Saturday, August 17, 2013

2013 Brothers Keeper Draft Results

The draft was a great success. Thanks for being prompt and bringing great food. It was a real joy. Thanks too for the Skype connection for the one who missed. It went great.

Here are the draft results for each team (and the link to the spreadsheet).

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Draft Details

Brothers Keeper draft details are thus:

Time: 5:00 PM for grub.
Draft Time: 6:00 PM.
Location: Same as always.

Items to bring:
Food: Dessert or Side
Drink of your choice
$15 for BBQ
Your draft spreadsheet or computer.

If you need more information contact The Commish.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

The 2013 Brothers Keeper 7 Post-Keeper Pre-Draft Spreadsheet

The keepers for the 2013 Brothers Keeper 7 league year have been reported and declared to the League Commissioner on time. Thank you for being prompt and for selecting what round they belong in.

The following spreadsheet is available for use for the draft (and for download). The draft order and keeper values all need to be verified once more but this should be pretty firm. If you see any errors please notify the League Commissioner or League Historian for an investigation into a correction.

Just a reminder to keep vigil on the draft time and location. Saturday August 17th is the draft day. Be there or make plans to skype in live. Thanks.

Good luck!

Friday, August 9, 2013

Brothers Keeper 7: The 2013 League Year: Keeper Declaration Date and Draft

Welcome back to the ramp up to the new fantasy football season. It is always a joy to anticipate the Brothers Keeper Fantasy Football league year's festivities. Will there be drama? Maybe. Will there be stiff competition? Yes. Will Yer X-MOM win again? Who knows. But keeper league success begins with clear dates for the keeper declaration and draft.

The NFL regular season begins Thursday September 5th. The World Champion Baltimore Ravens take on the Denver Broncos. The draft will need to be completed before this game, preferably no later than Labor Day, Monday September 2d.

To Keeper or Not to Keeper?

The commissioner has determined that the keeper declaration deadline date will be Sunday, August 11, at 11:59 PM CT (cf. Section II. D.). Please email him, call him, text him, tell him in person, or write it in invisible ink and mail it to him to decrypt. Just make sure it is legible and that he remembers it. Also see the league the website.

Please review your 2012 final rosters to view your team's players. Also double check the draft value for your players. Confirm whether or not they have developmental eligibility. If there are any concerns or items you deem are incorrect to the list posted on this blog site, please contact the League Historian for clarification.

If you need a reminder of the keeper rules please consult the Canons. It could be worth your time to revisit it.

Draft Considerations

If you wish to no longer play in Brothers Keeper, please notify the league commissioner as soon as possible. I have no idea why anyone would want to forsake this tremendously talented and competitive league but if you have to do so, please be courteous and do so in a timely manner for the league replacement to be chosen. There are a number of rules that need to be followed before the league gives complete control of your roster to a new league participant. Please remember to log in to the league site as well for other discussions and smack talk.

The draft will be Saturday August, 17th. Time and location will be released soon. Please be prepared. It is a short turn around from previous years following the keeper deadline. Make arrangements to be there or skype in to the fun.

To recall the previous post on the draft order, it will be as follows (with updated names):

1. Holy Smoke
2. ThePunchin Munchkins
3. Forever Tide
4. Game of Pwns
5. SloppyButicusMaximus
6. Points ON the Bench
7. Ghost
8. Yankinfowlsandfeline
9. Rmmm's Golden Eagle
10. Yer X-MOM

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

2012 Accuracy

Accuracy can really matter a lot. Maybe not always. But sometimes you really need predictions to be correct. Perhaps it's a blood sugar test so you don't end up in a diabetic coma. You don't want to be all hopeful that you can eat another cookie on a false blood-sugar reading and then find out some prediction instrument was baseless. No one likes let downs like that. We don't like it in fantasy football either. No one wants to draw blood twice.

