Fantasy Player Rankings Explained

Fantasy Player rankings are everywhere. They are the most often used way to value a player. They are used to draft, used to trade, used to add/drop, everything. But everywhere you go, different places have different rankings, what gives? Is it as simple as differing opinions? Not quite, Thief’s here to give you the low down on how rankings are created and why they differ. Then I’ll give some insight into why I use a Tiered system instead of hard ranks, and why you should do the same.

I’ll try not to delve too far into the math of it all and keep this as a bird’s eye view discussion. Not saying you wouldn’t follow the math, but just that it’s kinda boring. So let’s say you found yourself sitting down with a list of every player and all their stats to date and you want to create rankings. There’s actually 4 different ways to do this, and I’ll go through each way one by one.

1> Judgmental

Pretty straight forward actually, all you’re going to do is look at the list and pick out where you think guys fall. There’s not really any math involved, or nothing complex anyway, you just know who the top players are and who the lower players are and you rank them. Chances are you won’t get much past the top 50 this way, but it’s still something. Sometimes they’ll even mix in (for preseason) average draft position to help the rankings. You can think of a certain Yahoo! Fantasy Sports analyst’s rankings as falling in this category.

2> Quantitative

Here’s where you set up a scoring system. You score each player based on where they fall in each stat category, and then sum the scores. Sort of like the way Rotisserie scoring is done. The guy who has the most assists gets the highest score for assists. So on and so on. It’s very numbers based, and very accurate, BUT it doesn’t account for injuries (like Kevin Martin) or being traded or all sorts of other things that only show up in the judgmental method. This is why you’ll head to some sites and see a list that looks 80% good and 20% WTF? Because the guys who run the numbers on these programs are mainly math geeks, and really don’t play fantasy sports.

3> The Thief’s Method.

I combine all three approaches. I use a quant program to score all the players and then set their ranks. Then I go through those ranks and boot out the ones that don’t make sense, and boost up the one’s that do. Like anyone out there trying to tell you Kevin Martin isn’t a top 50 player, just doesn’t get it. I combine the ease and accuracy of quant with the experience and knowledge of judgmental. Then, instead of a hard rank, I place all the player’s in Tiers….

Why? Great question, glad you asked! Look it comes down to the difference in player values, the difference in the scores. Ranking CP3 as first and Lebron as 2^nd and say Kobe as 3^rd makes it seem like they are all pretty equal in value. But they aren’t. In fact, as I showed you in my ‘So How Good is Chris Paul’ post awhile back, he’s a lot better than Kobe. In fact, a more accurate ranking would probably be CP3 as first, LBJ as second, and Kobe as 5^th, then Dirk as 5^th and a half. Or in other terms, CP3’s rank score is about a 12, LBJ’s is about an 11, then Kobe is about an 8.5 and Dirk is about an 8.3. The problem with a hard 1, 2, 3, 4…. ranking system is that it doesn’t show the magnitude of the difference between the players.

SO what I do is set the top Tier at CP3 and LBJ, who both have rank scores over 11. Then I’ll set the next Tier at all the guys from say 7 to 9, which consists of like 12 players. 2 rank point’s difference from Tier One to Tier Two, then again to Tier three (maybe a little deeper). What this tells you is that it really doesn’t matter if you get CP3 or LBJ, just get one of them. Then on your next pick, it doesn’t matter which Tier Two player you get, so long as he’s in the second Tier and compliments your first pick. If you took LBJ, your second pick should be a Tier two PG. If you took CP3, your second pick should be a Tier Two PF or C.

This is what it’s all about. Playing smarter, knowing what you’re getting, building a winning team not just a group of highly ranked guys mish mashed together. This is what the Thief is working to bring you.

Hope you’re all enjoying the new Forum! Remember, when you try to sign up for it, there’s two parts. First you REGISTER with the forum, then separately you subscribe to be a member (and in doing so send along the PASSWORD). I know it seems like a pain, but you just have to do it once, and this makes sure we keep out spammers and people who aren’t affiliated with our blog. In the end it’s worth it to be sure you’re surrounded by like minded peeps.

Don’t worry playa, The Thief’s got you covered!