If you're just interested in the rankings scroll below the break. The first two sections just discuss my plans for this fantasy football season and a review of last year.
SCHEDULE:
I apologize for not updating the fantasy football rankings last year, as well as getting to the rankings this year somewhat late. I'm planning on being able to produce a lot more content this year as I've gotten more familiar with R. This should entail better analysis and much better visualizations. Anyways, here's my content plan for this upcoming fantasy football season:
Week of August 9th:
2014 IN REVIEW:
So in 2014 I was in two fantasy football leagues (10 team, standard scoring). One was an auction draft and one was a standard snake draft. For both drafts (at least while picking starters), I followed the Tiers the K-means clustering algorithm generated for all positions. Unfortunately I got 9th in the snake league (albeit 4th in points) and 10th in the auction league.
The conclusion I came to is that the tier based rankings is particularly useful in a snake draft. Where I failed was porting that information into an auction draft, consequently my draft in the auction league was very poor. Though my auction league team was severely handicapped by the fact I spent $60 on Adrian Peterson. Here were my draft results in the snake league:
SCHEDULE:
I apologize for not updating the fantasy football rankings last year, as well as getting to the rankings this year somewhat late. I'm planning on being able to produce a lot more content this year as I've gotten more familiar with R. This should entail better analysis and much better visualizations. Anyways, here's my content plan for this upcoming fantasy football season:
Week of August 9th:
- Tier rankings for all positions
- Updated tier rankings for all positions
- Tier ranking analysis correlated with Average Draft Position (ADP)
- Possibility of interactive visualizations via RStudio's Shiny package
- Tiered rankings translated to auction values
- Player tier rankings on a week by week basis
- Any other content I can think of. Suggestions welcome!
2014 IN REVIEW:
So in 2014 I was in two fantasy football leagues (10 team, standard scoring). One was an auction draft and one was a standard snake draft. For both drafts (at least while picking starters), I followed the Tiers the K-means clustering algorithm generated for all positions. Unfortunately I got 9th in the snake league (albeit 4th in points) and 10th in the auction league.
The conclusion I came to is that the tier based rankings is particularly useful in a snake draft. Where I failed was porting that information into an auction draft, consequently my draft in the auction league was very poor. Though my auction league team was severely handicapped by the fact I spent $60 on Adrian Peterson. Here were my draft results in the snake league:
Pick | Player | Preseason Position Rank | Final Ranking |
---|---|---|---|
3 | Jamaal Charles | RB3 | RB7 |
18 | Julio Jones | WR7 | WR7 |
23 | Antonio Brown | WR9 | WR1 |
38 | Julius Thomas | TE2 | TE7 |
43 | Bishop Sankey | RB21 | RB46 |
58 | Jeremy Maclin | WR25 | WR9 |
63 | Chris Johnson | RB27 | RB34 |
78 | Maurice Jones-Drew | RB32 | RB104 |
83 | Robert Griffin III | QB9 | QB36 |
98 | Rueben Randle | WR41 | WR38 |
103 | Kelvin Benjamin | WR43 | WR17 |
Looking back I made some obvious mistakes (namely drafting Bishop Sankey). I'm still a believer that the late round picks are a complete crapshoot. Drafting Kelvin Benjamin was no stroke of genius on my part, and on the flip side drafting MJD wasn't poor scouting either.
Things like injury are difficult to project as well, at least to a certain extent. Julius Thomas has had injury problems throughout his career, but whether he misses 1 game or 3 games (as he did last year).
However, the way we evaluate injuries when looking at a player needs to change. Julius Thomas had 4 games where he got 0 points due to injury, but its not like fantasy owners were playing him on those games. Conventional wisdom says to look at points per game, and by that metric Julius Thomas ranks 3rd. That's not to say he was the 3rd best fantasy TE last year nor was he the 7th best. When a player is injured, you're going to be playing a replacement level TE. In a 10 team league such as mine, that means I'll likely be able to pick up a TE ranked 11-15. TE11-15 averaged 5.74 pts/game in 2014. So in the games that Julius Thomas isn't playing you're not getting 0 points, you're getting ~5.74 points. Consequently the formula we should use to evaluate injured/suspended players is:
Things like injury are difficult to project as well, at least to a certain extent. Julius Thomas has had injury problems throughout his career, but whether he misses 1 game or 3 games (as he did last year).
However, the way we evaluate injuries when looking at a player needs to change. Julius Thomas had 4 games where he got 0 points due to injury, but its not like fantasy owners were playing him on those games. Conventional wisdom says to look at points per game, and by that metric Julius Thomas ranks 3rd. That's not to say he was the 3rd best fantasy TE last year nor was he the 7th best. When a player is injured, you're going to be playing a replacement level TE. In a 10 team league such as mine, that means I'll likely be able to pick up a TE ranked 11-15. TE11-15 averaged 5.74 pts/game in 2014. So in the games that Julius Thomas isn't playing you're not getting 0 points, you're getting ~5.74 points. Consequently the formula we should use to evaluate injured/suspended players is:
Points Provided by Injured/Suspended Player = Total Points + (Games Missed)*(Points/Game by Replacement Level Player)
So while Julius Thomas only scored 116 points in 2014 (7th), by drafting him you effectively got 133 points from your TE position (13 weeks Thomas, 3 weeks replacement TE, bye week not counted). That 133 points ranks 4th among TEs.
Anyways, before I digress even further, thank you for reading and really hope you continue to follow my weekly updates!
Thanks,
Saurabh
Anyways, before I digress even further, thank you for reading and really hope you continue to follow my weekly updates!
Thanks,
Saurabh