VALUE-BASED DRAFTING 101

By:Rob Zarzycki

You are now entering the "heart and soul" of this book. It includes those chapters that pertain to draft theories, plans and systems that collectively and truly make a Fantasy Football champion. Having a great set of player rankings/projections doesn't cut it. Having a great drafting strategy is what makes a mover and a shaker.

A perfect example of this came in the 2003 World Championship of Fantasy Football. Early in the summer Emil Kadlec, co-founder of the WCOFF and one of the best guys you'll ever meet in the biz, asked me if I wanted to compete in a player rankings contest that would pit me against the best player rankers around. The results would be published in his Fantasy Pro Forecast magazine. Emil was interested in my rankings because I had finished 2nd out of 552 teams in the '02 WCOFF ($22,000 total winnings), and he wanted to see how the top guys in the WCOFF fared against a panel of experts. I enthusiastically accepted; this would give me the opportunity to see how I really stacked up against the best of the best, including Chris Schussman ($200,000 prize winner in '02 WCOFF), TFL Report (Bob Harris), MVP Sportsbook, Red Eye Sports, KFFL, FF Champs, Sportsline.com, Sandlot Shrink, Fantasy Guru, Grandslam, Draft Sharks and Fantasy Insights. There were 13 Fantasy Football fanatics/companies competing in all. When the season ended, I asked Emil how I did in the Experts Poll. "Umm. Well. Not so good," he put it bluntly. It turned out my player rankings rated as one of the worst among a panel. I finished 12th in QBs, 5th in RBs, 12th in WRs, 9th in TE, 10th in Def, and 13th (dead last) in kickers. In my own defense, my rankings were created early in the summer on short notice and I wasn't able to use many steps I rely on in my ranking system. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure I did not enter the '03 WCOFF with the best player rankings. ... but I still managed to win my league ($5000 winnings) and finished 3rd out of 600 participants! (another $10,000 in winnings)

How did I accomplish such great results with not-so-great player rankings? I had a good drafting system. My key point is this: Knowing how to rank players in each position is not nearly as important as knowing how to draft players from all positions. That's why I'm calling this and the following chapters the "heart and soul" of the book. It teaches you how to draft players.

Getting back to Emil, he later told me there was one set of rankings I did very well on: I came in 2nd in the "Overall/Top 25" list. This just happens to be the most important list of all! The overall/top 25 ranks the best players from all the positions into one list. More significantly, it is the list you use to draft players in the early stages of the draft. You see, my draft system was able to catapult me from bad position/player rankings to great overall rankings in the blink of an eye. It just goes to show you the power of a solid drafting system. I can only imagine how well my overall list would have finished had I did better player rankings.

The system I use is based on value-based drafting (VBD) principles. While VBD may or may not be news to you -- it most certainly isn't news to the Fantasy Football community. I'm not sure exactly when the VBD hit the Fantasy Football scene but it has been around for almost a decade. Many believe it was Fantasy Football guru Joe Bryant (footballguys.com) who introduced and promoted his own version in the mid '90's. In fact, Joe was the guy who first introduced the VBD system to me. Today it's the most recognized and widely used system among Fantasy Football experts, enthusiasts, and diehards. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it) most people, including the experts, do not fully understand the inner-workings of the VBD well enough to maximize their efforts on draft day.

Before I get to my once-secret inner-workings you need to understand the VBD from the ground up. The remainder of this chapter will describe the VBD in its simplest form -- the worst starter method. The chapters that follow will then delve into the intermediate and expert levels of the VBD that not even experts may realize or understand. If you master those principles you will be a force to be reckoned with on draft day. First, the basics.

Imagine it's draft day and you have the very first pick. Whom do you take? On the surface the answer is simple: draft the top ranked player. Underneath the surface are difficulties, subtleties, and more options that you might realize. I mean, you have a top-ranked guy in every position! So whom do you take?

