Otis
Footballguy
Why don't we account for consistency in our fantasy rankings?
(Note: this thread applies to head-to-head leagues, which I presume most of us play in)
It seems to me that it should be such a no-brainer that the more consistently a player scores a "good" amount of points for his slot in the lineup (WR1, WR2, etc.), the more valuable he is.
Let's consider a spot in your lineup. For our hypothetical here, let's say WR1.
You have a choice between drafting two players, both of whom will have the same total fantasy points at the end of the season:
Player A: Player A is streaky. He puts up good fantasy points but eratically, throwing up stinkers here and there but also some absolute monster games (that could potentially carry you for those weeks).
Player B: Player B is Mr. Consistency. He puts up a very consistent number of points every week. He alone won't win a game for you, but he won't lose one for you either.
Now let's make the following assumption:
ASSUMPTION: The rest of your lineup scores their weekly average every single week.
There is really nothing else you can do for purposes of the analysis as to this WR1 spot. This is the variable, and the rest has to be the control.
There is no benefit to having Player A. He's more a liability to your lineup than a detriment. Why?
Assuming the rest of your team puts up its weekly average, and this one guy blows up that week, if you are significantly better than the other team, his extra points are essentially worthless. Those points would have been better spent in another week in a close matchup. So now you've blown the doors off your opponent that week, but many of those points are "wasted." Remember, in head-to-head leagues, a one point win is the same as a 50-point blowout.
Ok, but what if you are significantly worse than your opponent, and you would have lost that week if not for Player A having a monster game? Well, if you are significantly worse than your opponents that often, odds are that -- unless you get very lucky -- you're not going to win the league anyway. So it's almost not even worth discussing. Even if you pull out that week, Player A will underperform his average in most other weeks and be detrimental to your lineup. Assuming the rest of your team can't have a "blow up" game every single week (which, by definition, isn't possible, since your team is that much worse than others in the league), eventually Player A's underperformance will cost you games. He could be trading you this one win for several losses. Again, in a head-to-head league, all that matters is the W and L columns, and not the scoring differential.
Here is a link to two charts from this past season for WR1 players. The top chart is for a Player B type (consistent). The second chart is for a Player A type (inconsistent). I'm not going to bother discussing the scoring system, because the details of the scoring are not hyper-important here. Just assume it's close to standard scoring. What matters for my purposes here are the shapes of the charts.
Looking at the charts, it seems readily apparent to me that you would much, much rather have Player A than Player B in your lineup as your WR1. You'd probably draft Player A over Player B if you had the option coming into the season.
In fact, even though Player B outscored Player A over the course of the entire season, I think the charts and the discussion above provide some serious motivation to take the guy who scores less total points (again, we are talking about head-to-head leagues here) but puts up good points for his slot in the lineup much more consistently.
Now, the italicized part above is important, because pretty much all we account for in our rankings are the total season fantasy points, along with modifications based on situation, the player's development, talent, changes in situation, etc. As far as I can tell though, the fantasy community is not using any metric based on constency. The metric is based on total points.
Who are Player A and Player B?
Player A is the #3 dynasty WR on the FBG rankings.
Player B is the #16 dynasty WR on the FBG rankings.
I'd bet the gap is similar in most peoples' rankings and on most draft boards, and would be large regardless of whether it is a dynasty league or not. In pretty much any fantasy ranking you can imagine, I would suspect that Player A would be ranked substantially higher than Player B.
Player A is Chad Johnson
Player B is Plaxico Burress
Chad Johnson significantly outscored Burress in exactly TWO weeks last year (10 and 11). A couple other games were close, and Burress outscored Johnson in the vast majority. Johnson had more total points on the season, but look how many were "wasted" points in two weeks. Plus, with CJ on your roster, you have to plug him in almost automatically as your WR1. So for every week other than 10 and 11, he's practically killing you with his clunkers.
This is an extreme example, but I think one that makes the point clearly.
Accordingly, my theory is that fantasy rankings could potentiall be much improved if we could account for consistency (which nobody does right now) -- to do that, I would suggest multiplying the rankings by a "Consistency Factor," which will work to bump players up and down the rankings.
I'm too lazy to work through the hard math, but there are plenty of people here who are much smarter than I am and who could put together the formula. My guess is there is some basic statistical analysis you could do to determine the deviation from the average each week to come up with some kind of Consistency Factor, and then apply that consistency factor to what used to be our final rankings (arrived at using traditional analyses) to come up with consistency-weighted rankings that, at the end of the day, may much more accurately reflect players' true fantasy values.
