Okay, I'll admit that I was a bit of a Billy Joel fan when I was younger. It's hard to remember a time when that wasn't uncool, but he definitely had his moments... and the results speak for themselves. Anyway, he's got a song called "Movin' Out" where he says that this guy Anthony is 'saving his pennies for someday.' I want you to be Anthony in your auction draft.
There is a common belief that you should be willing to go an extra buck or two if there is a guy on the auction block that you are really in love with. On the surface that seems logical... You've done your homework and identified the guys you are targeting and if that $12 guy costs you $14, no big deal. If the $36 dollar guy costs $37, even less of a big deal. You'll get some $1 and $2 sleepers later, right?
My answer to that: a resounding 'maybe.' Maybe that works out, but I promise you there is a better way.
The better way goes like this... Instead of identifying your one $12 guy and your one $36 guy (and so on) that you have to have, group several options into buckets and save your pennies. You can outline your perfect draft as much as you want, but it will never go according to plan.
Let's say you have a 23-man roster and a $260 budget, which is pretty common. You know that some number of guys at the end of the bench will be those $1 and $2 sleeper types. Let's say in this scenario it's 7 cheep guys to round out your roster which means you are spending almost all of your money on 16 guys.
Okay, now the magic... If you save just $1 on each of those 16 guys, that turns one of your cheap bench guys into a $17 or $18 player. That is an immediate differentiator for you. It's like getting a free 4th or 5th round pick in a serpentine draft. If you do your homework, use my methods, and prepare appropriately you can make this a reality every time.
There's more to this theory that I will have in my audio series, but I wanted to get the gears of your brain meshing on this one. It is a good technique if used properly. If used incorrectly, you just end up with a bunch of money at the end of your draft with no one worthwhile to spend it on.
That's why it requires preparation and discipline. You'll have to spend your future savings pretty early in the draft to get a quality player that is worth the money.
Easy-to-use fantasy sports strategy. That's what we are all about here at the Brain. Join fantasy sports veteran and former ESPN Producer Dave McKay as we reveal new ways to think about the game. @TalktotheBrain
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Coming Back Around
Let's talk about serpentine drafts for a moment. This is a fairly straightforward concept, and it does piggyback off of the last post on conventional wisdom.
In that post we talked about building your team, your way. Many of your opponents will be held hostage by the draft rankings on your particular website. Some will go so far as to pick their first player or two and then go into coast mode and allow the draft software to pick for them the rest of the way.
There are market inefficiencies here that you can exploit.
There is a complex way and a simple way, but both will give you value versus your competitors. The complex version involves a fair amount of research and the simple method will give you a quick, but small boost in how you construct your squad.
First the labor-intensive way. Most drafts are going to be held on Yahoo, ESPN, or CBS. And, whether they are or not, do the work to compile the ranked players (at least the top 100 or 150 if you don't want to do all of them) from all three sites in a spreadsheet. Add other sources if you can because the more rankings you bring into play the better your results will be. The thing to look out for is the league format for which the rankings are derived.
One note on a pretty basic point, but it is critical... Compile rankings from different sources that use the same league sizes and formats. That way you know that the rankings are apples-to-apples.
Once you have all of these rankings in one place you can find the average for each player. This is easy enough to do in Excel and will give you a baseline for how each individual player is regarded on average. You can also do this on a one-off basis and manually score one player at a time, cherry-picking the ones you care about the most. This is obviously much less valuable, but also a lot less work.
Now, as an example: let's say you are drafting on Yahoo and they have an outfielder you really like ranked #46 overall. You think that is too low by at least a round or so. ESPN agrees with you and ranks him at #28 overall and CBS is also in line with what you are thinking, ranking this player at #32. If you take the average of the three rankings you get 35.33. So, you can feel confident taking that player at least 10 spots ahead of where they are ranked on Yahoo. When it comes time for you to draft, your league software will show that player valued as #46 but you will know that the average value (which actually includes the 46) is around #35. This is a market inefficiency that you can exploit.
The more work you put in, the better results you will have. If you have a full list you can see the players with the biggest differences and target them. Heck, build a whole team of them... Chart out the optimal way your draft might go.
