Archives for September 2015

September 29, 2015 Leave a Comment

I finished seventh out of 48 in my fantasy golf league

The fantasy golf season on Yahoo! came to an end this past weekend. The league that I have played in over the past several years, Sandbaggers Anonymous, is particularly competitive. I finished in the top 95th percentile across all Yahoo! players (rank of 4028 overall) with 5925 points, but this was still only good enough to be seventh of 48 players in my league.

Finishing a season playing fantasy golf is a feat in itself because it is extremely long in Yahoo formats. Starting way back in early January and ending in late September, it’s definitely a marathon and not a sprint.

The season is broken up into three “legs”: winter, spring, and summer. While my performance in the first two legs were mediocre for my league (1902 points in winters and 1864 points in spring), I hit my stride in summer by scoring 2159 points – the best score for that leg of any team.

Learning from this season

My stats indicate that I finished with top ten performances a total of sixteen times (tops in my league), top three performances four times, and I only had the top score once. The fact that I had so many top ten performances was pleasantly surprising since the average number of similar scores was around eight (mean = 8.02; median = 8.5; mode =10). This tells me that my method for picking players was fairly successful.

The fact that I didn’t “win it all” more frequently is a bit disappointing, but not entirely so. In my opinion, fantasy sports success is more about increasing the odds that I will do well than about ensuring I win the championship every year. There’s no way I can guarantee a first-place finish in any league, but I can take steps to increase the odds that I will finish near the top.

September 29, 2015 2 Comments

My fantasy baseball season comes down to this week

I have been playing in a 12-team ESPN fantasy baseball league that began in a most brutal fashion back in March, but which is ending up better than I had expected. I am, after all, in the final series against my head-to-head opponent and I have a realistic shot of winning the title. I think it proves the point that even if you have a poor draft, you can still rescue your fantasy team through waiver wire acquisitions and some patience.

Revisiting a bad draft

Let’s go back to March of this year. The league held an auction draft and team owners started out with budgets of $260. I knew from my pre-draft research that starting pitchers would hold premium value in this league since the scoring system awarded 3 points per inning pitched, 5 points per win, and 1 point per strikeout. For perspective, batters were awarded 1 point per run scored, 1 point per total base, 1 point per RBI, and so forth.

Nevertheless, I noticed one league rule in particular which changed the way I drafted: the games played limit indicated that the maximum for pitchers was “12 Games Started”. I interpreted this as meaning that any pitcher could make a maximum of 12 starts for a team in the league, and that any additional starts would result in zero points. I thought this was a quirky rule, but one that I could use to my advantage. I had visions of my opponents dropping top-tier pitching talent by mid-season once they realized the pitchers wouldn’t produce any more points for them.

Turns out I was wrong, and in a major way. The “12 Games Started” rule actually meant that the pitchers on a team could only make 12 starts for an owner in any one week. Needless to say, my plan for league domination came crumbling down at lightning speed. During the draft, my strategy was to stock up on upper-tier batters, as well as a few quality relievers, and pick up cheap starting pitching at the end. After all, if others would be dropping their quality starters halfway through the season, there wasn’t much point in me paying to draft them (or so I thought).

Anyway, here are the draft results for my team. Naturally, I followed the strategy of talent concentration:

6	Edwin Encarnacion, Tor 1B ~	$44
7	Giancarlo Stanton*, Mia OF ~	$52
8	Miguel Cabrera, Det 1B ~	$42
14	Jose Bautista, Tor OF ~	$42
40	Michael Brantley, Cle OF ~	$29
98	Albert Pujols, LAA 1B ~	$16
109	Joe Nathan*, Det RP	$3
128	Mark Melancon, Pit RP ~	$14
205	LaTroy Hawkins, Tor RP	$1
217	Wilin Rosario, Col C	$1
228	Brandon League, LAD RP	$1
234	Rougned Odor, Tex 2B ~!	$2
249	Jordan Walden*, StL RP	$1
257	Marlon Byrd, SF OF	$1
263	Aaron Hill, Ari 2B	$1
268	Ike Davis*, Oak 1B	$1
272	Rafael Soriano, ChC RP	$1
276	Jonathan Broxton, StL RP	$1
280	Trevor Plouffe, Min 3B	$1
284	J.J. Hardy, Bal SS	$1
287	Josh Reddick, Oak OF~	$1
290	Wade Miley, Bos SP	$1
293	A.J. Burnett, Pit SP	$1
296	Jesse Chavez*, Oak SP	$1
298	Trevor Bauer, Cle SP	$1

