League Scoring - How do you achieve balance? (1 Viewer)

[Mario Kart]

What do you think is the ideal balance?

QBx1 = 16.6%RBx2 = 16.6%

WRx3 = 16.6%

TEx1 = 16.6%

Kickx1 =16.6%

Defx1 = 16.6%

I think a system that looks like this is fatally flawed. The day that TE's and K's are as valuable to winning as a QB is the day that fantasy football becomes simply fantasy. Because nothing about it resembles real football. The way you know you've achieved a good scoring balance in your league is when player draft positions, auction prices, contract values (if you do a contract league) actually look like the NFL. No matter how you spin it, if the #4 QB is getting picked in the 3rd round in your league, you are not playing fantasy football, it's just fantasy.

I run a league where, by and large, RB's, WR's, and QB's are about equally drafted in the first two rounds, with the top QB's being the most valuable, and generally taken with picks 1-4. Our scoring breakdown looks like:

QBx1: 33.5%

RBx2: 20.2%

WRx3: 32.2%

TEx1: 8.1%

Kx1: 6.0%

From everything I can tell regarding how NFL teams draft and sign contracts, their valuations look something like this.

Tell a kicker he is not valuable and I'll show you how valuable they are... http://www.2dorks.com/kick_fails.html

No one piece is more valuable than the others. That statement invokes parity and balance. A truly balanced league would be the 16.6% across the board for the 12th starter for each position (the 12th and 13th RB would equal the 16.6%, the 11th and 14th would equal 16.6% and so on) As such, the WR's would be the same... the 12th, 13th and 36th... all the way down to the 1st, 24th, 25th would equal the 16.6%.

The parity comes in when I draft the 20th WR and he "should" score the 20th WR points but instead comes in at #10. I won that battle thus my teams, barring all other averages, will be higher than the requisite 16.6% at my WR position. Use that same "theory" or "technique" to equate all other combinations and the league will then have the parity come into play after the fact.

Granted, a league will never have a 16.6% across the board therefore a league will never be truly balanced and thus a league that tries to achieve the 16.6% would probably not be well thought of. The scoring of said league would change yearly based on the previous (or a set time i.e. 3 year window perhaps) year and thus maintaining ownership would be difficult. The final point is that a league will never be truly balanced however the conditions to set up a balance can occur. However, if a league tries to be truly balanced, everyone will be a winner and no true champion will happen.

 

[jvdesigns2002]

But I would add that the idea of balance between position scoring is akin to the NFL always seeking parity amongst its 32 teams. FF is built on the scoring system for each league and while they are very vast and different, you should want to avoid being skewed to heavily towards any one position IMO because to do so limits the ability to have parity amongst your fantasy teams. For example, if QBs were disproportionately weighted to a large degree, while you can say everyone is playing by the same rules, you essentially have little chance of winning championships without one of the elite QBs on your roster and there are only so many to draft picks (randomly picked often?) or auction dollars to spend to acquire them. This was my origi al fear of this thread that we were weighting the QB to heavily ad reducing competition around our ff league. Hope that clarifies my intent.

I understand where you are coming from-- but there are flaws to your concern. It makes perfect sense that in a game where success is based primarily on statistics--the players who tend to put up the best and most statistics (elite qb's) probably have a better chance at winning. However, the draft process is specifically designed to counter this advantage. If qb scoring is sooo heavy in your league--I imagine the elite qb's tend to go very early in the draft. If you do a regular snake draft--the other teams later in the draft get to pick twice before the draft "snakes" back. This means that teams that go later in the draft can get an average qb and pair him with an elite wr/rb to counter the qb edge that one might have. Like I said--I play in a qb heavy scoring league--and I won my league with Tony Romo last year---who wasn't projected to be an "elite" fantasy quarterback. I was able to win because I also had dez bryant, trent richardson, vjax, doug martin, julio jones, kyle rudolph, james jones...etc--and I drafted my qb later than the other team owners in my league. Also--there is also a flaw in the sense that nobody knows how "elite" a qb will be. Aside from Rodgers and Brees--can anybody tell me who the 3rd best fantasy qb will be next year? Will it be Matt ryan, Peyton Manning, Cam Newton, Rg3, collin kaepernick, russell wilson, Matthew Stafford? The fact of the matter is that a sound drafting strategy can counter the effects of having a strong qb. If I had the last pick in the 1st round and 13 qbs got drafted ahead of me--I'd go with Adrian peterson and Jimmy Graham--I guarantee you the points you would be behind in the qb position could be made up somewhere else. I also guarantee you that the teams that have won your league had far more than just an elite qb on their side. I bet their teams also had stud wr's/rb's as well--in fact--I would appreciate it if you would put the roster of the last two championship winning teams up just for analysis. The point in any game with any scoring system is to strategize a plan that gives you the best chance of winning. If a guy is in your league and has a late draft pick--and so far everybody has drafted a qb--he's not going to win by chasing the qb position. A sound strategy would be for him to abandon the qb position until a few rounds later and stockpile elite talent in other areas to counter his weakness there. You start at least 2 rbs, 2 wr's and 1 te, 1 team defense, a kicker--there are 6-7 other starting roster spots where points can be made up.