So if you are asking yourself, "Who has the most accurate fantasy football projections?" or "Which cheatsheet should I use?" or something along those lines, this post is for you because you care about winning. You don't want to put your stock in something worthless. Everyone knows and utilizes ADP. But obviously you're more sophisticated than ADP. You're the one who wants an advantage over the other guys using ADP. You are not a lemming. You want to eat lemmings for breakfast!

The Accuracy of 2012 Preseason Fantasy Football Projections
So whose fantasy football draft rankings are the most accurate? Whose fantasy football projections are the best? I like accurate fantasy football projections. A few years ago I introduced you to the Fantasy Football Librarian who has taken it upon herself to evaluate preseason fantasy football projections after each fantasy season is complete. Finally someone began holding those prognosticators feet to the proverbial fire.

There was a huge void to fill and she has done so quite admirably and unbiasedly. Thankfully after each season the FFLibrarian does the major task of evaluating the most accurate fantasy football projections on the Internet (of those submitted to her). She then reports the accuracy results to the fantasy football playing masses (Bless you Fantasy Football Librarian!). So who has the most accurate fantasy football projections? Who is the best predictor of regular season fantasy football statistics? And by the way, she, thankfully, breaks it down by position for each year as well. So for your viewing pleasure check out: 2012.

Here are the results of the previous winners 2011 (2011's participants; see also the F.S.T.A. contest rules and F.S.T.A. contest results here; see previous contest awards too); 2010; 2009; 2008; and 2007.

The Fantasy Football Librarian is no longer alone. Now you can also see FantasyPros accuracy evaluations from individual experts. So head on over to FantasyPros where they employ their PAY methodology to evaluate individual preseason draft rankings from 2012. See also the results of the draft rankings from 2011 (and summary) and the draft rankings from 2010 (and the full results where you can view individual positions if you'd like). This doesn't just give you just website rankings results but you can also see multiple individual experts from each site evaluated. So take a look and maybe get informed about whose fantasy football rankings you should check out. Others like ProFootballWeekly and The NY Times Fifth Down have picked up on FantasyPros work.


The Multi-Year Accuracy of Fantasy Football Projections
It is all about consistency. Which fantasy football sites have the most accurate projections over the course of several years? The FFLibrarian has also collated the results from each of the previous years of research/analysis into a handy Multi-year Accuracy Results thus determining which sites have been the most consistently correct over a longer period of time. See the previous post (FFLibrarian's Multi-year Accuracy Results) for 2009's results (yes, I think she skipped 2010 and 2012... Kids will do that you know so give her a break). It should be interesting to see which sites are climbing the ranks or falling compared to last year's Multi-year Accuracy Results if she is able to publish them before the draft.

FantasyPros also has begun to publish a multi-year accuracy for fantasy draft experts and in season experts. They even allow you to change the data sets for more or less years.

Free Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets
If you haven't seen it, take a look at Fantasy Rundown's 2013 Fantasy Football Rankings and Cheat Sheets. There you will find a ton of rankings you can find for free all in one place nicely organized. Study up along with all the free flowing fantasy football news from my own FF & NFL News page. If you access my daily edited The Brothers Keeper Evening Star you can see past daily editions and read up on the news I highlight including fantasy football strategy articles and research. Check out my FF Tools page for more tools at your disposal. Some are free sites and others require money. You will also find some fantasy football research articles there and on my Advanced Stats page. Whatever the case you can't just use a cheat sheet any more. You need to be prepared with a plan and be up on the latest injury news and transitions on NFL


Weekly Sit/Start or Rankings Advice Accuracy
Another fantasy site (that I have mentioned before), FantasyPros began to evaluate the best weekly fantasy football sit/start advice in 2009. They did it again for each week of 2010, 2011, and 2012 along with the option of seeing the multi-year rankings. So check out their full results and the interviews of their top experts from 2010 and some analysis after 2011 along with Which Fantasy Experts Like to Gamble? If you used FantasyPros Expert Consensus Rankings then you should see the results of using multiple combinations of sit/start advice (How Accurate are Expert Consensus Rankings?). By the way I have their widget on my NFL News page. It definitely advocates the "Wisdom of the Crowd" approach to your weekly sit/start decisions and gives you an idea for the accuracy of their widget.