~ = Player continually on my team through the present
~! = Player that has been dropped and re-added to my team

Playing the waiver wire

Once I learned of my mistaken drafting strategy, I had to recover by picking up starting pitchers whom I could rely on for the season. As you can see from my roster, my pitching was anchored by A.J. Burnett and Wade Miley. I needed help.

I started picking up the best players I could find. I picked up Aaron Harang, who had a stretch of quality outings early in the season; I got Brandon Morrow in April; I also added Ubaldo Jimenez, a player who is still on my roster as the season ends. Other notables that I was able to pick up during the season included Alfredo Simon, Lance Lynn, and Jaime Garcia.

I also compensated for my lack of quality starters by scooping up a few more closers, such as Brad Boxberger, Trevor Rosenthal, and Shawn Tolleson. Closers could get me points during the week without costing me one of my 12 starts, so they provided some solid production during the season.

Getting enough points to make the playoffs

By playing the waiver wire and being patient with my team, I was able to end the season 15-6 (.714 winning percentage), which was tied for second in the league. As was probably to be expected, my season pitching stats were horrible: most walks given up, most losses taken, most hits given up, and second to most earned runs allowed. Meanwhile, my batting stats were fairly good – most RBIs and least strikeouts – but I was hurt when two of my best players (Miguel Cabrera and Giancarlo Stanton) spent significant time on the DL. How, then, did I compensate for my bad pitching?

My success was due to sheer volume; although I had bad pitching stats, I had the second-most innings pitched. Since starting pitchers generally got the most points for any single game, I tried to max out my allowed number of starts if I needed extra points to beat my opponent. In addition, for much of the season I played without a catcher and used my empty roster spot for an extra pitcher. I did this because the catcher position was the least reliable on my team. Real-life catchers get frequent days of rest, and the production coming from my catcher position wasn’t enough to keep one of these players on my roster.

Rather than getting 5-10 points in a week from my catcher, I could get 15-20 points by using that roster spot for a starting pitcher, even if the pitchers I used were mediocre.

Winning the final

Success during the fantasy season is easier achieved than success during the fantasy playoffs. Real-life players get rest, rosters change around, and some teams might not care about winning if they’ve already wrapped up their own playoff runs. Winning at this stage is less predictable, but micromanaging can help increase your odds.

Since I’m in my final week, I’ve one last push to make. My goal is to max out my max number of starts for my pitchers and then drop pitchers as needed to pick up middle relievers who can continue to contribute points. I have to be careful, though, about streaming starters; if I pick the wrong starter off waivers, I could end up with negative points, thereby hurting my drive for the championship.

I’ll post an update after the season ends, hopefully with good news in hand.

September 16, 2015 1 Comment

Fantasy Football Auction Draft Review for 10-Team League

Week 1 of the 2015 NFL season is already in the books, so I wanted to recap my draft results from my 10-team auction draft. I will try to explain my approach that I took on draft day, and over the course of the season I will revisit my explanation of waiver wire pickups.

Here were the roster positions available ($200 budget):

QB -1
WR – 3
RB – 2
TE – 1
K – 1
DEF – 1
BN – 6

My general strategy is to go hard or go home during auction drafts. This means I am not afraid to blow through 75% of my budget on three or four top tier players. I have reasons for this that I will explain at some other time, but for the time being I will say simply that this strategy has worked for me in several different types of fantasy sports leagues. Time to use it again.

