How do you build a juggernaut? How do you craft a team with more than just the occasional value player? Who should you draft to withstand the vagaries of the season and emerge better than ever?
These are the questions we’re obsessed with at RotoViz, and we try to answer them from a variety of perspectives. One angle is to create upside from uncertainty. Zero RB, Antifragility, and the Myth of Value-Based Drafting explored a way to build super teams through the chaos of the season and the structural inefficiencies in ADP. Jack Miller’s recent Zero RB and Why It’s Poised to Smash in 2020 demonstrates why this could be the best season yet for Zero RB.
Another angle is to exploit structural advantages in specific formats. The Best Ball Workshop uses the Roster Construction Explorer to help you beat the system. Owners who followed the lessons in 2019 racked up big gains. Last week, I explained how you can Deploy 3 Simple Hacks to Start Your FFPC Best Ball League With Win Rates Above 10%.
Those are tactics you can use to dominate your leagues before we even consider player selection. But player selection also plays a big role. We focus much of our research on misunderstood player profiles. Blair Andrews’ The Wrong Read helps you target players who are most likely to break out while avoiding those most likely to collapse.
Then we focus on the season in question. The Projection Machine lets you project each of the 32 teams and provides advanced data to aid in your research. It helps you find the players with the most volume-based upside and also lets you explore different scenarios. If you want to know which players are most likely to benefit from teammate injuries, the PM lets you experiment and find out.
Today the focus is on Range of Outcomes. Dave Caban’s tool helps you manage several player-specific questions simultaneously. First, it uses Similarity Scores to help you find the comps who were historically similar in production and experience. The ROO provides high, median, and low projections based on these matches.
It also helps you visualize their subsequent outcomes by looking at year-over-year results. If we want to know how difficult it is for a player like Michael Thomas to sustain his ridiculous results, we can find the answer.
Even though many of Thomas’ matches couldn’t quite equal his 2019 season, it was still difficult to reach the same level again the following season. In fact, it’s impressive that 11 of his matches scored 20-plus PPG in their followup campaigns. While we know it will be hard to equal a WR season that ranked No. 7 in PPG over the last 20 years, Thomas is the easy No. 1 heading into 2020.