Good luck drafting!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

2013 Pre-Keeper Values: Get Your Thinking Cap On!


Decisions. Decisions. With the countdown to the Brothers Keeper declaration date marching ever closer (date TBD) we have to weigh the values of or final 2012 rosters for the upcoming season. Who will we keep? Who will we throw away?

Every year owners struggle tremendously with this and this year is no different. If it isn't difficult, that means your team has no depth of talent! And that's okay, because you won't have the anguish others will feel for throwing players into the draft pool. Therefore it would be beneficial to the league to post the keeper values for each team's final roster from 2012.

This is has been done in the past on a team by team basis when I post reviews for each team. Last year I had less time and therefore made it just one post with less commentary. This year will be the same. If you are unable to see the values for your team please consult the Yahoo page for your team last year and do your own calculations. You can see some information there and on previous posts here.

I will review the information to see if it is correct. If you see anything that is incorrect please let me know and I will look into it and fix it if need be. However, in my estimate it is pretty accurate.

This year I have the information to know who is and who is not developmental so be sure to review it. If you think a player should be developmental but I don't list them as developmental, please consult the Canons (section II. B.) as some players may have been started on another fantasy team last year and those starts were included in my calculations.

Please log in to the league if you have yet to do so. We will need to nail down a draft date, time, and location. I hope you have a good offseason and wish you all the best as we stare down the beginning of league year activities.

Here is the link to the spreadsheet. From there you might be able to sort the information by team to see your team more succinctly. Otherwise, you also have the visual below.

Please be reminded that if you keep two 1st Round Keepers you will not have a second round pick. Also remember that if you keep two or more from the same round after the 1st round you will need to select a player to move up a round. For instance, one year Yer X-MOM kept two folks who were a 10th round pick. The owner had to choose which player became a 9th round pick from those two. So be sure to indicate this to the Commissioner when you report your keeper selections to him.

If a player was a keeper last year he will move up a round if kept again this year. This reflected in the chart below. The value of players you did not draft but were drafted by another team in 2012 are also reflected in the chart. Please feel free to ask the League Historian or the Commissioner about any clarifications of the Brothers Keeper Canons you may need help with.

Please see below this chart for my best guess on each team's keepers! It is back by popular demand yet without commentary.



My Best Guess at Each Team's 2013 Keepers
Please remember these are my guesses as to what will be done. Not my recommendation on what should be done or what I think is best. I could be way off.

ThePunchin Munchkins (M Peltonen)
Robert Griffin III QB Rd 7, Julio Jones WR Rd 2, M Forte RB Rd 1 and D Moore WR Rd 15 as the developmental eligible keeper.

Holy Smoke (R Johnson)
C Newton QB Rd 14, R White WR Rd 1, V Jackson WR Rd 4 and T Smith WR Rd 7 as developmental. If he doesn't keep V Jackson then he'll keep F Gore.

Yer X-MOM (P Smith)
C Johnson RB Rd 11, A Foster RB Rd 3, M Lynch RB Rd 7, and maybe no one as developmental.

Points ON the Bench (D Kessler)
D Brees QB Rd 1, A Morris Rb Rd 15, and a toss up between C.J. Spiller RB Rd 9 and D Thomas WR Rd 6 for the final keeper spot. If P Thomas RB Rd 8 is kept as developmental eligible then maybe D Thomas WR is kept instead of CJ Spiller RB.

MOTHERSHIP RUSH (R C Smith)
S Smith (Car) WR Rd 14, W Welker WR Rd 4, and P Manning QB Rd 2, and maybe L Blount RB Rd 15 as developmental eligible.