The first player I acquired, Calvin Johnson ($43), was the first player to be nominated. Although not quite the same caliber of player as he was just a few years ago, I feel that he has at least the possibility of ending up as the #1 receiver in the league and so for $43, this pick presented a good value. Because rosters start three WRs and only two RBs,

I find that the first player nominated in an auction draft can sometimes be had at very good prices. The reason for this is that at the beginning of the draft, team owners are unable to accurately value top tier players. Should the #1 player go for $55? $60? $65 or more? Until owners actually start bidding and winning several players in the draft, it’s really difficult to say, and so some of them may decide to sit out a pick or two before valuations become more predictable.

I picked up my next player, Adrian Peterson ($61), as the third player taken overall. He was arguably the best player overall in the draft, so he was a natural choice in my decision to concentrate my budget on a few high-talent players, rather than disperse it among many better-than-average players. The price was perhaps a tad more than I would have liked for him, but he was still three dollars less than the price of Eddie Lacy ($64), who was chosen by another team as the eighth pick overall.

My next player acquired was Randall Cobb ($38) as the twelfth overall pick. I would have preferred to wait and add a receiver who would provide higher upside since there were still several that were yet-to-be nominated, but Cobb’s price was fairly attractive. I anticipate that his floor will be rather high this season because a) he has moved into the #1 receiver spot on his team, b) he has a proven track record even as a #2 receiver in past seasons, c) he benefits from the talents of arguably the best quarterback in the league, and d) he plays on an offense that will almost certainly generate more points than 75% of the rest of the teams in the league.

At this point in the draft, I had spent $142 on three players, which left me with a maximum bid of about $47 for any single player (this would leave me with the required $1 in reserve to fill players in other roster spots). Because of this, I was unable to compete on top talent such as Antonio Brown ($54), Jamaal Charles ($56), or Dez Bryant ($54). Blowing the rest of my budget on a single player would not have been the end of the world, but I find that extending the last 25% or so of my budget by drafting low-cost, “value” picks provides me with a great deal of flexibility in accumulating supporting players for my team.

Fortunately, my next selection was my best yet: I acquired Aaron Rodgers ($28) as the #33 pick of the draft. I call this my “best” pick because of its relative value. Relative to the Andrew Luck ($47, pick #31), Rodgers was clearly the better value because he cost much less but will likely provide similar fantasy numbers. Relative to other positions players who went later for around the same price (Lamar Miller, $31; Brandin Cooks, $27; Emmanuel Sanders, $30), Rodgers was clearly a better place to put money.

My acquisition of Rodgers left me with a new maximum bid of about $19, so I was unable to compete for many quality players after that apart from Julian Edelman ($13, pick #40) and Jordan Cameron ($7, #86). I ended up getting stuck with the injured Julius Thomas ($1) after nominating him as auction bait. No one bit, but it didn’t cost me anything apart from a minimally-priced roster spot.

My final draft results were as follows:

1. (1) Calvin Johnson (Det – WR) $43
2. (3) Adrian Peterson (Min – RB) $61
3. (12) Randall Cobb (GB – WR) $38
4. (33) Aaron Rodgers (GB – QB) $28
5. (40) Julian Edelman (NE – WR) $13
6. (43) St. Louis (StL – DEF) $2
7. (73) Julius Thomas (Jax – TE) $1
8. (86) Jordan Cameron (Mia – TE) $7
9. (93) Teddy Bridgewater (Min – QB) $1
10. (111) Matt Jones (Was – RB) $1
11. (131) Alfred Blue (Hou – RB) $1
12. (136) Danny Amendola (NE – WR) $1
13. (140) DeAngelo Williams (Pit – RB) $1
14. (143) Matt Prater (Det – K) $1
15. (146) Arizona (Ari – DEF) $1

Overall, my draft went well with Tier 1 talent at the QB position, RB position, and Tier 1/Tier 2 talent at two WR positions. One gaping hole in my roster was at my second RB position. I drafted DeAngelo Williams ($1) as cheap starter for the first two weeks of the season (while RB1 Le’Veon Bell is suspended), and I figured that some other running back would emerge on the waiver wire during that time whom I can target. Other picks of mine, such as Alfred Blue ($1) and Matt Jones ($1) are more speculative and will probably not be worth holding on for the long term.

