The Z Files: Lessons Learned

For the better part of the last two months, I've presented data from the 2019 National Fantasy Baseball Championship Main Event with accompanying analysis. While the foundation was rosters from this high stakes competition, many of the findings transcend solely this specific contest. That said, since the NFBC information was so prevalent in the discussion, the takeaways germane to private leagues could have been masked. As such, the pertinent discussion from the six installments relevant to all leagues will now be highlighted.

Winning Tendencies, Part One

The original article can be found here.

Drafted Versus Final Stats

The results from the NFBC corroborated previous studies. While it depends on player pool penetration, between 65 and 90 percent of stats are acquired via the draft. The deeper the penetration, the larger the amount. Number of teams, roster size and teams in the pool affect penetration. For example, a 10-team mixed league checks in around 65 percent while 12-team American or National League only formats hover near 90 percent.

Steals

In what will become a recurring theme, competitive teams worried less about steals and saves, both at the draft and in-season. Even though I don't have data to demonstrate this carries over to all leagues, the logic is quite persuasive.

There are four reasons steals shouldn't be a focus of a rotisserie draft.

1. For the first time since 1972, there were fewer than one stolen base a game.

2. A lower percentage of players contribute a higher percentage of steals compared to homers.

3. More runs than ever scored via a home run.

4. The distribution of stolen base totals within a typical league is bunched in the middle with the delta between adjacent teams increasing at the top and bottom. This is true of all categories, but it's exaggerated with steals.

The lower number of overall steals isn't enough to completely downplay the category, since fewer are needed to compete. However, dedicating significant assets to steals isn't efficient, as shown in Flaws and Limitations of Valuation Theory. In short, using an equal portion of draft capital on the category, either in terms of auction budget or draft picks, isn't the optimal approach. Some should be funneled from steals to homers.

Often categorical distribution is such that steals can be upgraded fairly easily, as they're generally more bunched. The key is doing so without sacrificing other categories.

Saves

Deft handling of saves varies by league format. What transcends all formats is the variance of save totals among relievers. That said, 2019 isn't the best season to support that statement as the expected saves leaders dotted the top of the leader board. Still, more so than any category, solid sources emerge to contribute to the category.

The effect of closer ratios are stronger in deeper leagues, which should be a consideration when plotting a strategy. In general, the shallower the league, the lower the level of dedicated assets. Admittedly, this isn't revolutionary advice, but it's a harbinger for observations from later installments. Plus, there's a popular narrative suggesting with the abbreviated season, this is the year to lock down a ninth-inning stud, regardless of format. Your team, your call, but I vehemently disagree.

Streaming Pitching

Unfortunately, I can only use intuition and personal experience, but the shallower the league, the more it's necessary to successfully stream pitching. The data for 15-team leagues is clear. Improving drafted ratios is integral to winning. However, it's extremely difficult to accomplish as on average, only the league winners pulled it off. The other 14 teams worsened their drafted ERA and WHIP.

Depending what happens over the next couple of weeks, it's possible to gather ample data from the 2019 RotoWire Online Championship, a 12-team mixed format, to study the above contention. If my hypothesis is correct, more teams should have upgraded their drafted ratios.

Winning Tendencies, Part Two

The original article can be found here.

Profit Versus Roster Construction

While profit is obviously paramount, roster construction can be more important. This is backed by results of a series of Retro Drafts I'm involved with. A group of fellow fantasy enthusiasts have been gathering once a week, conducting a retro draft of seasons ranging from 1947 to 2016. A few weeks back, we doubled up on 1990 with fascinating results, detailed in A Case Study on Roster Construction. In short, the team points total in the first draft correlated well with the drafted earnings. However, they were random in the second draft, with the winner finishing mid-pack. Obviously, this is an extreme example, but the larger point holds: it's not value/profit that matters, it's what you do with it. The way this applies to all leagues is that rankings/bid prices should be a guideline and not a strict roadmap. The data from both the NFBC and retro drafts clearly exhibits this.

You know the saying, "you can't win a draft in the first round, but you can lose it". The associated cliché is "Safe early, chances late." Data from the NFBC illustrated winners were consistently solid throughout the draft, crushing the first eight rounds. So, while it's true you're going to exit the first few rounds with a solid foundation, it should be more than "best player available" and go from there. Often, the plan and quality of players come to a perfect confluence, but some planning should go into the start of a draft, irrespective of format. This can be laying a statistical or positional foundation, even both. The key is paving the way for a strong opening to the draft.