Rmmm's Golden Eagle (D Pilcher)
Rmmm is my pick to go to the championship this year. He'll need D Martin RB Rd 3, D Bryant Rd 7, and T Brady QB Rd 1 or J Graham TE Rd 7 to do do it. D Wilson RB Rd 8 is my guess for his developmental. If he forgoes keeping T Brady he could keep T Romo QB Rd 7 as a developmental instead. M Ingram is also a developmental possibility.

Forever Tide (M Mohler)
V Cruz WR Rd 13, R Gronkowski TE Rd 6, and R Mathews RB Rd 4 will probably be the standard keepers. R Wilson QB Rd 15, C Palmer QB Rd 15, and D Richardson RB Rd 15 all make for interesting choices for developmental eligibility. With L Fitzgerald happy in Arizona, C Palmer is my pick.

Yankinfowlsandfeline (J Smith)
A Rodgers QB Rd 8, T Richardson RB Rd 2, and M Jones-Drew RB Rd 1. James Jones WR Rd 15 makes the most sense as a developmental eligible keeper.

TheSloppyButts (M R Smith)
R Rice RB Rd 1, L McCoy RB Rd 1, and J Charles RB Rd 12 seem pretty clear as normal keepers unless A.J. Green WR Rd 10 and E Decker WR Rd 6 are kept instead. C Kaepernick QB Rd 15 will probably be the developmental eligible keeper.

Ghost (B Garner)
R Wayne WR Rd 6, Cal Johnson WR Rd 1, and A Peterson RB Rd 1, with A Luck QB Rd 12 as the developmental eligible keeper.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

A Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart Update: 2012

On July 31, 2010 I published one of my most popular posts in the broader fantasy football arena: Building a Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart has shown up high on multiple search engines queries and has been viewed numerous times according to Google Analytics. Another popular post has been Do Bookends Rule? A Study on the Value of Draft Slots/Positions in a Snake Draft. That study could only have been produced on the heels of it's predecessor (Building a Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart). The methodology is still the same as in 2010's update which was employed again in 2011's update. However, don't be fooled, there are others using my work for their leagues now as well. There is value for those who know what it is trying to convey. Be sure to tailor any draft value chart for your fantasy football league's rules and scoring.

Review and Baselines
I have built an Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart that is league specific in order to place a numeric value on every draft pick in the fantasy football draft according to the Brothers Keeper scoring settings. In order to eradicate human errors in the actual fantasy football drafts, the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value chart provides us with the an educated estimate of the perfect market efficiency value of each draft pick. Instead of utilizing straight fantasy points, I have utilized fantasy points over baseline (FPOB) in order to evaluate the players from different positions equally. The baselines from years past are as follows:

Baselines of Overall Performance For Each Year:

2006
10th Ranked QB = 240.3 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 148.9 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 112 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 118 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 139 fantasy points

2007
10th Ranked QB = 281.18 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 150.8 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 106.55 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 127 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 146 fantasy points

2008
10th Ranked QB = 266.32 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 163.28 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 100.9 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 129 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF =142 fantasy points

2009
10th Ranked QB = 304.34 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 155.65 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 138.6 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 122 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 137 fantasy points

2010
10th Ranked QB = 313.44 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 153.88 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 124.25 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 120 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 131 fantasy points

2011
10th Ranked QB = 303.26 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 149.65 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 133.75 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 135 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 136 fantasy points

Now that the 2012 fantasy football season is complete, the 2012 baselines can now be added:

2012
10th Ranked QB = 351.46 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 143.55 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 133.68 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 135 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 151 fantasy points

As you should notice, the baselines did not differ wildly from those of the previous 3 seasons for WR/RBs, TE, K, and DEF. It did increase for QBs. For those interested here is the 7 year average of those baselines:

7 Year Avg
10th Ranked QB = 344.54 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 172.75 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 140.49 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 145.86 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 161.86 fantasy points

Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart
Below is the post 2012 Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart. The first column is the round each pick is made in. The second column is the individual team's draft position for a snake draft. The third column is the overall pick number. The next five columns detail each season's Ideal Draft Value for each pick from 2006 - 2012 (One Louder!).