I appreciate your reply and I agree that my concerns may have been flawed which was why I came here to start this topic and get opinions outside of the usual for me. It has been very helpful along the way. Two things to consider in your last response though that may or may not change your opinon (I am guessing not since the freedome to do what you want is even easier). We run an Auction, contract and keeper league so no snake drafting, etc. Sal caps are the only limitation and every team starts with a $500 cap and then can trade up to a certain dollar amount each year so there is disparity amongst teams at every draft so that not every team is starting with $500. Secondly, you are right that most teams will have a stud RB to take them to the championship but not always. Here are our last 5 championship team lineups:

2012:

Starters Griffin III, Robert WAS QB 16 Charles, Jamaal KCC RB 30 Peterson, Adrian MIN RB 9 Green, A.J. CIN WR 11 Johnson, Calvin DET WR 23 Gates, Antonio SDC TE 10 Gostkowski, Stephen NEP PK 11 Jets, New York NYJ Def 22011:

Starters Newton, Cam CAR QB 32 Foster, Arian HOU RB 23 Turner, Michael ATL RB 7 Cruz, Victor NYG WR 22 Welker, Wes NEP WR 14 Gates, Antonio SDC TE 4 Gostkowski, Stephen NEP PK 9 Texans, Houston HOU Def 22010:

Starters Rodgers, Aaron GBP QB 38 Charles, Jamaal KCC RB 23 Peterson, Adrian MIN RB 18 Boldin, Anquan BAL WR 1 Wallace, Mike PIT WR 16 Cooley, Chris WAS TE 4 Vinatieri, Adam IND PK 7 Steelers, Pittsburgh PIT Def 52009:

Starters Warner, Kurt ARI QB 22 Jones, Thomas NYJ RB 16 Tomlinson, LaDainian SDC RB 18 Johnson, Andre HOU WR 13 Wayne, Reggie IND WR 3 Clark, Dallas IND TE 5 Akers, David PHI PK 12 Packers, Green Bay GBP Def 92008:

Starters Cassel, Matt NEP QB 29 Jones-Drew, Maurice JAC RB 16 Turner, Michael ATL RB 13 Breaston, Steve ARI WR 0 Marshall, Brandon DEN WR 12 Cooley, Chris WAS TE 2 Akers, David PHI PK 3 Titans, Tennessee TEN Def 12

Looking at your previous winners---I have to say that I have zero idea why you feel like you would need to change the impact that qb's have in your league. Every previous champion in your league has amazingly good balance on their teams. your 2012 winner has adrian peterson, jamaal charles, aj green, and calvin johnson--and you think the reason he won is because of qb scoring? That team would win most fantasy leagues regardless of their scoring systems.

2011 winner- has welker, victor cruz, and arian foster---and cam wasn't considered an elite qb at the time of the draft. He had an amazing rookie season--but this team had the best running back of the year and two of the top wr's--again this team would be a contender in almost any scoring format in 2011

2010--again a very solid team--with jamaal charles, adrian peterson, mike wallace and boldin--with very solid qb play in rodgers---but make no mistake--rodgers by himself didn't just win the championship

I could keep on going--but your previous winners don't support you changing your league's scoring parameters at all. When I look at those rosters--I look at solid teams--I don't see teams that are winning solely because of qb play. What is it that you see about these previous winners that makes you believe that your scoring system needs to be changed? I would also like to see how other members of the shark pool feel about the rosters of these previous winners. In my opinion, I see those rosters as being strong championship caliber rosters--I don't see anything glaringly wrong or unfair about those teams winning that would justify the need to change a scoring system.

 

[Tornacl]

All good points and analysis and thanks for the suggestions guys. So let me take this up to the 50k foot view for a minute. I am not trying to just make scoring changes for the sake of changes. I get it that every league has nuances and their own scoring aspects that they use to make their league their own. Incidentally we actually have an auction so it's isn't so clean cut in terms of ranking versus draft picks in Catbird's example but the premise is the same.

So I guess I need to start with my own assumption that it isn't normal and seems "unfair" to me that the QBs dominate the overall scoring in the league and when an average QB like Schaab or Palmer score more points than the #1 WR, I just assume that something is out of whack there. From that perspective, do you think it is unfair or unusual to have QBs dominate the top scorers in the league and do you find that to be common in your own leagues?

Second, I like the idea of just redistributing some of the QB yardage points since Quibbler makes a good point. QBs are putting up 300 yard games regularly now so moving that milestone up a little bit with say 1/35 or 40 yards would help and we could reflect the change in the NFL by better rewarding the running QB with 1/10 yds rushing. Just a thought.

Finally, the thing about the example above between Rice and Wilson, I would argue that your example is not entirely accurate because of the yardage. Yes all TDs are 6 but Rice gets only 6 for his 3 yd TD while Wilson's TD is essentially a 13 pt TD because of the 7 points of yardage tacked on. I think that is fair and reflects the difference.

In the end, I am always looking to try and make things as fair and balanced as possible in scoring. This disparity with QBs vs. other positions in scoring has always bugged me but I am willing to say that my concerns may be off base in practice when considering Catbird's example.

An average QB can easily throw for 20+ TDs in a season, but in the history of the NFL only 2 WRs have ever caught 20+ TDs and only 27 RBs in NFL history have scored 20+ TDs in a season. As long as all TDs are 6 pts, QBs will always have an advantage. Now, with QBs routinely throwing for 4000 yards and 30+ TDs, this will become an even greater difference.