rookie's first 3 season one by one, and then extrapolate from the third season to the rest of his career. Or something like that.

Thank you for posting

 

[Ryan99]

You have McCoy >>> Foster and Rice, which I presume you do not want. The three of them are neck to neck in Dynasty ADP, so they should be neck to neck in the rankings too. The problem with your calculation is that you implicitly weights each year equally. But we can all agree that we'd rather have production now than later. I mean, if you had to choose between player A (with these projections: 2012: 250p, 2013: 200p, 2014: 150p) and player B (150p, 200p, 250p) we would prefer player A. Their total career points are identical and we would obviously prefer getting the points now vs. later. A solution to this is to reduce future production by some factor, say 10% pr. year.

In addition to near term production being more valuable (you 'discount' future production), a guy's near term production is more closely correlated with his historic production than far term production is. I think the factor of 10% is far too low. Think of it this way: how far ahead is production worth half of what it is now? A way you can 'price' this is to look at the value of future draft picks in dynasty. Would you trade your round one pick this year for 2 round one picks next year? What about the year after, or the year after that?Let's assume you'd trade your year 1 pick for 2 year 3 picks, but not 2 year 4 picks. You're saying that production now is worth less than twice the production 2 years from now, but more than twice for 3 years from now. So let's say it's 2.5 years on average. x^2.5 = 0.5 => x~.75. So that's a reduction of about 25% per year. And that's just discounting, you also have to factor in that a guy's production becomes more uncertain the further forward you go, and that average production is not steady, it increases from year 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3 and then slowly declines (this is for RB, not sure for other positions). I don't think it would be unreasonable to use a discounting factor of 1/3 or more, taking all these factors into account.

 

[Concept Coop]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

I didn't want to increase the subjectivity, by placing increased value on any season(s). I fully acknowledge that the more recent the season, the more accurate the projections can be. There might need to be some adjusting for that. But, I didn't want to want to make one season worth more, because winning now is more important than winning later. I wanted to measure the entire VBD value of a players' career.

The owner would then need to make that call. Ben Roethlisberger has a good chance of providing more career VBD than Tom Brady, based on number of seasons left. I know Tom Brady is more valuable, but I don't want my numbers to tell me who is more valuable. I want them to tell me the career VBD advantage, of the projections I input.

 

[Ryan99]

Age might not be the best factor for determining how many years a player has left. Number of years in the league might be better, at least for some positions (I'm think of Jeff Garcia here). Or for RBs, maybe carries or total touches is more closely correlated with retirement than age is. There are a lot of different tweaks and details you could add to this, but I like it as an initial calculation.

 

[Concept Coop]

Age might not be the best factor for determining how many years a player has left. Number of years in the league might be better, at least for some positions (I'm think of Jeff Garcia here). Or for RBs, maybe carries or total touches is more closely correlated with retirement than age is. There are a lot of different tweaks and details you could add to this, but I like it as an initial calculation.

No doubt. That variable could be much more flexible than what I have laid out here. For example, I certainly expect Darren Sproles to last another couple years. Also, I would expect a player of his playing style to last longer than a guy like Shonn Greene. I have never used this calculation in a wide sweeping method before. I have used it more so to get a better understanding on questions like: How does the value of Arian Foster compare to that of Aaron Rodgers? How much more value should a 24 year old RB provide, than a 25.5 year old RB? How much more valuable is 4 years of RB production than 4 years of TE production?

 

[Concept Coop]

I first started using this calculation for guidance about 1.5 years ago. After doing so, I concluded that I valued LeSean McCoy as the #1 dynasty back. Keep in mind, his ADP and consensus ranking was around 7-10, at the time. Every year of RB1 production is worth so much, that even one additional projected season (say, McCoy vs. Rice) is very significant.

The difference between a 25.5 year old RB, and a 24 year old RB is almost non-existent based on ADP and consensus. But, that difference should be respected.

Poster, EBF, has taken a lot of flack for valuing Trent Richardson on par with any RB, including guys like Foster. As this calculation shows, if EBF is right about Richardson's talents, there is potential for him to provide MUCH more career VBD. I don't value Richardson more than Foster, but I fully acknowledge the potential, and even likelihood, that Richardson produces more career VBD, from this point on.