The 2010 Amendment to Consider
Now that you can see the 2012 update we need to revisit some Brothers Keeper history. The inaugural season of this keeper league was 2007. As you should recall, it utilized the full 17 weeks of the NFL regular season in order to complete the playoffs. As such the 2006 and 2007 FPOB numbers are actually skewed higher because the fantasy point totals involved actually reflect an extra week of fantasy point production compared to the 2008 - 2012 fantasy seasons. In order to make the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart more accurate I have added a preferred colored column to it that reflects the average FPOB from 2008 - 2012 since we have only used 16 weeks of the regular NFL season to complete our fantasy football playoffs (cf. I. League Settings). Therefore the 5 Year Average does not include the 17 week skewed FPOB from 2006 - 2007. For your consideration the difference between the 5 Year Average and the 7 Year Average is small after the first round as indicated in the far right column titled Difference.

If you think the 5 Year Average of the FPOB from 2008 - 2012 is better, then take a look at the 5 Year Average of the baselines from those years:

5 Year Avg
10th Ranked QB = 307.76 fantasy points
50th Ranked RB/WR = 153.20 fantasy points
10th Ranked TE = 126.24 fantasy points
10th Ranked K = 128.2 fantasy points
10th Ranked DEF = 139.4 fantasy points

Here, then, is the 2012 update to the visual graph of the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart:


For those who would like to visually see the difference between the 5 Year Average and the 7 Year Average see the following graph:


Now that we have the 2012 update completed we can proceed with better research in the upcoming blogs. I will refer to the Brothers Keeper Ideal Fantasy Football Draft Value Chart often. This should also aid competitors when valuing draft picks in any potential trade. May you enjoy your fantasy football offseason as the 2013 season begins to near!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

The 2013 Brothers Keeper Draft Order

Two years ago, as a result of the new 6 team playoff format, discussion arose about what to do with the draft order. After a number of participants gave their input a new draft order was researched and proposed for implementation for the 2011 season. It was accepted and utilized and a competitive 2011 season ensued.



Following the 2011 draft order equation research and based off the Final 2012 Brothers Keeper 6 fantasy football season final standings, regular season winning percentage, and regular season total points scored (see the box above), the upcoming 2013 draft order would be as follows (if the method is still accepted by the league and the Commissioner without modification; here's the link to the Google Doc version of the spreadsheet):



As you can see, because the regular season winning percentage and point total matter for two thirds of the equation the draft order looks pretty solid. The weakest two teams will definitely be drafting in the first two spots. However, we will need to invoke the rule that the champion drafts last rather than the strongest team. Thus Rmmm's Golden Eagle will need to be placed in the 9th draft order position though his team appears stronger than the champion Yer X-MOM in the 3 Factor Draft Order Equation. He scored a large number of points in the regular season compared to Yer X-MOM.

For anyone concerned about Forever Tide not performing well in the consolation bracket we will consider the scenarios. Forever Tide went without a kicker and a team defense in week 15 and in week 16. Thus it could be gathered that Forever Tide intentionally lost the games for a better draft pick in 2013. However this does not appear to be the case.

While Forever Tide had a higher winning percentage during the regular season his regular season point total was very low due to a weak team or poor sit/starts. MOTHERSHIP RUSH actually scored stronger in the regular season but had a worse record than Forever Tide due to the hardest fantasy schedule in 2012. In theory his team was stronger than Forever Tide in 2012 and should draft after him based on points and points against. However, Forever Tide is not as weak as Holy Smoke or ThePunchin Munchkins and thus the draft order equation reflects this. With that said, MOTHERSHIP RUSH and Forever Tide are close enough in strength that if Forever Tide won the 9th Place consolation game in week 16 the two of them would be drafting in reverse order. That is, Forever Tide in 9th place and not 10th place would be drafting 4th rather than 3d. He would not have drafted 5th because he did not make the playoffs as did TheSloppyButts. This could appear to be significant, but in reality the total points scored in the regular season indicate he was weaker than MOTHERSHIP RUSH in 2012. I suspect Forever Tide may want to modify his drafting strategy. Straight fantasy points are not as accurate as fantasy points above or below a baseline (FPOB).

