Drafting Value: Buyer Beware

Schwartz and I participated in a Fantasy Football draft yesterday. It's an auction league -- $180 to spend on at least 15 and no more than 18 players. 2x QB, 3x RB, 3x WR, WR/RB, TE, K, DEF start each week (4pts TD pass, PPR, standard otherwise). About an hour into the draft, about 30 players were off the board. Most of them were elite fantasy players with few exceptions. Some teams had splurged on premium talent and were looking for fantastic value in the later rounds, which turned out to be readily available. The emerging trend of the draft was that some excellent mid-range players would go for virtually nothing in the later rounds and, more importantly, some forgotten elite players went for far below their expected relative values.

Now, these two trends are all well and good if you can take advantage of them. It is still possible to build an excellent roster, as Alex did (http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/402833/1/team?date=2008-08-31&week=1&stat1=S&stat2=S_2008), by hanging back and getting the forgotten guys for fantatasic prices. It is even viable to specifically target those guys and wait for them, knowing that you will lock them up at a solid points/dollars spent ratio. My issue with this strategy is two-fold: 1. the more aware your competition is, the more the viability of this tactic is dimished, 2. In reality there are a finite number of total fantasy points to be had, as the elite players leave the board and make way 3rd-6th level talent, your chance of getting a high number of total points decrease.

The first point is pretty self-explanatory. After the initial feeding frenzy in the top 25-35 picks, fantasy owners are going to wise up and start looking for players that 1. fill holes, 2. complement their top 2-3 picks, 3. look for value, 4. block other owners needs. I'm not sure how many players in your leagues run with full draft boards or track every team's roster, but in this particular league something like 9 of the 12 owners were astute about who was still on the board and which teams needed certain positions filled. Thus, roughly 25% of the league selections were being made without much concern for the overall board; this works out to roughly 25% of the available player pool having a skewed value relative to the other 75%. Primary examples of players having a skewed value in our draft were: Marques Colston being roughly 18th-20th most expensive receiver (instead of being the 5th-8th most expensive) and Donovan McNabb going for less than John Kitna, Marc Bulger and Eli Manning to name a few.

The other major issue I have with waiting to capitalize on the great values created by an imperfect market is my belief that the total number of fantasy points available is finite. To capitalize of the finite nature of total points, fantasy owners need to put themselves in a position to not only look for a great value in terms of dollars spent per point earned, but to look for guys who have the highest probablity of earning those points. One of the major reasons why elite players are elite is not because they are athletic freaks (though almost all of them are) or because they play on great teams (though that certainly helps). The big reason you draft these players is because they are mortal locks to get the ball, unless injured. Fantasy points can't be earned without touching the ball at some point of the play (unless we're talking about defense) -- you're paying for the position that an elite player occupies, not necessarily the skills that player has. For instance, LaDainian Tomlinson is the best RB in fantasy football because 1) he's been consistent enough over the course of his career that the Chargers want him to touch the ball as much as possible in a game, 2) he's virtually injury free at a position that is generally plagued by injury, 3) there aren't many other competitors on the Chargers for offensive touches -- sure they'll go to Gates with great frequency, but the WR are weak -- avoiding LT in favor of a more diversified offense lowers San Deigo's chance of scoring points and winning games.

How do we apply this in terms of fantasy? Using the LT example, lets say you're looking for 1-2 WR late in the draft and are looking to get great value (I'm going to use my own league as an example here, so you're looking for your #2, #3 WR or perhaps your #3 WR and a Flex. To be clear, you are looking for 2 players to start weekly). Vincent Jackson is still on the board and you are able to grab him for $1. Looking at it from a value standpoint, you probably just picked up 120-150 fantasy points for a buck, a fantastic rate of return on your one dollar. However, look at Vincent Jackson's relative value compared to your competition. If you are starting him as a #2 WR, you're in a lot of trouble -- a lot of teams are going to be starting wideouts that are first on an NFL depth chart in that slot. Sure, you've picked up a solid value points-wise, but there is virtually no way you can compete in that position by starting San Diego's #2 wideout, there simply aren't enough opportunities to for that position in San Diego's offense to score fantasy points.