Week 19: How Much Draft Capital Was Actually Traded?

 

It was the first day of school for the kids of Floored. Lilah, George, and Erin all started Kindergarten...while Ellie chose to steal everyone's attention going hunting for a first of her own. Tyler, a few years behind the big-three, had his first day of drop-off pre-school. Milestones abound.

• Cory had his best week in a month to keep his playoff hopes alive
• BJ had their worst week of the year by over 2 full Expected Week Wins in a week that they played Max and could have really solidified their playoff outlook.
• Trade deadline seller, Dean, is hanging in that Power Ranks middle tier and keeps putting good weeks together...other than that week 18 dud. More on this later.

• Max maintained his Year to Date Power Ranks lead and has reached his best ranking since week 12
• Max, Michael, and Arthur are still in a tier of their own, but it is relatively close from Dave to Robert in ranks 4-8.

• No one really lit it up this week but Max ended up with a great week to play team BJ. Last week when commenting on the delta between teams like Max's Yahoo win total vs his Expected win total based on Expected Week Wins, I noted that this was likely due to winning more close categories than losing them. While this is possible, the delta is also largely due to playing what has been a weaker schedule. Remember that a team's EWW for the week is independent of opponent output. EWW says Max should have only had 8.72 wins last week...but he had 12. Max has been on the short end of the strength of schedule in years past, this year he's getting the better end of it. 

I thought of a new way to put some numbers to how much draft capital was traded this trade deadline. With our current standings, I can project where everyone would slot into the draft order (Robert, sitting 5th, would project to win the BSC and pick first, Max, sitting first, would project to win the league and pick last, and everyone else falls in between). From there I laid out the draft order and assigned each pick a dollar value based on an  ESPN-type player rater where we have a $260 "Auction Budget" for our 30 draft picks where the first pick gets the best player's value, year to date (a $59 Aaron Judge, based on the ESPN ranking algorithm, customized for our states)

• Sorted by Projected draft order, you see from the Pre-Trade-Deadline column that having the number one pick has its privileges. this is because the number one fantasy player typically adds more value to one's team than can be made up for with later first round draft picks...as long as that player ends up the number one player (easier said than done). This is also why you hear about 'third round reversal' in some snake fantasy drafts to try to help make up this gap
• Post-trade-deadline you can really see how All-In Max went, but Michael and Arthur were not far behind. Michael gave away a number of picks after the top 5 rounds, thinking their value to be less than it appears to have been
• For perspective, I went back and did the same analysis for Paul's set of trades last year and he had a 2024 draft day capital of $210, and we know the narrow runway he had this year. Arthur and Michael will have an uphill battle in 2025 and Max will need to climb Mount Everest to compete; but hey, maybe he'll autodraft again.
• Back to 2024, since the deadline when all those players swapped teams here is how all the teams have performed

• Of course, some of this is noise, it is a a 17-week sample vs a 2-week sample, but it underscores a few concepts. 
• Anyone can get hot for two weeks and win a championship, you just have to get into the party. Dave has been far and away the best team in the league for two weeks and he's been between the 4th and the 7th best team all year
• Adding a few (or a bunch) of top end players doesn't guarantee anything. Arthur's production is down 10% since he added all that talent while BJ's production is down 30%...by doing nothing. 
• How this all will affect next year's competition? While we know who will have the advantage on draft day...we have no idea who will compete next year.

It's a sprint to the finish from here. Four regular season weeks to go!