Reverend C Dub
Footballguy
Last year, the player who drafted first in our league, and hence got LT2, won our league, and while he didn't have a dominating season by any means, it still made me question whether or not his draft position was relevant in his team's success. We used a traditional, 14-round serpentine draft. After reading Pasquino's article linked here for your convenience, I became interested in coming up with a way to make my league's draft more equitable.
After reading the article however, a couple things stuck out to me. His use of the footballguys.com Pick Value Calculator seemed odd to me, being that I've never seen anywhere how these numbers were derived. Are they just some kind of regression line based on stats? Or are they arbitrary numbers similar to those used by NFL general managers? At any rate, I figured the best way to judge how much a draft slot was worth was my using the VBD method, as this fairly clearly shows how much more value the first pick has as compared to spots nearby. So, I took players' stats from the past three years, calculated their fantasy points (which is, of course, specific to my league, but unless your scoring is set up in a way that drastically affects one position or another, this should be largely irrelevant), and then calculated VBD numbers for every player. I averaged them across three years worth of data so that the numbers would regress more or less to the mean. I also did this for league sizes 8-18, because I wanted to see if league size had an impact on which would be the preferred method. I then simulated perfect drafts based on several drafting methods:
Typical Serpentine: Your everyday normal snake draft
3RS: Where you take the serpentine draft, and then flip everything from the third round on
Banzai: Where you flip only the third round, resulting in Rounds 2-4 all being "backwards" from the original order
Double Snake: Where after the first round, two rounds elapse before flipping the direction
Backfill: Where after the first round, every consequent round is reversed from the original order
and what I call...
Banzai Repeat: Where "Banzai Segments" repeat, i.e. Round 1 Forward, Round 2 Backward, Round 3 Backward, Round 4 Backward equals one Banzai Segment, and then this four team "pod" repeats, so it goes (F=Forward, B=Backward) F B B B F B B B F B B B F B
I summed up the overall VBD value of each team, and saw which had the closest values from the best to worst team in the league, and without further ado, here are the results (numbers indicate percentage difference):
8 Team League
Serpentine: 53.5
3RS: 43.5
Banzai: 42.1
Double Snake: 37.3
Backfill: 27.4
Banzai Repeat: 32.3
10 Team League
Serpentine: 47.8
3RS: 45.1
Banzai: 37.8
Double Snake: 37.4
Backfill: 30.1
Banzai Repeat: 31.0
12 Team League
Serpentine: 44.1
3RS: 39.7
Banzai: 36.6
Double Snake: 35.6
Backfill: 39.0
Banzai Repeat: 32.7
14 Team League
Serpentine: 39.2
3RS: 38.7
Banzai: 32.9
Double Snake: 34.2
Backfill: 34.4
Banzai Repeat: 28.1
16 Team League
Serpentine: 42.1
3RS: 38.3
Banzai: 33.7
Double Snake: 32.5
Backfill: 35.4
Banzai Repeat: 29.5
18 Team League
Serpentine: 44.4
3RS: 42.1
Banzai: 38.6
Double Snake: 38.5
Backfill: 40.4
Banzai Repeat: 34.5
So, a couple trends are fairly obvious. Serpentine sucks. The backfill method is actually the method of choice for very shallow leagues, sizes 8 or 10, but becomes less useful as the league sizes increase. The most equitable method for leagues in the typical 12-16 range is the Banzai Repeat method. It beats out its next closest competitor by at least 2.9% for all leagues with 12 or more teams.
Hopefully this information was helpful to some of you out there, maybe even a couple of you will use it to help form your upcoming drafts.
Happy Drafting,
The Rev
After reading the article however, a couple things stuck out to me. His use of the footballguys.com Pick Value Calculator seemed odd to me, being that I've never seen anywhere how these numbers were derived. Are they just some kind of regression line based on stats? Or are they arbitrary numbers similar to those used by NFL general managers? At any rate, I figured the best way to judge how much a draft slot was worth was my using the VBD method, as this fairly clearly shows how much more value the first pick has as compared to spots nearby. So, I took players' stats from the past three years, calculated their fantasy points (which is, of course, specific to my league, but unless your scoring is set up in a way that drastically affects one position or another, this should be largely irrelevant), and then calculated VBD numbers for every player. I averaged them across three years worth of data so that the numbers would regress more or less to the mean. I also did this for league sizes 8-18, because I wanted to see if league size had an impact on which would be the preferred method. I then simulated perfect drafts based on several drafting methods:
Typical Serpentine: Your everyday normal snake draft
3RS: Where you take the serpentine draft, and then flip everything from the third round on
Banzai: Where you flip only the third round, resulting in Rounds 2-4 all being "backwards" from the original order
Double Snake: Where after the first round, two rounds elapse before flipping the direction
Backfill: Where after the first round, every consequent round is reversed from the original order
and what I call...
Banzai Repeat: Where "Banzai Segments" repeat, i.e. Round 1 Forward, Round 2 Backward, Round 3 Backward, Round 4 Backward equals one Banzai Segment, and then this four team "pod" repeats, so it goes (F=Forward, B=Backward) F B B B F B B B F B B B F B
I summed up the overall VBD value of each team, and saw which had the closest values from the best to worst team in the league, and without further ado, here are the results (numbers indicate percentage difference):
8 Team League
Serpentine: 53.5
3RS: 43.5
Banzai: 42.1
Double Snake: 37.3
Backfill: 27.4
Banzai Repeat: 32.3
10 Team League
Serpentine: 47.8
3RS: 45.1
Banzai: 37.8
Double Snake: 37.4
Backfill: 30.1
Banzai Repeat: 31.0
12 Team League
Serpentine: 44.1
3RS: 39.7
Banzai: 36.6
Double Snake: 35.6
Backfill: 39.0
Banzai Repeat: 32.7
14 Team League
Serpentine: 39.2
3RS: 38.7
Banzai: 32.9
Double Snake: 34.2
Backfill: 34.4
Banzai Repeat: 28.1
16 Team League
Serpentine: 42.1
3RS: 38.3
Banzai: 33.7
Double Snake: 32.5
Backfill: 35.4
Banzai Repeat: 29.5
18 Team League
Serpentine: 44.4
3RS: 42.1
Banzai: 38.6
Double Snake: 38.5
Backfill: 40.4
Banzai Repeat: 34.5
So, a couple trends are fairly obvious. Serpentine sucks. The backfill method is actually the method of choice for very shallow leagues, sizes 8 or 10, but becomes less useful as the league sizes increase. The most equitable method for leagues in the typical 12-16 range is the Banzai Repeat method. It beats out its next closest competitor by at least 2.9% for all leagues with 12 or more teams.
Hopefully this information was helpful to some of you out there, maybe even a couple of you will use it to help form your upcoming drafts.
Happy Drafting,
The Rev