The more players you rank, the better, The biggest differences will be found later in drafts. There will always be significant outliers from one site to the others. Let's say that one site has a player at #210 while the other two major sites have the same player at #120 and #150. You can take the average and see that this player ought to go around #160. That is huge value if you are drafting on the site that ranks the player #210.
Conversely, the opposite is true if you are drafting on the site that has him ranked #120. It goes both ways. Let some other poor slob grab Mr. #160 with pick #120 and you will reap the benefits as players slide to you in the middle and later rounds of the draft.
I promised a simple version. This won't give you nearly the value as the complex version, but it is an easy mind-shift that will help you to enjoy drafting more. When you are making a pick consider all of the players that are unlikely to still be available to you when you pick next and take the one you want. Even if you are picking #1 in a 12-team draft, look at the next 22 guys in your site's rankings and pick the one that fits your preparation and drafting plan the best. Don't be concerned if it isn't good value to take the guy projected to go something like 12 picks later. It's your team and your draft and if that's the guy you want, go for it.
Just make sure he fits into your overall strategy. If you are prepared and you are executing your plan, you will have an edge even if other people think you "reach" on a pick.
And, as always if you are interested in personalized consultation on keepers, drafting, waivers, or anything fantasy sports related... Please reach out to Dave at RotoMcKay@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading, my friends. Good luck with your drafts this year!
In that post we talked about building your team, your way. Many of your opponents will be held hostage by the draft rankings on your particular website. Some will go so far as to pick their first player or two and then go into coast mode and allow the draft software to pick for them the rest of the way.
There are market inefficiencies here that you can exploit.
There is a complex way and a simple way, but both will give you value versus your competitors. The complex version involves a fair amount of research and the simple method will give you a quick, but small boost in how you construct your squad.
First the labor-intensive way. Most drafts are going to be held on Yahoo, ESPN, or CBS. And, whether they are or not, do the work to compile the ranked players (at least the top 100 or 150 if you don't want to do all of them) from all three sites in a spreadsheet. Add other sources if you can because the more rankings you bring into play the better your results will be. The thing to look out for is the league format for which the rankings are derived.
One note on a pretty basic point, but it is critical... Compile rankings from different sources that use the same league sizes and formats. That way you know that the rankings are apples-to-apples.
Once you have all of these rankings in one place you can find the average for each player. This is easy enough to do in Excel and will give you a baseline for how each individual player is regarded on average. You can also do this on a one-off basis and manually score one player at a time, cherry-picking the ones you care about the most. This is obviously much less valuable, but also a lot less work.
Now, as an example: let's say you are drafting on Yahoo and they have an outfielder you really like ranked #46 overall. You think that is too low by at least a round or so. ESPN agrees with you and ranks him at #28 overall and CBS is also in line with what you are thinking, ranking this player at #32. If you take the average of the three rankings you get 35.33. So, you can feel confident taking that player at least 10 spots ahead of where they are ranked on Yahoo. When it comes time for you to draft, your league software will show that player valued as #46 but you will know that the average value (which actually includes the 46) is around #35. This is a market inefficiency that you can exploit.
The more work you put in, the better results you will have. If you have a full list you can see the players with the biggest differences and target them. Heck, build a whole team of them... Chart out the optimal way your draft might go.
The more players you rank, the better, The biggest differences will be found later in drafts. There will always be significant outliers from one site to the others. Let's say that one site has a player at #210 while the other two major sites have the same player at #120 and #150. You can take the average and see that this player ought to go around #160. That is huge value if you are drafting on the site that ranks the player #210.
Conversely, the opposite is true if you are drafting on the site that has him ranked #120. It goes both ways. Let some other poor slob grab Mr. #160 with pick #120 and you will reap the benefits as players slide to you in the middle and later rounds of the draft.
I promised a simple version. This won't give you nearly the value as the complex version, but it is an easy mind-shift that will help you to enjoy drafting more. When you are making a pick consider all of the players that are unlikely to still be available to you when you pick next and take the one you want. Even if you are picking #1 in a 12-team draft, look at the next 22 guys in your site's rankings and pick the one that fits your preparation and drafting plan the best. Don't be concerned if it isn't good value to take the guy projected to go something like 12 picks later. It's your team and your draft and if that's the guy you want, go for it.