Deviating from Average Draft Position (ADP)

In what could be the most revealing upshot of the series, it was shown perceived "value picks", those taken after their ADP, were almost always a negative return on investment. On the other hand, selections made in advance of their ADP almost always yielded a positive return. That is, picks called out as "too early" were in fact sage choices. This likely transcends all formats. It's just that the NFBC avails a self-contained ADP from 38 leagues. The lesson here isn't to consistently jump the ADP but rather trust your rankings and use the ADP to optimize picks when it offers some actionable market information. The proof is lower finishing teams made fewer jump picks and more so-called value picks, suggesting they were focusing more on using the ADP to define value than trusting their rankings.

In-Season Moves

To no one's surprise, not only did competitive teams draft stronger rosters, they fortified their lineups to a greater extent in-season, adding more stats. Of course, this is a truism, independent of format, but it's always comforting when data backs common sense.

Winning Tendencies, Part Three

The original article can be found here.

Starting Pitching

Unfortunately, most of the conclusions from this installment are NFBC-centric, but it's plausible to apply some to other formats. It's apparent drafting a starting pitcher early was beneficial, as 67 percent of the top-100 teams grabbed a starter in the first two rounds. However, that means one-third of the better teams waited a little, not to mention around six teams in each 15-team league took a starter early yet finished out of the money. Perhaps this is confirmation bias on my part, but I continue to preach take early pitching when it's there, just don't force it. This transcends all formats, with the key being when pitching is typically drafted in your format. In the NFBC, it's historically pushed up the board, particularly in the Main Event. In leagues with trading, waiting is even more viable.

More on Closers

As a means to emphasize how unnecessary it is to expend assets on saves, Wade Davis was the most drafted closer among the top-100 Main Event finishers. To be fair, Kirby Yates was next, but coming into last season he wasn't considered a stud since there was some concern he would be traded. The next two most often drafted closers were Sean Doolittle and Jordan Hicks, showing winning teams figured saves out during the season. The larger the supply of replacement saves, the easier it is to manage this, hence the earlier recommendation to pay a little more in deeper formats.

Multiple Eligibility Players

As with starting pitchers, the results need to be considered in context with the format. Perhaps counter to how they are perceived by many fantasy GMs, multiple eligibility players, or MEPs, were not favored by NFBC contenders. Conventional wisdom suggests MEPs lengthen the reserve list, and they do. However, between stashing prospects, holding speculative closers, benching starters with poor matchups and housing injured players, there isn't much maneuverability with batters via the reserve. At least not to the extent a MEP can significantly increase lineup strength relative to leaving stats on the table during the draft.

However, in leagues with less restrictive reserves that allow more freedom to fortify lineups, MEPs are probably more useful. This supposition can be tested by looking at data from the NFBC Draft Championship, a 15-team, 50 roster spot contest. Until I'm able to verify, I'm confident stating MEPs have their place in leagues with more roster freedom.

Winning Tendencies, Parts Four and Five

Click for links to Part Four and Part Five

To be honest, these pair of installments reinforced the points previously discussed, most notably roster construction, which is apropos for all formats. Other than the correlation data presented for the retro drafts, the most poignant argument for roster construction is reflected by where the Main Event teams featuring Ronald Acuna and Christian Yelich finished in the overall. Both aggregate clubs were around mid-pack despite their cornerstones finishing as the top two fantasy batters. Dissecting the standings revealed the Acuna and Yelich rosters did well in steals but lagged in the other categories. The conclusion based on this has to be their managers supplemented their rosters with too many swipes, not taking advantage of the organic benefit Acuna and Yelich provided. This speaks towards both the importance of your roster build, and to not overloading in the stolen base department, advice pertinent to all rotisserie formats.

Winning Tendencies, Part Six

The original article can be found here.

Keep Grinding

The final installment looked at the season-ending rosters, though the individual moves were not investigated. Still, the results corroborate earlier findings that showed better teams work harder and more effectively in-season, as they replaced more of their initial roster than the also-rans.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

More observations that supported previous findings were unearthed by looking at the classification of players acquired in-season by the better teams. The difference wasn't enormous, but it was appreciable enough to note winners gravitated more towards veteran free agents as opposed to rookies. This doesn't mean they avoided up-and-comers, just that on a relative basis, the upper echelon squads spent more of their FAAB budget on older, established players. This feels like advice applicable across the board.