Discuss.
(Note: this thread applies to head-to-head leagues, which I presume most of us play in)
It seems to me that it should be such a no-brainer that the more consistently a player scores a "good" amount of points for his slot in the lineup (WR1, WR2, etc.), the more valuable he is.
Let's consider a spot in your lineup. For our hypothetical here, let's say WR1.
You have a choice between drafting two players, both of whom will have the same total fantasy points at the end of the season:
Player A: Player A is streaky. He puts up good fantasy points but eratically, throwing up stinkers here and there but also some absolute monster games (that could potentially carry you for those weeks).
Player B: Player B is Mr. Consistency. He puts up a very consistent number of points every week. He alone won't win a game for you, but he won't lose one for you either.
Now let's make the following assumption:
ASSUMPTION: The rest of your lineup scores their weekly average every single week.
There is really nothing else you can do for purposes of the analysis as to this WR1 spot. This is the variable, and the rest has to be the control.
There is no benefit to having Player A. He's more a liability to your lineup than a detriment. Why?
Assuming the rest of your team puts up its weekly average, and this one guy blows up that week, if you are significantly better than the other team, his extra points are essentially worthless. Those points would have been better spent in another week in a close matchup. So now you've blown the doors off your opponent that week, but many of those points are "wasted." Remember, in head-to-head leagues, a one point win is the same as a 50-point blowout.
Ok, but what if you are significantly worse than your opponent, and you would have lost that week if not for Player A having a monster game? Well, if you are significantly worse than your opponents that often, odds are that -- unless you get very lucky -- you're not going to win the league anyway. So it's almost not even worth discussing. Even if you pull out that week, Player A will underperform his average in most other weeks and be detrimental to your lineup. Assuming the rest of your team can't have a "blow up" game every single week (which, by definition, isn't possible, since your team is that much worse than others in the league), eventually Player A's underperformance will cost you games. He could be trading you this one win for several losses. Again, in a head-to-head league, all that matters is the W and L columns, and not the scoring differential.
Here is a link to two charts from this past season for WR1 players. The top chart is for a Player B type (consistent). The second chart is for a Player A type (inconsistent). I'm not going to bother discussing the scoring system, because the details of the scoring are not hyper-important here. Just assume it's close to standard scoring. What matters for my purposes here are the shapes of the charts.
Looking at the charts, it seems readily apparent to me that you would much, much rather have Player A than Player B in your lineup as your WR1. You'd probably draft Player A over Player B if you had the option coming into the season.
In fact, even though Player B outscored Player A over the course of the entire season, I think the charts and the discussion above provide some serious motivation to take the guy who scores less total points (again, we are talking about head-to-head leagues here) but puts up good points for his slot in the lineup much more consistently.
Now, the italicized part above is important, because pretty much all we account for in our rankings are the total season fantasy points, along with modifications based on situation, the player's development, talent, changes in situation, etc. As far as I can tell though, the fantasy community is not using any metric based on constency. The metric is based on total points.
Who are Player A and Player B?
Player A is the #3 dynasty WR on the FBG rankings.
Player B is the #16 dynasty WR on the FBG rankings.
I'd bet the gap is similar in most peoples' rankings and on most draft boards, and would be large regardless of whether it is a dynasty league or not. In pretty much any fantasy ranking you can imagine, I would suspect that Player A would be ranked substantially higher than Player B.
Player A is Chad Johnson
Player B is Plaxico Burress
Chad Johnson significantly outscored Burress in exactly TWO weeks last year (10 and 11). A couple other games were close, and Burress outscored Johnson in the vast majority. Johnson had more total points on the season, but look how many were "wasted" points in two weeks. Plus, with CJ on your roster, you have to plug him in almost automatically as your WR1. So for every week other than 10 and 11, he's practically killing you with his clunkers.
This is an extreme example, but I think one that makes the point clearly.
Accordingly, my theory is that fantasy rankings could potentiall be much improved if we could account for consistency (which nobody does right now) -- to do that, I would suggest multiplying the rankings by a "Consistency Factor," which will work to bump players up and down the rankings.
I'm too lazy to work through the hard math, but there are plenty of people here who are much smarter than I am and who could put together the formula. My guess is there is some basic statistical analysis you could do to determine the deviation from the average each week to come up with some kind of Consistency Factor, and then apply that consistency factor to what used to be our final rankings (arrived at using traditional analyses) to come up with consistency-weighted rankings that, at the end of the day, may much more accurately reflect players' true fantasy values.
Discuss.