Just make sure he fits into your overall strategy. If you are prepared and you are executing your plan, you will have an edge even if other people think you "reach" on a pick.
And, as always if you are interested in personalized consultation on keepers, drafting, waivers, or anything fantasy sports related... Please reach out to Dave at RotoMcKay@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading, my friends. Good luck with your drafts this year!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Conventional Wisdom, Part II
Earlier I posted a comment about the conventional wisdom that you cannot win your league in the first round but that you can lose it. There is a kernel of truth to this statement, but in order to gain an edge on your opponents (those that are 'conventional') you have to begin to think critically about these kinds of beliefs.
The fact of the matter is that some percentage of your opponents are listening to the most predominant voices in the industry and the remainder are going off of their own gut instinct. In most leagues you are not going to have too many competitors who are going to do the research that you will. That is, if you want an edge.
Flags fly forever, folks. Let's get your pennant in 2012.
The guys who follow their gut are going to be fairly easy to figure out. They are going to draft name-brand players early and low-potential guys late.
The 'conventional wisdom' opponents are going to mostly draw chalk down their draft board with regard to the draft kit rankings from the website you are using to host your league and possibly the average draft position ("ADP") of other drafts on that site. They may have a short list of "sleepers" that they have cobbled together to spice things up. That is the typical M.O. for fantasy sports drafters.
But where does this data come from? It used to primarily be USA Today Baseball Weekly or some of the more prominent fantasy magazines. Nowadays the more interested competitors are going to listen to the ESPN Fantasy Focus Podcast, with Nate Ravitz and Matthew Berry. They may even mix in a blog or two, usually from ESPN or the site that hosts your draft. A couple common ones are Tristan Cockroft's blog on ESPN and Roto Arcade at Yahoo.
So, okay, here's the thing... Those are actually pretty good sources of information. Those are major media outlets with highly-paid contributors who have reached some of the highest peaks in the industry. In the case of the magazines, there is a major competition for physical space on magazine racks so these sources are professionally researched and prepared. A ton of work went into those magazines.
You have to read and listen to these sources of information.
Allow me to repeat that for effect: You have to.
I can hear you saying already, "But Dave, if just about everyone knows that stuff why should I be listening to it? Isn't that the opposite of what you teach, oh Fantasy Doctor?" Yes and no... Listen, what we are teaching here is the ability to differentiate yourself from the conventional wisdom available out there. Step one is to be intimately aware of how your opponents are thinking so you can better anticipate their moves and build your team with a competitive edge.
This is the first time I'll make an analogy to poker, but I can guarantee that it will not be the last... In poker, good players optimize their play for the cards they have. Great players understand what their opposition is trying to do. However, The best poker players determine how their opponents are playing against them and alter their play to maximize results in the specific situation. This is analogous to fantasy sports insofar as you have to study up on the conventional wisdom so when you go against it you know you are giving yourself an advantage. That's what the Fantasy Doc is all about.
So, step one is to spend some time at Barnes & Noble understanding this year's conventional wisdom. While you are reading the magazines, keep in mind that the information contained therein is months old. The entire industry has changed since it was written, but at least half of your league will go to the store and spend a few bucks on one or two magazines to be their primary supplement to the draft kit on your website. This is an opportunity for you.
Step two is to start listening to the ESPN Fantasy Focus podcast. That podcast is the most popular of its kind and probably about one third of your league is listening to it on a regular basis because they think it gives them an edge. In actuality it makes them think like each other... Your mission is to absorb that information and think critically about it. If something doesn't seem quite right in what Nate and Matthew are teaching, it is an opportunity for you to do something different.
Step three, which is really the most important, is to be familiar with your website's draft kit. Most leagues will be on ESPN, Yahoo, or CBS and each of those sites has a draft kit. Every site on which you can draft has some way of ranking players. This ranking will be the default for just about everyone in your league... When they are on the clock in the 8th round of the draft they'll be forced to go with the best available player. You, on the other hand, will have a plan and you will execute that plan to build an effective team. The materials I am working on will help you to make that a reality.
