Since there are only 4 players at each position, we will use the last player at each position as the baseline player, QB4, RB4, WR4 and TE4. This would be what’s referred to as the "Worst starter" method of VBD.
So here would be the positional value of each player.
We established the Baseline for each player by subtracting the baseline players projected fantasy points from each player, so QB1 at 100 - QB4 at 70, yields a baseline value of 30 for QB1, and 0 for QB4.
Let’s just say for the sake of argument you have the 3rd pick and that everyone else in the draft goes with the convention of picking either the player they think will score the most points or go with RB or WR first, because that’s what they’ve always done, while you are drafting based on value.
This would be the results:
You can see that we chose the player with the highest value with each selection and even though your Team 3 didn’t have the first pick, you ended up with the 2nd best team, showing that VBD does indeed work.
A much more likely scenario would be the one below:
Now, with the majority going with RB first theory, you dominated this draft with a far superior team.
This example used the "worst starter" method. While this is a good baseline measurement, it has a small flaw in that owners do not, for the most part, draft their entire starting lineup of QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE or Flex in the first 7 picks.
FFC analyzed over 800 16-round mock drafts to determine the average number of players at each position, QB, RB, WR, TE, that were being drafted before the final position was drafted to fill out all teams in the league's starting lineup. They will become the baseline player for each league size and league roster requirements.
Value Based Drafting w/ Average Draft Position
Value based drafting, VBD, as a concept is relatively simple. It’s been in use since the mid 1990’s, but many fantasy owners fail to understand how valuable a tool it can be.
VBD first compares players based upon a certain "baseline" player at their own position, which we’ll discuss further later in the article, then ranks the players overall sorted by their relative value. This enables you to build a cheat sheet that compares players not only to their own position, but comparably across ALL positions.
Adding in the component of Average Draft Position further fine tunes the strategy and combines the best of both drafting techniques.
Let’s take a look at the following scenario to show how VBD works, and how in a simple model the "baseline" is established and applied.
This baseline will be used because we want to judge all the players at a position to the amount of players it takes to fill the entire leagues starting roster. The breakdown of each league size and requirement is listed below:
2 RB 3WR Leagues
2 RB 2 WR 1 RB/WR Flex Leagues
So as an example, for the most common league size and configuration, a 10 Team Standard Combination Scoring 1QB 2RB 2WR 1RB/WR Flex 1TE 1D/ST 1K league, we will use the 11th QB, 35th RB, 36th WR, 10th TE, 10th D/ST, and the 10th K as the baseline players because that amount for each position, on average, will be drafted to fill the entire league's starting lineups.