While Holy Smoke and ThePunchin Munchkins played to win in the consolation bracket and made it to the 7th place game, they were the weakest two teams in the league. They were so close that whoever won that week 16 game between one another would indeed draft second overall in 2013. The loser of that single game was to gain the first overall pick. However, this became the game to determine who was stronger between these two teams. Both teams played their hardest and did not intentionally bench anyone. The final results indicate it was a close game but ThePunchin Munchkins was indeed the better team and therefore should draft second overall in 2013, rather than first. Remember: In order to create league parity we want the worst team drafting first as it is the most advantageous draft position to draft from to better their team (see the research here).

Forever Tide
2012 Toilet Bowl Trophy Winner
The scenarios are generally not going to change who the first two teams are and who the second two teams are. All the consolation bracket did was award the Toilet Bowl trophy to Forever Tide. An embarrassing feat. It was his first consolation bracket appearance in his two seasons of play. It does not matter who won the consolation bracket.

Fundamentally it is the championship bracket that means most. Anything that promotes the regular season chances of the majority of teams to make the playoffs should be more important than who wins or loses a four team consolation bracket. The current draft order contributes to that. People want a great chance to make the playoffs to win the championship. The regular season does that and a 6 team playoff is way better than an 8 team playoff. How does one keep all of these prominent? At this juncture the league's canons seem to maneuver these issues very well and very intelligently.

If another draft order needs to be proposed I am all ears and would like to see the research. Over time this league has changed its draft order because of the update from an 8 team playoff format to a 6 team playoff format from an earlier discussion. But the main thing the 3 Factor Power Ranking Draft Order does is keep the league competitive by rewarding weaker teams with better draft picks for next year so they can have the best chance to advance and not remain weak thus creating parity within the league. It is a model for many other keeper leagues to follow. We've hammered out the issues and it is fun.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

2012 Brothers Keeper Champion: The Year of Yer X-MOM

After finishing the regular season with a three game losing streak, Yer X-MOM (the 2011 Brothers Keeper Toilet Bowl Winner) got a bye week in the first round of the playoffs. Just the break with the past that was needed for two, close, last man remaining wins. Brothers Keeper has a new 3-Time Champion: Yer X-MOM (P Smith).

Yankinfowlsandfeline (J Smith) had defeated Yer X-MOM in week 4 and week 13 of the regular season. Yer X-MOM's nemesis of 2012. No other team had beaten Yer X-MOM twice in 2012. He had a chance for revenge on the biggest stage of all: the 2012 Brothers Keeper Championship Game. There is no other way to

The championship began with a large lead for Yer X-MOM after Matt Ryan's stellar game on Saturday night. However, Yankinfowlsandfeline (J Smith) regained the upper hand with a better performance by Aaron Rodgers. Other than the QBs, the rest of the players on both teams underperformed for the most part. Sure Randall Cobb and Joique Bell scored 13+ points but most other players did very little to note. All that remained after the late afternoon games was about a 25 point lead held by Yankinfowlsandfeline with only a lone RB left to play for Yer X-MOM ( P Smith).

Marshawn Lynch was drafted in the 8th round in 2011 by Yankinfowlsandfeline. After a terrible start to the year he was dropped. Yer X-MOM picked him up off the waivers and held on to him but did not start him throughout the rest of 2011. Lynch was started so few times that he was eligible as a developmental keeper for Yer X-MOM in 2012 worth only an 8th round pick. Yer X-MOM held on to the RB and was rewarded for it in the 2012 championship game against the man who dropped Lynch the year before. Loyalty is a wonderful thing. Payback even sweeter. Yer X-MOM going from worst to first is also significant.

Congratulations to all of this year's league participants. It was very competitive. Good luck this offseason.