That's where the VBD principles come in. VBD puts certain values on each player (no matter what their position) so you know who's the top-ranked guy of the top-ranked guys. ... The crème de la crème. Here's a simplified situation:

The league is just you and one other fantasy owner competing against each other. The starting line-up consists of 1 QB and 1 RB, and the draft is only two rounds. Your cheatsheet is as follows:

Rank	QB	QB	Projection	RB	RB	Projection
1	QB1	200	RB1	100
2	QB2	180	RB2	50

Figure 18 - Sample Cheatsheet

The draft is serpentine-style, meaning you pick first and your opponent picks second in the first round then your opponent picks first and you pick second in the second round. The question remains: whom do you take? Your two choices are top ranked QB1 or top ranked RB1. Without a draft strategy, such as the VBD, you are likely to take QB1 because he is projected to score the most points. If you took QB1 then your opponent naturally would take RB1 and QB2 with the next two picks and you get RB2 as the last pick. Let's see who fared better. ...

Your team is projected to score 200 + 50 = 250 points. Your opponent is projected to score 100 + 180 = 280 points.

How can that be?! You got to pick first, you picked the "best" player yet your opponent has the better team. ... Hmm. What's up, Doc? It turns out that the best player is not QB1 but RB1. That's because, according to VBD, a player's value is not determined by the number of points he's projected to score but rather by the number of points he's projected to outscore players in his position. QB1 is projected to outscore QB2 by 20 points. RB1 is projected to outscore RB2 by 50 points. By drafting RB1 you get a 50-point advantage over your opponent. Now can you see why RB1 is the better fantasy player?

This is precisely what value-based drafting is all about. Of course, real Fantasy Football (can anyone say oxymoron?) isn't as simple because it involves more owners to compete against, more players to pick from, and more rounds to draft in. Nevertheless, the same VBD principles apply.

There are a few terms used in VBD analyses that you need to understand before you read any further. The first term is called the "baseline." The baseline is the points subtracted from a player's projection in order to determine that player's value. Each position has its own baseline. In the prior VBD example the baselines were 180 and 50 for the QB and RB positions, respectively. Therefore, QB1's value was calculated to be 200-180 = 20 fantasy points and RB1's value was 100-50 = 50 fantasy points. In VBD language these values are known as "X numbers" or "X values." These X numbers can be used to cross-rank multiple positions into one list known as the "overall rankings." This is the third and last term you need to store in your memory bank.

As a quick test, see if you can calculate the X numbers of QB2 & RB2. You can find the answer in the footnote .

The most basic version of the VBD is called the worst starter method. I consider it to be a very good method for Fantasy Football beginners. It uses a baseline that's equivalent to the worst starter's projected fantasy points for each position. "Worst starter" is defined as the lowest-scoring player among all the starters in a fantasy league. In a twelve-team league starting 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D/ST, the worst starters would be the 12th QB, 24th RB, 36th WR, 12th TE, 12th K, and 12th D/ST on the cheatsheet. To calculate the worst starter for your league simply multiply the number of starters by the number of teams in the league, and then take that player's projected fantasy points to be the baseline that position.

Figure 19 shows an actual 2003 cheatsheet using the worst starter method. The projections are based on WCOFF scoring. The league size and starting line-up requirements are the same as described in the prior paragraph.

Rank	QB	Pts	X #	TE	Pts	X #	K	Pts	X #	D/ST	Pts	X #
1	QB1	400	124	TE1	222	119	K1	148	30	D/ST1	162	47
2	QB2	381	105	TE2	176	73	K2	144	26	D/ST2	156	41
3	QB3	358	82	TE3	173	70	K3	140	22	D/ST3	151	36
4	QB4	346	70	TE4	155	52	K4	138	20	D/ST4	141	26
5	QB5	341	65	TE5	150	47	K5	132	14	D/ST5	137	22
6	QB6	335	59	TE6	142	39	K6	130	12	D/ST6	135	20
7	QB7	316	40	TE7	126	23	K7	127	9	D/ST7	134	19
8	QB8	308	32	TE8	117	14	K8	126	8	D/ST8	124	9
9	QB9	300	24	TE9	114	11	K9	124	6	D/ST9	123	8
10	QB10	294	18	TE10	110	7	K10	121	3	D/ST10	121	6
11	QB11	285	9	TE11	107	4	K11	120	2	D/ST11	117	2
12	QB12	276	0	TE12	103	0	K12	118	0	D/ST12	115	0
13	QB13	267	-9	TE13	96	-7	K13	117	-1	D/ST13	111	-4
14	QB14	264	-12	TE14	93	-10	K14	114	-4	D/ST14	109	-6
15	QB15	257	-19	TE15	92	-11	K15	113	-5	D/ST15	109	-6
16	QB16	247	-29	TE16	86	-17	K16	111	-7	D/ST16	108	-7
17	QB17	245	-31	TE17	84	-19	K17	110	-8	D/ST17	106	-9
18	QB18	242	-34	TE18	83	-20	K18	108	-10	D/ST18	105	-10
19	QB19	233	-43	TE19	80	-23	K19	107	-11	D/ST19	104	-11
20	QB20	226	-50	TE20	80	-23	K20	103	-15	D/ST20	103	-12
21	QB21	222	-54	TE21	77	-26	K21	99	-19	D/ST21	101	-14
22	QB22	215	-61	TE22	70	-33	K22	96	-22	D/ST22	99	-16
23	QB23	209	-67	TE23	67	-36	K23	95	-23	D/ST23	97	-18
24	QB24	205	-71	TE24	63	-40	K24	92	-26	D/ST24	96	-19