Of course, if that seems like too much work right away and you have a specific need or question, reach out to me for some personalized consulting and I will provide a diagnosis and prescription for what ails you: RotoMcKay@gmail.com.
The fact of the matter is that some percentage of your opponents are listening to the most predominant voices in the industry and the remainder are going off of their own gut instinct. In most leagues you are not going to have too many competitors who are going to do the research that you will. That is, if you want an edge.
Flags fly forever, folks. Let's get your pennant in 2012.
The guys who follow their gut are going to be fairly easy to figure out. They are going to draft name-brand players early and low-potential guys late.
The 'conventional wisdom' opponents are going to mostly draw chalk down their draft board with regard to the draft kit rankings from the website you are using to host your league and possibly the average draft position ("ADP") of other drafts on that site. They may have a short list of "sleepers" that they have cobbled together to spice things up. That is the typical M.O. for fantasy sports drafters.
But where does this data come from? It used to primarily be USA Today Baseball Weekly or some of the more prominent fantasy magazines. Nowadays the more interested competitors are going to listen to the ESPN Fantasy Focus Podcast, with Nate Ravitz and Matthew Berry. They may even mix in a blog or two, usually from ESPN or the site that hosts your draft. A couple common ones are Tristan Cockroft's blog on ESPN and Roto Arcade at Yahoo.
So, okay, here's the thing... Those are actually pretty good sources of information. Those are major media outlets with highly-paid contributors who have reached some of the highest peaks in the industry. In the case of the magazines, there is a major competition for physical space on magazine racks so these sources are professionally researched and prepared. A ton of work went into those magazines.
You have to read and listen to these sources of information.
Allow me to repeat that for effect: You have to.
I can hear you saying already, "But Dave, if just about everyone knows that stuff why should I be listening to it? Isn't that the opposite of what you teach, oh Fantasy Doctor?" Yes and no... Listen, what we are teaching here is the ability to differentiate yourself from the conventional wisdom available out there. Step one is to be intimately aware of how your opponents are thinking so you can better anticipate their moves and build your team with a competitive edge.
This is the first time I'll make an analogy to poker, but I can guarantee that it will not be the last... In poker, good players optimize their play for the cards they have. Great players understand what their opposition is trying to do. However, The best poker players determine how their opponents are playing against them and alter their play to maximize results in the specific situation. This is analogous to fantasy sports insofar as you have to study up on the conventional wisdom so when you go against it you know you are giving yourself an advantage. That's what the Fantasy Doc is all about.
So, step one is to spend some time at Barnes & Noble understanding this year's conventional wisdom. While you are reading the magazines, keep in mind that the information contained therein is months old. The entire industry has changed since it was written, but at least half of your league will go to the store and spend a few bucks on one or two magazines to be their primary supplement to the draft kit on your website. This is an opportunity for you.
Step two is to start listening to the ESPN Fantasy Focus podcast. That podcast is the most popular of its kind and probably about one third of your league is listening to it on a regular basis because they think it gives them an edge. In actuality it makes them think like each other... Your mission is to absorb that information and think critically about it. If something doesn't seem quite right in what Nate and Matthew are teaching, it is an opportunity for you to do something different.
Step three, which is really the most important, is to be familiar with your website's draft kit. Most leagues will be on ESPN, Yahoo, or CBS and each of those sites has a draft kit. Every site on which you can draft has some way of ranking players. This ranking will be the default for just about everyone in your league... When they are on the clock in the 8th round of the draft they'll be forced to go with the best available player. You, on the other hand, will have a plan and you will execute that plan to build an effective team. The materials I am working on will help you to make that a reality.
Of course, if that seems like too much work right away and you have a specific need or question, reach out to me for some personalized consulting and I will provide a diagnosis and prescription for what ails you: RotoMcKay@gmail.com.
Degrees of Success
How do you measure success in fantasy sports? Most blogs and various paid resources out there promise to teach you how to "dominate your draft" and "crush the competition." I've got to admit that I fully endorse the domination of drafts and crushing of competition, I just don't think it is ethical to promise that you can definitely do it.
