<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Today, DTI's The Addict, takes us throughValue Based Drafting and how it should help you in your draft leagues.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;] font-size: 16px;]As someone who has played many American fantasy sports over the years, I have looked forward to the day that draft style leagues became widely available to the masses. This year the official dreamteam game includes the option of participating in a draft league. For those of you unaware of what a draft league is, head over to[span style='font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; color: #121212;]www.dreamteamtalk.com font-size: 16px;]to get down with the basics.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Let's be clear about one thing, it is extremely difficult to do well in a draft league if you stuff up your draft, if you dominate your draft you will go a long way to dominating your league.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Doing well in traditional dreamteam has always relied on value. Be they rookies, underpriced players or discounted players, the key to any successful starting squad has never been Dane Swan or Dean Cox but rather getting your rookies right and including a number of underpriced players that then allow you to stack the rest of your team with the guns. Draft dreamteam is no different, however instead of looking at a players price to determine what their value is, we look at how well they score and subsequently where we should take them in the draft.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]The conundrum that many are facing right now as they prepare for their draft leagues is the question of how to compare players who play in different positions. How do we compare Pendlebury to Buddy? Comparing apples and oranges is never easy, however in draft leagues a decision must be made in every round on who you are going to pick. When it's your turn to pick, how will you know whether to take Pavlich or Stanton? Most people will simply draft the player with the highest average, this approach however does not take into account the most important factor in draft leagues and that is positional scarcity. Given the lack of 100+ average players in the rucks, is Sandilands more valuable than Boyd even though Boyd averages more? The answer, not taking injury risk into account, is an emphatic yes.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Around 15 years ago a system was created in Fantasy NFL (American football) that allowed people to be able to compare apples with oranges. The system was called Value Based Drafting&amp;rdquo; (VBD). VBD was to Fantasy NFL what moneyball&amp;rdquo; was to Major League Baseball. It allowed those that were aware of it to operate on a different wavelength to their competitors leading to great success. The fundamental principle of VBD is that a players value to your team is not about how many total points he scores but more importantly it's how many points he scores relative to other players who play in the same position.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]The trick to drafting a great team is to not blindly draft the player with the highest average but to view your team as a position by position battle against your opponents. You may be feeling very happy with yourself after round 6 if you've drafted a wonderful six pack of great midfielders. Your team wont look so great after round 12 if you're stuck with Ben Hudson and Dean Brogan as your two rucks, whatever advantage you gained by drafting mids straight up will be lost thanks to your below average ruck corp. Positional scarcity must be taken into account when drafting.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]So how does the VBD system work? It's easy, but it takes a little bit of work. The steps are as follows:
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]I'll go through each of these steps.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Predicting dreamteam averages
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]It seems like a lot of work, but it's not really. First you need to know how many players you need to project for. This can be easily calculated by knowing your league size and your league settings. If your league starts 6 midfielders and you have 8 people in your league then there will obviously be a minimum of 48 mids drafted. Your job is to then go and work out who will be in the top 48 mids for the season and then rank them based on the predicted average you assign to each of them. That's not easy of course. In a similar fashion, decide how many forwards, backs and rucks you need to project for
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Workout what your baseline number is for each position and the X number
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]This is the key part of VBD. Remember the principle of VBD is to not worry about total points scored but how many points a players scores relative to others in his position. The baseline number is determined by working out who will be the worst starter at each position. This relies on knowing what the average is for the worst starter in each in position. This will easily be found once you complete the first step. So in the example used above, you will want to know what the average is for the 48th highest scoring midfielder. Going by last years stats, the 48thth best DT midfielder (excluding dual position players) averaged approximately 90ppg. So, going by last years statistics the worst starting midfielder throughout the league will be averaging around 90ppg. Do the same process for each position, ie, work out what the worst starter in each position is averaging. So in a league of 8 teams starting 5 backs, 6 mids, 2 rucks and 5 forwards you will need to work out what the average is for the 40th best backman, the 48th best midfielder, the 16th best ruck and the 40th best forward etc.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Once you have done this you will be able to work out the baseline player/number for each position and then the X number for every player you have projected for. The worst projected starter in each position is assigned the number 0. Each player above that player will be given a positive number compared to what the baseline player's average is projected to be. So for example, if the 48th best midfielder is projected to average 90 then a midfielder who averages 105 will be given an X number of 15 (105-90). A player who averages 120 will have an X number of 30 (120-90). So as you can see, every player is being compared to the baseline player whose X number is 0. Every player's value is highlighted by how much better they are than the worst starter in the same position. Do the same exercise for each position.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]So your spreadsheet will have all your predicted averages for every starter (40 backs, 48mids, 16rucks, 40 forwards) you will then be able to see what the baseline number is by seeing what the worst starter in each position averages and then you can easily work out the X number by comparing each players average to the baseline player in that position.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]As it is you still have your players ranked by position. Once you have worked out the X number for each player you can then combine all the players across the positions and rank them by their X number. You will then have a ranking of players based on their value not merely a ranking based on their average. You will then be able to compare apples with oranges. You will see that a ruckman averaging 100 for example may be more valuable (have a greater X number) than a midfielder averaging 110.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]The system is obviously not perfect. It may be better to use total DT points scored over the season rather than averages, that way injury risk can be taken into account. It also doesn't take into account the effect of a captain, a concept that doesn't exist in Fantasy NFL.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]It's important to also know when to deviate from your ranking system. It's no good selecting your 8th midfielder if you have yet to select a backman for example. Don't just draft for value, draft for positional need and also draft to avoid bye week disasters.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]The system requires a bit of home work but if implemented properly, with a good set of projections, you will go into your draft with an understanding of how to build a team through the draft that most of your league competitors will not.
<p style='font-family: Cabin, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 28.796875px; font-style: normal; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #6b6b6b; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]Other articles from DTInsiders that will interest you:

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[/b]<strong style='font-size: 16px;]-THE EFFECT OF SCHEDULING[/b]