Rank	RB	Pts	X #	WR	Pts	X #	Overall	Player	X #
1	RB1	441	251	WR1	357	191	1	RB1	251
2	RB2	375	185	WR2	331	165	2	WR1	191
3	RB3	347	157	WR3	320	154	3	RB2	185
4	RB4	326	136	WR4	304	138	4	WR2	165
5	RB5	316	126	WR5	292	126	5	RB3	157
6	RB6	306	116	WR6	276	110	6	WR3	154
7	RB7	301	111	WR7	271	105	7	WR4	138
8	RB8	293	103	WR8	270	104	8	RB4	136
9	RB9	276	86	WR9	266	100	9	RB5	126
10	RB10	268	78	WR10	265	99	10	WR5	126
11	RB11	262	72	WR11	258	92	11	QB1	124
12	RB12	254	64	WR12	254	88	12	TE1	119
13	RB13	250	60	WR13	251	85	13	RB6	116
14	RB14	246	56	WR14	245	79	14	RB7	111
15	RB15	238	48	WR15	241	75	15	WR6	110
16	RB16	231	41	WR16	238	72	16	WR7	105
17	RB17	227	37	WR17	231	65	17	QB2	105
18	RB18	222	32	WR18	222	56	18	WR8	104
19	RB19	217	27	WR19	219	53	19	RB8	103
20	RB20	213	23	WR20	217	51	20	WR9	100
21	RB21	205	15	WR21	213	47	21	WR10	99
22	RB22	202	12	WR22	211	45	22	WR11	92
23	RB23	199	9	WR23	206	40	23	WR12	88
24	RB24	190	0	WR24	198	32	24	RB9	86
25	RB25	178	-12	WR25	194	28	25	WR13	85
26	RB26	173	-18	WR26	191	25	26	QB3	82
27	RB27	169	-21	WR27	189	23	27	WR14	79
28	RB28	159	-32	WR28	185	19	28	RB10	78
29	RB29	151	-39	WR29	182	16	29	WR15	75
30	RB30	149	-41	WR30	180	14	30	TE2	73
31	RB31	145	-45	WR31	177	11	31	RB11	72
32	RB32	139	-51	WR32	174	8	32	WR16	72
33	RB33	137	-53	WR33	171	5	33	QB4	70
34	RB34	134	-56	WR34	169	3	34	TE3	70
35	RB35	125	-65	WR35	168	2	35	QB5	65
36	RB36	121	-69	WR36	166	0	36	WR17	65
37	RB37	120	-71	WR37	162	-4	37	RB12	64
38	RB38	115	-75	WR38	159	-7	38	RB13	60
39	RB39	111	-79	WR39	158	-8	39	RB14	56
40	RB40	109	-81	WR40	157	-9	40	WR18	56

Figure 19 - Sample Cheatsheet (Worst Starter Method)

It's important to study these results and make your own observations and conclusions. An important part of becoming a powerful fantasy owner is taking the time to understand strategies and drafting systems. Here are several of my own comments and observations regarding Figure 19:

1) The overall column, players, and X values represent the most valuable players of all the positions. This is the list you draft players from in the early rounds of the draft. It is the most important list on the cheatsheet.

