The Philosophy of Fantasy Sports

What separates my strategy from the rest? What makes the Thief so much different than any other advice site or blog out there? Why are you better off coming here to ask questions and get answers than any other forum out there? The answer to these questions all comes down to Philosophy. You see, 99.9% of the content out there, no matter which fantasy sports site you visit, is all based off the draft. These guys spend countless hours trying to nail down some way, be it mathematically, or opinionated, to rank players in some fashion to prepare you for a draft. They truly believe they can predict the future better than their competitors. Two problems with this, first that no one can predict the future, and second, this doesn’t help anyone actually build a championship team.

Excluding football for the moment, any true fantasy balla understands that (whether you play Roto or H2H formats) it all comes down to building a winning team and a winning strategy. This means either building a team that is well balanced among the different scoring categories, or building one that is dominant in a majority of them. You and I know this; every website out there involved in fantasy sports apparently does not.

When I rank players, be it for the draft or for midseason play, I use a tiered system as opposed to hard ranks (1, 2, 3, 4…). Why? Because I could sit here and construct a team for you in either baseball or basketball that is chock full of top 50 players but will get crushed. Following some Joe Schmoes draft sheet, I could comprise a five man team of Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan, Gerald Wallace, Derrick Rose, and Joe Johnson – which on paper and going by draft rank sheets looks dominant. However in actual play, based on a standard league format, this team will consistently lose in 3’s, FT%, points, assists, and turnovers. Alternatively I could build a team with mid ranked players that would win, week in and week out, because it is well rounded with players who contribute to each category. When it comes to your pick in the draft, you MUST understand that it’s more important to take a PG if you have a bunch of PF’s as opposed to taking the 29th ranked guy on your sheet because he has the best rank left on the draft board. This is what separates winners from losers.

Will Kobe increase his points per game this year? Will Carmelo increase his points per game? I don’t know and neither does anyone else. What I do know is that they are both scorers and it makes no sense to have both when you need rebounds. What I do know is what their career average PPG is, and that by the end of this season, their PPG will be ABOUT what it has been in the past. And with this information I can make sure my team has a solid distribution of each statistical category.



During the season, what separates my advice from the rest of the information out there? Well, for starters, most sites will focus on ADD/DROPS from the WW. Again, they will use a recent game or string of games to argue as to why you should pick up so and so. Yeah, I’ll do that too from time to time, but we both know the REAL JUICE comes from trading. That WW guy you just grabbed, who will either be on your bench or the last guy in your starting lineup, ain’t gonna be the difference between winning and losing a season. However dealing Paul Pierce after the first month when his FG% was an anomaly (stupidly high) and snagging Amar’e Stoudemire in the trade after a slow start, WILL win you fantasy leagues. Particularly if you know which categories of stats you are dealing away and which ones you’re getting.

The difference between me and the rest of the sites out there is that I don’t try to predict the future. I just use the past to make a reasonable assumption about the future, and help you use this information to build a winning strategy. Fantasy sports drafts last one day and MOST of us finish a season with less than 20% of the guys we drafted. Trades happen all season long, and it is utterly important to know how each trade affects your squad. It’s also important to know that the guys you are trading will likely decline in performance as the year goes on, and the ones your getting will only improve. Other sites will tell you to go after the HOT PLAYER OF THE WEEK, and sell your cold players. That’s just plain stupid and a sure fire way to lose. Let me graphically show you what I mean. Below is an image of a player’s statistical performance throughout the season. Players go one streaks, be it hot or cold, and their performance does not go in a straight line. Sure it might trend up, might trend down, but in the end, this is what you’re gonna get…

Peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys. Prior to coming here, your whole strategy was based on trading for players as they peak. Everyone loves having the hot player on their team. Likewise you traded away players as they valley, practically giving them away. Instead, I try to teach you that, using history, we can make a reasonable assumption as to what Jennings will finish the season averaging. Then if we trade him away at a peak, and trade for a player in a valley, we ensure that we’ve always got players on our teams that are in the upswing of performance. Moreover we ensure that our opponents get players who are about to go on a downswing for performance. Double bonus!

Does this work 100% of the time? NOPE! But it doesn’t need to. However it does work 4 out of 5 times. It worked for Amar’e, Gerald Wallace, Caron Butler and Paul Pierce, but not (yet) for John Salmons. That’s more than enough to bring home the gold. By following this blog, you’ll have access to my research. When I issue out a Buy Low or a Sell High, you can be confident that I’ve put in the time to check a player’s history, see if he’s injured, and see if it’s a new coach or new team affecting his play. You won’t get this anywhere else. Moreover, with my Secret Sauce Calculator, you’ll know exactly which players are right for you to go after, and which ones are right for you to offer out.

Now again, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Great! I’m never going to tell anyone about this and keep all this info to myself’. Well for starters that would suck for me since blogs are only profitable if they get sufficient traffic. I want to keep all this research and tools free to you and get paid by advertisers, so I need to increase traffic. But more importantly, it will NOT hurt you to tell your opponents about this site. It will increase trading in your league, as everyone will know which categories to focus on. If an opponent needs assists and you need rebounds (but have assists to offer), in order to make a trade he needs to KNOW he needs assists. At that point, you’ve both made your teams better.

Moreover, no matter how much I tell you to buy low or sell high, you’ll be amazed at how many people will STILL do the opposite. It’s ingrained in nature. They’re stubborn, their egotistical, or their just playing their own gut feelings which is fine too. So while my site and my calculator will convince him he needs to trade, YOU can still convince him to sell low on Amar’e and buy high on Brandon Jennings.

I hope you all enjoy the site, and the spreadsheet. Remember you must be subscribed to the blog (receive posts via email) in order to get the password to access the spreadsheet. It’s been a real pleasure so far doing all this, and I hope it continues to grow. Stay tuned for my latest Buy Low candidates this evening. Don’t worry playa, Thief’s got your covered.