September 11, 2015 Leave a Comment

Fantasy Football Snake Draft Review for 14-Team League

I drafted a team a few days ago in a shallow 14-team league where teams only get two bench spots. I ran through several mocks to prepare for the snake draft so I was able to try out several player combinations available at my position. Since I won the league last year, I ended up picking last in the first round, first in the second round, last in the third round, and so forth.

Here are the available roster positions in the league:

QB – 1
WR – 2
RB – 1
TE – 1
Flex – 1
K – 1
D/ST – 1
DB – 1
LB – 1
DB/DL/LB – 1
Bench – 2

Since my picks were always back-to-back, it didn’t really matter the exact order of my picks. I contemplated picking WR1-WR1 or WR1-RB1 pairs, and at the end of the day I just felt more comfortable picking two solid wide receivers. The strongest RB1 that I was looking at picking (both in mock drafts and the actual draft) were not terribly impressive, whereas the WRs I could choose from could all be top scorers by the end of the season.

With my first two picks, I chose Julio Jones and Odell Beckham. I had some reservations about Beckham since he doesn’t have a proven track record and the word on the street is that he’s going to be a target for defensive backs this year, but I think his upside is pretty special given the system that he’s in. I had the opportunity to choose a few other top tier players (Demaryius Thomas, Calvin Johnson, or A.J. Green), but I’m satisfied with the players I got.

My third pick is where things got ugly. The website I was drafting on was running slowly, so I decided to log off and reload the browser in between the mass of picks I had to wait through before it was my turn again at #42 overall. When I tried to re-enter the draft room, though, my browser hung again and I was not able to enter until just after my pick expired and auto-selected Jonathan Stewart. While not a bad pick, I would more likely have chosen T.Y. Hilton, who ended up going to another team a few picks later. When I was finally able to enter the room I managed to select Greg Olsen with the first pick of Round 4 (#43 overall). I knew from my mock drafts that Olsen would not be around by the time I picked in Round 5, so it was in my best interest to take one of the more reliable TEs at this point in the draft.

By the time I picked in Round 5 (#70 overall), quarterbacks had started to fly off the board. I noticed that Russell Wilson started to fall, and I would have picked him had he not been picked five selections ahead of me. Given the absence of other attractive position players, I chose Tom Brady with my pick. In Round 6 (#71 overall), I pickd ed up Julian Edelman. I now had three clear #1 receivers on their respective teams, a solid TE, and a reliable QB as the basis for my team.

By Round 7, many IDP players were being drafted, but I wanted to wait on them given the sporadic nature of those players. Before the draft, I noticed that the way the league’s scoring system was set up, D/STs actually accounted for far more points per game than they might in other leagues. In fact, in the previous year the highest scoring defense – the Philadelphia Eagles – averaged slighly more points per week than either Marshawn Lynch or Antonio Brown. Meanwhile, the highest IDP player averaged about 40% fewer points per week. With no other teams yet chosen in the draft, I was able to select the Seattle Seahawks, the consensus #1 D/ST this year.

In the later rounds, when taking risks can pay off big time, I decided to pick up both Joseph Randle and Darren McFadden. While I really do not like investing in murky running back situations like I just did, the fact that the Dallas offensive line may be the best in the game suggests to me that if one of these does win the battle, it will be a RB who may carry me to fantasy glory. I also picked up Ameer Abdullah with a late pick (#126) since he could be primed for stardom as well once the Detroit backfield gets settled.

Because I picked up three running backs for my bench, it meant that I was unable to fill my active DB/DL/LB roster spot. I would like to drop one of these benched running backs once I figure out who will be the odd man out on their actual teams, but I’m willing to hold on to them until I get a better idea which player will star for his team. Right now, I have only 10 players in active roster spots against my opponent’s 11 active players. I feel that I may be able to win this week even without the contributions of the 11th man, and if that continues into this weekend, I will go ahead and keep three players on my bench. Cutting a player in Week 1 may mean cutting a player who can potentially carry my team in Weeks 3 – 16, so I am willing to take a small risk for the possibility of a larger fantasy payout.