2) Notice there are no Ks or D/STs in the overall list. This is a sign that your rankings are in good order. Ks and D/STs typically score close to one another, so they offer little value. Remember, value is created when the top players significantly outscore the other players in the same position. This doesn't occur in the K & D/ST positions nearly to the extent it does in the other positions. Consequently, you can wait until the later rounds before drafting Ks & D/STs. If you find a K or D/ST on the overall list then raise a red flag and double-check your numbers.

3) The overall list is extremely populated with RBs and WRs. That's a good thing. These positions are chock-full of value for two main reasons: First, the baselines for these positions are relatively low. This leaves a lot of players above the baseline to develop a lot of value. Second, RBs and WRs are high scoring positions. While high scoring players don't offer value per se (as shown earlier) it does give the opportunity for other players to score a lot less. It's this scoring difference that creates the value we look for.

4) Relatively few quarterbacks and tight ends will make it to the top 25, as observed in Figure 19. This is proof not to overrate these positions early in the draft. The most common mistake made by inexperienced -- and experienced -- fantasy owners is drafting a QB or TE too early. More than half the league will do it. Make sure you aren't one of them.

5) You will generally do better than most of your league on draft day just by following the worst starter method as shown in Figure 19, even with a slightly below-average cheatsheet. However, this is still not good enough to win fantasy championships. To reach that level you need a better drafting system and/or lots of luck.

6) When using a VBD system like the worst-starter method, there are three variables that affect the all-important overall rankings: fantasy league scoring rules; number of fantasy teams; and number of fantasy players on starting roster. If any of these variables change so will your overall rankings. This is especially important to know if you play in more than one fantasy league with different rules or if your already-existing league changes its rules or number of teams. To give you an example, I compared the overall rankings of five different leagues in Figure 20. All were calculated from the AVT projections in Figure 19 using the worst starter method. The first column uses the league from Figure 19. The second column shows you what would happen if the same league (as column 1) went from 12 to 8 teams. The third column shows you what would happen if the same league (as column 1) were changed from three starting WRs to just two. The fourth column shows you what would happen if the same league (as column 1) does not award a point per reception. The fifth column shows you what would happen if all three variables were changed (8 teams, 2 starting WRs, no point per reception).

League (fig 19)	Only 8 teams	Only 2 WRs	No pt/reception	All 3 variables
RB1	RB1	RB1	RB1	RB1
WR1	WR1	RB2	RB2	RB2
RB2	RB2	WR1	RB3	RB3
WR2	WR2	RB3	WR1	QB1
RB3	WR3	RB4	QB1	WR1
WR3	RB3	WR2	WR2	QB2
WR4	WR4	RB5	RB4	WR2
RB4	TE1	QB1	WR3	TE1
RB5	RB4	WR3	QB2	RB4
WR5	WR5	TE1	RB5	RB5
QB1	QB1	RB6	WR4	WR3
TE1	RB5	RB7	RB6	RB6
RB6	WR6	WR4	RB7	RB7
RB7	RB6	QB2	RB8	RB8
WR6	WR7	RB8	WR5	WR4
WR7	QB2	WR5	QB3	QB3
QB2	WR8	RB9	WR6	TE2
WR8	RB7	QB3	RB9	QB4
RB8	WR9	RB10	TE1	QB4
WR9	WR10	WR6	WR7	D/ST1
WR10	RB8	TE2	WR8	RB9
WR11	WR11	WR7	RB10	WR5
WR12	TE2	RB11	QB4	RB10
RB9	TE3	WR8	RB11	QB5
WR13	WR12	QB4	WR9	D/ST2

Figure 20 - Overall Comparisons

It's amazing how players will slide up, down, on and off the overall list depending on the league's rules and size, even though the position rankings and projections remain the same. The data in Figure 20 is very interesting if you take the time to observe and analyze. You'll find that certain leagues favor certain positions. This is why it's so important to know what positions are favored in your league before you enter the draft. The cool part is that your VBD system will determine that for you. Feel free to make your own conclusions and observations on Figure 20 before continuing to the next chapter. There is a lot that can be learned.

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VALUE-BASED DRAFTING 101

Figure 18 - Sample Cheatsheet

Figure 19 - Sample Cheatsheet (Worst Starter Method)

Figure 20 - Overall Comparisons