Dynamic Value Based Drafting (dVDB)

or I was just starting to understand regular value based drafting.

Dynamic Value Based Drafting (dVBD) is very much like Alice’s rabbit hole. The deeper a person digs into it, the more confusing it becomes. The point of this article is to pull the curtain on the wizard that is dVBD.

A variation of Value Based Drafting (VBD), dVBD has taken the philosophy of the best player available to a whole new mathematical plane. Static or standard VBD is quickly becoming the standard for most advanced fantasy football players. That being the case, the race is on to find an edge over the competition. When often times there’s a 5% difference between winning a championship and missing the playoffs any competitive edge is a an enormous advantage. To this end, dynamic value based drafting has come into being.

To fully understand dVBD you have to first understand VBD. With that knowledge, you can dig into what gives the dynamic version that 5% edge. Taking players who represent the most value available with every pick becomes much more of a science with dVBD. What dVBD does, is take VBD and converge it with the two basic principals of macro economics, supply and demand.

VBD will give you a relative value of players in comparison to each other before the draft starts. What dVBD does is give you relative values of players as a draft goes on. The drawback of VBD is that every draft is different, and there is no way to compare players available, to players on your roster, to players on other teams’ rosters. This part is the art that goes with the science that is VBD. Take this scenario for instance:

You are drafting in the 10 spot of a 12 team draft. The two owners after you already have taken two quarterbacks each, and the draft is only in the 7th round. You know that you only start one, thus making the odds of them taking another quarterback at this point without filling other need spots is next to nothing. Your VBD sheet is screaming take a QB. If you follow the VBD advice, you will get a very good quarterback. Then with your next pick (5 slots later) you will be able to pick up the second or third WR or RB on your list. All in all, a very good two picks. You were able to get the best available player with both of your picks. There is a better scenario however. This is when VBD goes to the next level and becomes dynamic. Knowing that the owners after you won’t take a quarterback you can snag the best wide out available. Then on the way back down, you can still get the same quarterback you would have in the first scenario. You just improved your team by possibly 2%, maybe more.

It’s little differences like on draft day that can make a huge difference on championship day. Dynamic Value Based Drafting is a combination of the science of Value Based Drafting with the art of understanding supply and demand. There are two ways to go about implementing this strategy, and neither may be right for you. If you don’t have the patience or want to deal with the stress that this can bring on draft day, it’s perfectly acceptable to sit on your VBD list and wing it. This by itself will put you in the top 10% of all owners out there.

Others may have the patience to use VBD as a guide and look ahead 5-15 picks making the best decisions for them. This strategy will easily put you in the top 7% of all drafters, and is one of the surest ways to guarantee you’ll be hoisting your league’s trophy come the end of your fantasy football season. There is another way to win however, that is more accurate less stressful on draft day.

The best way to implement Dynamic Value Based Drafting is to write mathematical formulas to evaluate the draft as it goes. This can be done in Excel, Visual Basic, C, or .NET depending on how in depth you want to go. It can also be done with a predefined list of formulas that are written down then calculated as the draft goes on with nothing more than a calculator and a pad of paper. If you’re not a computer guru, or if you don’t have a degree from MIT in mathematics, I would recommend purchasing a program to do the work for you. We feel the best dVBD tool that is on the market today is The Coordinator. You can purchase this fantasy football draft tool, and put yourself in the top 5% of all owners out there. While the gut formula is great, it’s tough to beat a mathematical program that can calculate your pick based on all the previous rounds picks and the next rounds likely outcomes.

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