Fantasy News
I got an e-mail yesterday from a reader trying to make sense of how to use our custom rankings feature. To get a better, deeper overall list, he wanted to use the custom auction value tool on the website. But he didn’t know quite how to do it. A portion of the letter and the complete answer appears below. I figure there are others out there who either aren’t even aware of these resources or don’t have a good understanding of how to use them.
THE E-MAIL:
I play in a league that starts 2 QBs and is PPR. That being said the traditional cheat sheet rankings do not really help me out that much. In Ian's Mailbag in the magazine Tomas Ledden asked a question regarding tweaking the rankings for a 2-QB league. Ian responded suggesting using the custom auction value generator to see how this wrinkle affects the overall rankings. I tried to use this, however my league is not an auction-style draft so I am unfamiliar with the answers for the many questions required to set up the custom auction value cheat sheet. I was wondering if you could give me the typical values to the questions like “How many total quarterbacks do you expect will be purchased at your auction?” and “Of those quarterbacks, how many will go for more than the league-minimum bid?” I really don't know the answers to these questions as I have never done an auction-style draft.
THE ANSWER:
That’s a fair question. Working with auction parameters can be intimidating for somebody who hasn’t tried that format. It’s fairly technical.
When trying to use our data to generate an accurate top 50 list for your league, you need to use our CUSTOM CHEAT SHEET feature. It’s on the gray tab (1 of about 15 choices) at the top of the front page.
Once you click on CUSTOM CHEAT SHEET there are then two separate areas inside that area you need to address – SCORING PROFILE and AUCTION PROFILE. You need to spend about 5 minutes in each of these areas so that the computers on our end understand your league.
SCORING PROFILE is fairly straight forward. You go in there, and you click off the various options and bonuses. There are two areas in there that aren’t really addressed. Bonuses for 100- and 300-yard games, and having different values for different positions (some leagues, for example, give 1 point for catches but only to WR and TE — not to running backs; others give running backs double credit for catching touchdowns). But go in there, and you should be able to patch together a scoring system that’s pretty close to your own.
AUCTION PROFILE is a little harder. It contains questions like “How many quarterbacks will be purchased?” and “How many quarterbacks will go for more than the minimum?” What we’re getting at here, is how many quarterbacks will actually wind up on rosters. And of that group, how many do you truly care about? A quarterback like Trent Edwards or Matt Hasselbeck, for example, has some value. But ultimately, those guys are only worth the minimum (to most people). If you say Edwards or Hasselbeck is worth $3, after all, that takes away $2 that might stop you from buying Drew Brees. At quarterback, most would rather have Brees for $27 (or whatever), than cap his value at $25 so they could also get Edwards.
Suggested starting points (for those auction questions) for a 12-team standard league.
QB — ~26 will be selected (~2 per team) with ~14 going for more than the $1 minimum.
RB — ~50 will be selected (~4 per team) with ~30 going for more than the $1 minimum.
WR — ~70 will be selected (~6 per team) with ~36 going for more than the $1 minimum. This is for a league starting 3 WR. If starting two, lower to 50 selected and ~28 for more than min.
TE — ~20 will be selected (almost 2 per team) with ~9 going for more than the $1 min.
K — ~18 will be selected with 1 or 2 going for more than min.
DEF — ~20 will be selected with maybe 4 going for more than min.
In my example above, 204 players are selected. That’s 17 per team. If you have 20-man rosters, you’d have to increase some of those numbers (so that you got up to 240 players). If you have 15-man rosters, you’d want to dial it down to 180 players.
After you plug in those numbers, you’ve completed your work in the SCORING PROFILE and the AUCTION PROFILE. At that point, you can then go back into the VIEW PRODUCTS section. You can then click on the links for our most up-to-date projections, and they will be automatically tied in with your league’s preferences and data. I just sent out some updated ranking earlier today, and they should be available soon. If you haven’t purchased any updates, the last available free rankings were posted on Friday, July 24. Those are the ones available through the free magazine update. (To get to those, go the front page of the website and click on the first item in the “Toolbox” on the right side of the page; you need to have your magazine nearby to get into that password-protected area.
When looking at the rankings, you may feel they’re out of whack. Maybe you’re seeing 3 quarterbacks in the top 10, and you know from experience that quarterbacks never go in the top 20 in your draft. In that case, you can go back into the AUCTION PROFILE and adjust the value of the quarterbacks. Earlier, maybe you said 14 of 26 will go for the minimum. Change that 14 number to something like 9, and it will downgrade all of the quarterbacks on your board. By dickering around with those numbers, you can get the computer to punch out an overall list that is to your liking. (And it’s really an overall list that goes well past 100, since there is an exact dollar total on each player — a $1.32 player would be selected before a $1.20 player and whatnot).
In your specific case, you start double quarterbacks. That needs to be addressed in the AUCTION PROFILE. For that type of league, I would expect something like 36 quarterbacks to be selected (3 for each team). And of those 36, there would be good demand for more of them (since 24 are starting). So I would guess that about 22-23 of those quarterbacks would go for more than minimum. Those are the numbers I would punch into your profile, and I would guess that would result in Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning being the top 3 players on your board. Aaron Rodgers and Philip Rivers should definitely show up in the top 10 as well.
Also with your league, you’ve got those extra 12 flex players. You can account for those guys by adjusting the numbers in RB and WR. In that kind of league, I would guess maybe 35 RBs would go for more than minimum, and maybe 37 WRs go for more than minimum.
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