What I can promise is a competitive edge. To help you think more critically and to approach fantasy sports differently than your opponents. That is what we are all about here - steady improvement and finding areas of market inefficiency. It's pretty much the Billy Beane approach to getting a leg up on the competition.
So, how should you measure success? In fantasy football you absolutely have to re-frame the discussion from the win-loss record to the total points scored in the season. In fantasy baseball it's less cut-and-dried. Success in fantasy baseball is akin to picking stocks - buying low and watching the value go through the roof. If you can do that consistently you will field a competitive and winning team.
Fantasy football is like real football: tons of preparation with short bursts of furious activity. That is why it is so much fun, but it is also why luck unfortunately plays such a large role. It's the truth. That luck factor is why you have to move your focus to the total points your team scores over the season.
A few years ago one of my football leagues had a regular season where the number one team was 10-3 and the last place team was 3-10. Nothing strange about that, except the fact that the last place team scored more points than the first place team. There is no way to explain that but luck.
I will do everything I can to help you gain an edge on your competition, but you have to look at the points you score as the primary evaluation on your success as a football manager.
This one alteration in your approach will exponentially increase your ability to enjoy your team and have fun with fantasy football, hopefully crushing the competition along the way.
Fantasy baseball on the other hand, is a labor of love. It has less to do with your draft than fantasy football does... Your team will require nurturing and daily devotion. Your team will evolve over the season. The theories and thought processes associated with that work is what we will talk about in this space and in the materials I am building in the background.
This is a large venture, but the resources are coming. There may not be a full package available until football season, so in the meantime please reach out to me for personal consultation. I am happy to work with you individually to talk about your situation and your team. Let's talk keepers... Let's talk draft... Let's talk waiver wire... I'm here to help.
What I can promise is a competitive edge. To help you think more critically and to approach fantasy sports differently than your opponents. That is what we are all about here - steady improvement and finding areas of market inefficiency. It's pretty much the Billy Beane approach to getting a leg up on the competition.
So, how should you measure success? In fantasy football you absolutely have to re-frame the discussion from the win-loss record to the total points scored in the season. In fantasy baseball it's less cut-and-dried. Success in fantasy baseball is akin to picking stocks - buying low and watching the value go through the roof. If you can do that consistently you will field a competitive and winning team.
Fantasy football is like real football: tons of preparation with short bursts of furious activity. That is why it is so much fun, but it is also why luck unfortunately plays such a large role. It's the truth. That luck factor is why you have to move your focus to the total points your team scores over the season.
A few years ago one of my football leagues had a regular season where the number one team was 10-3 and the last place team was 3-10. Nothing strange about that, except the fact that the last place team scored more points than the first place team. There is no way to explain that but luck.
I will do everything I can to help you gain an edge on your competition, but you have to look at the points you score as the primary evaluation on your success as a football manager.
This one alteration in your approach will exponentially increase your ability to enjoy your team and have fun with fantasy football, hopefully crushing the competition along the way.
Fantasy baseball on the other hand, is a labor of love. It has less to do with your draft than fantasy football does... Your team will require nurturing and daily devotion. Your team will evolve over the season. The theories and thought processes associated with that work is what we will talk about in this space and in the materials I am building in the background.
This is a large venture, but the resources are coming. There may not be a full package available until football season, so in the meantime please reach out to me for personal consultation. I am happy to work with you individually to talk about your situation and your team. Let's talk keepers... Let's talk draft... Let's talk waiver wire... I'm here to help.
Conventional Wisdom
Over the weekend I listened to a podcast where they were literally arguing about whether you can, in fact, lose your league in the first round of your draft. They then proceeded to argue about whether the opposite was true and that you could actually win your league in the first round.
Hogwash. But people talk about it all of the time, so there has to be some truth to it right? This blog is all about teaching you how to think for yourself in fantasy sports and how to gain a competitive advantage over the other players in your league. So, when you start to hear the same sayings and assumed concepts over and over again, you absolutely have to challenge them.
