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Some tips for "hacking" fantasy football... * Don't draft a kicker before the 16th round There is very little difference between the #1 and the #10 kicker and

by swanson 13y ago

Some tips for "hacking" fantasy football... * Don't draft a kicker before the 16th round There is very little difference between the #1 and the #10 kicker and predicting future performance from past performance is a crapshot. Plus if you draft a kicker early, you will be exposed as a fraud :) Every year there are no-name players that have breakout seasons, so use your late round picks trying to hit the lottery. * Try out Value Based Drafting This is a more advanced metric for optimizing your drafting strategy. The basic idea is to not pick players based on the raw number of points they are projected to get, but rather how much better than a "baseline" replacement. It's very nerdy but something that the traditional "office jock" isn't going to bother with. If you want to dig a little deeper, read this: http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?page=nfldk2k12_vbdwork http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?page=nf... * Set aside time to manage your roster every week You only need 20 min to do the minimum each week: set your lineup based on expert rankings and add waivers/free agents to replace injured/non-performing/bye-week players. If you do this every week, I can almost guarantee you won't come in the last place (the ultimate objective!). Pick a single source of rankings (ESPN is fine) and don't worry about reading 50 different blogs. * Remember to have fun and don't talk shit If you don't follow sports at all, now you can get a taste. It's pretty fun! If you normally follow the hometown team, congrats - you will now find yourself caring about 8-12 other NFL teams every week - if only for your one fantasy player. And don't be an asshole. No one likes playing fantasy with jerks. PS Be careful, you've just stepped into the most addictive hobby I've experienced since World of Warcraft :)

bretthopper 13y ago
This is all good except the part about not talking shit. Talking shit makes fantasy sports even better. There is, however, one rule to this: only do it in leagues with your friends. Yes, you're an asshole if you're in a league with 11 other random internet people. With your friends it's just fun.
- swanson 13y ago
  Sure - with friends it's fine. With strangers and coworkers, I'd just be careful :) The OP was about office leagues so I erred on the side of caution!
- 5555624 13y ago
  The whole point of our league is to talk shit boost morale at work. The league winner gets to display the tacky trophy we put together six years ago.
Segmentation 13y ago
How about actual hacking? Can a programmer write a script to automate or enhance their Fantasy Football? Like algorithmic stock trading.
- swanson 13y ago
  The biggest aspect of Fantasy Football is the draft - where you select your players before the start of the season. So the area where you could apply some actual hacking is the projection/simulation of player performance to come up with your own rankings. Hopefully, this could allow you to pick undervalued players - so similar to predicting stocks. Basically you can treat it as a statistical modeling exercise and go from there. There is no realtime aspect to fantasy sports, you are usually setting a roster weekly, waiting for the games to be played for the week, and then seeing the results. So something like high frequency trading doesn't really apply.
- keithxm23 13y ago
  There's a brilliant technical paper written on this subject: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340382/ http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340382/ The authors' (completely algorithmically managed) team managed to get a rank of ~25000 when competing against 2.5Million human players. Pretty damn good if you ask me. This paper is about Fantasy Soccer though. However the same rules apply to Fantasy Football too.
roldie 13y ago
This is the first year that I've tried Value Based Drafting. It's also the worst team I've had in years. I struggle to get 90 points in a standard league. Part of it is because Spiller has been a big bust this year, but in general, this team relies on a lot of potential instead of safe bets. Bad luck for me, as few of my guys have shown that potential. :/ Just saying that YMMV. It's fantasy football, nothing is guaranteed. I actually like the idea behind Value Based Drafting, and will probably still use it the next few years, though, not for my primary league anymore.
- bksenior 13y ago
  I bet you drafted MJD. What a bum he has been.
heyheyhey 13y ago
You should add: * The first rule of Fantasy Football is: You do not bitch about Fantasy Football Literally, no one cares about your team. Maybe the person you're playing against might have an iota but chances are, he's in other leagues and has his own FF problems.

by swanson 13y ago

bretthopper 13y ago

This is all good except the part about not talking shit. Talking shit makes fantasy sports even better. There is, however, one rule to this: only do it in leagues with your friends. Yes, you're an asshole if you're in a league with 11 other random internet people. With your friends it's just fun.

swanson 13y ago
Sure - with friends it's fine. With strangers and coworkers, I'd just be careful :) The OP was about office leagues so I erred on the side of caution!
5555624 13y ago
The whole point of our league is to talk shit boost morale at work. The league winner gets to display the tacky trophy we put together six years ago.

Segmentation 13y ago

How about actual hacking? Can a programmer write a script to automate or enhance their Fantasy Football? Like algorithmic stock trading.

swanson 13y ago
The biggest aspect of Fantasy Football is the draft - where you select your players before the start of the season. So the area where you could apply some actual hacking is the projection/simulation of player performance to come up with your own rankings. Hopefully, this could allow you to pick undervalued players - so similar to predicting stocks. Basically you can treat it as a statistical modeling exercise and go from there. There is no realtime aspect to fantasy sports, you are usually setting a roster weekly, waiting for the games to be played for the week, and then seeing the results. So something like high frequency trading doesn't really apply.
keithxm23 13y ago
There's a brilliant technical paper written on this subject: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340382/ http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340382/ The authors' (completely algorithmically managed) team managed to get a rank of ~25000 when competing against 2.5Million human players. Pretty damn good if you ask me. This paper is about Fantasy Soccer though. However the same rules apply to Fantasy Football too.

roldie 13y ago

This is the first year that I've tried Value Based Drafting. It's also the worst team I've had in years. I struggle to get 90 points in a standard league. Part of it is because Spiller has been a big bust this year, but in general, this team relies on a lot of potential instead of safe bets. Bad luck for me, as few of my guys have shown that potential. :/ Just saying that YMMV. It's fantasy football, nothing is guaranteed. I actually like the idea behind Value Based Drafting, and will probably still use it the next few years, though, not for my primary league anymore.

bksenior 13y ago
I bet you drafted MJD. What a bum he has been.

heyheyhey 13y ago

You should add: * The first rule of Fantasy Football is: You do not bitch about Fantasy Football Literally, no one cares about your team. Maybe the person you're playing against might have an iota but chances are, he's in other leagues and has his own FF problems.