And I'm not talking about merely looking at the validity of the concept, I mean everything. Who is sending the message? Why are they sending this message? Are they intelligent enough to evaluate the concept before they say it or are they just taking someone else's thoughts and parroting them back to their audience?
Why does everyone say that you can't win your league in the first round but you sure can lose it? Maybe because it sounds smart and has a kernel of truth. Maybe because everyone has been burned on a first rounder before.
The worst part about this conventional wisdom is that the pundits so often repeat it without delving into why it may or may not be true. On the aforementioned podcast they never said the most obvious part of the concept: You cannot win your league in the first round because it is assumed that most teams will get a viable stud in that round, so there is little advantage to be gained. The opposite is that if you miss on your first rounder you will be at an enormous disadvantage going into the year. There's your kernel of truth. I apologize if it seems too basic, but these "experts" never clearly state what they mean.
For average players this concept is often true, but listen... Let's talk about what I call the "20/20 Pattern." Simply stated, pretty much everyone will draft a bust 20% of the time and will also get a player that outperforms their draft position 20% of the time. Think about the first five rounds of a typical draft... Maybe you get a guy who delivers on his draft status in rounds 1, 3, and 5 but your 2nd rounder is a worthless bust. However, on the bright side you grabbed a gem in the 4th round who dramatically overproduces. Sound familiar? It's the 20/20 Pattern at work.
For most teams the pattern will repeat itself throughout their draft. To gain a competitive advantage your job is to do enough homework to find more of those 'gems' later in your draft (or at lower price points in an auction). This blog and the associated educational materials that will be for sale will teach you to do exactly that.
Hogwash. But people talk about it all of the time, so there has to be some truth to it right? This blog is all about teaching you how to think for yourself in fantasy sports and how to gain a competitive advantage over the other players in your league. So, when you start to hear the same sayings and assumed concepts over and over again, you absolutely have to challenge them.
And I'm not talking about merely looking at the validity of the concept, I mean everything. Who is sending the message? Why are they sending this message? Are they intelligent enough to evaluate the concept before they say it or are they just taking someone else's thoughts and parroting them back to their audience?
Why does everyone say that you can't win your league in the first round but you sure can lose it? Maybe because it sounds smart and has a kernel of truth. Maybe because everyone has been burned on a first rounder before.
The worst part about this conventional wisdom is that the pundits so often repeat it without delving into why it may or may not be true. On the aforementioned podcast they never said the most obvious part of the concept: You cannot win your league in the first round because it is assumed that most teams will get a viable stud in that round, so there is little advantage to be gained. The opposite is that if you miss on your first rounder you will be at an enormous disadvantage going into the year. There's your kernel of truth. I apologize if it seems too basic, but these "experts" never clearly state what they mean.
For average players this concept is often true, but listen... Let's talk about what I call the "20/20 Pattern." Simply stated, pretty much everyone will draft a bust 20% of the time and will also get a player that outperforms their draft position 20% of the time. Think about the first five rounds of a typical draft... Maybe you get a guy who delivers on his draft status in rounds 1, 3, and 5 but your 2nd rounder is a worthless bust. However, on the bright side you grabbed a gem in the 4th round who dramatically overproduces. Sound familiar? It's the 20/20 Pattern at work.
For most teams the pattern will repeat itself throughout their draft. To gain a competitive advantage your job is to do enough homework to find more of those 'gems' later in your draft (or at lower price points in an auction). This blog and the associated educational materials that will be for sale will teach you to do exactly that.
Friday, February 24, 2012
The Doctor is in
Alright, folks... The doctor is in. We will be delivering to you the highest quality evergreen fantasy sports theory available anywhere.
It's called "evergreen" since the intent is that all of the content on this site will be useful over and over again for years to come. We will focus on the concepts and theories that will give you a competitive edge in your fantasy baseball and fantasy football leagues, regardless of format.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Get ready to bait your hooks, my friends.
It's called "evergreen" since the intent is that all of the content on this site will be useful over and over again for years to come. We will focus on the concepts and theories that will give you a competitive edge in your fantasy baseball and fantasy football leagues, regardless of format.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Get ready to bait your hooks, my friends.
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