Would an Economist excel at fantasy football?

[TommyJeff]

For the few here that participate in fantasy football, you might know the two most popular ways to draft a team are by either a serpentine draft, or by auction. Auction being the far better free market approach. Since the entity we are dealing with, nfl player stats, is imperfectly predicted before the season, would an economist or mathematics minded individual be able to devise a near perfect strategy for assigning a reasonable purchase price in an auction for the unknown variable of nfl player performance.

Luck is a partial factor, as in poker, but is there any skill in fantasy football drafting as we know to be the case in poker?

 

[thoughtomator]

For the few here that participate in fantasy football, you might know the two most popular ways to draft a team are by either a serpentine draft, or by auction. Auction being the far better free market approach. Since the entity we are dealing with, nfl player stats, is imperfectly predicted before the season, would an economist or mathematics minded individual be able to devise a near perfect strategy for assigning a reasonable purchase price in an auction for the unknown variable of nfl player performance.

Luck is a partial factor, as in poker, but is there any skill in fantasy football drafting as we know to be the case in poker?

Do economists ever get anything right?

Fantasy football these days is ruled by statisticians. It was a lot more fun when someone going by instinct could do as well as a pro, if their instincts were solid. No longer.

 

[Krugminator2]

To answer your questions.

Yes. Fantasy sports is beatable. Not likely for a good living. There are way easier ways to make money than poker or fantasy sports. You are squeezing blood out of stone. Yes. The people who win value players like stocks.

There are economists who have quantified a number of things that would be helpful to sports betting. One book I read is called Scorecasting by a University of Chicago economist.

To recap, if you are smart enough to beat fantasy sports, you should be trading, not making peanuts grinding it out. Fantasy sports maybe made sense to put effort into around 2010. You are asking basic questions 8 years too late.

 

[TommyJeff]

To answer your questions.

Yes. Fantasy sports is beatable. Not likely for a good living. There are way easier ways to make money than poker or fantasy sports. You are squeezing blood out of stone. Yes. The people who win value players like stocks.

There are economists who have quantified a number of things that would be helpful to sports betting. One book I read is called Scorecasting by a University of Chicago economist.

To recap, if you are smart enough to beat fantasy sports, you should be trading, not making peanuts grinding it out. Fantasy sports maybe made sense to put effort into around 2010. You are asking basic questions 8 years too late.

Thank uou for the reply, but I’m asking about local office leagues and I wasn’t clear in my OP.
it’s not so much about being the best as it is at being better than 11 other coworkers, which I think we’d agree is easier

 

[TommyJeff]

Do economists ever get anything right?

I dont need to be fastest in the group to outrun the bear

 

[dannno]

How much is the pool winnings? Is this something you want to really spend a lot of time on?

There are so many statistics in football.. Let's say you're playing Yahoo Fantasy Football, or whatever site, the fantasy site gives their own player rankings based on a broad set of stats.. I go almost solely based on that, and partly based maybe with a slight bias on what team's games I want to watch. You don't really need to be an economist to do that, per se. Do you think you can come up with a better ranking system than the fantasy website? If so, go for it. Because essentially it is all about ranking the players and which positions are most important. That can change based on individual league rules.

 

[TommyJeff]

How much is the pool winnings? Is this something you want to really spend a lot of time on?

There are so many statistics in football.. Let's say you're playing Yahoo Fantasy Football, or whatever site, the fantasy site gives their own player rankings based on a broad set of stats.. I go almost solely based on that, and partly based maybe with a slight bias on what team's games I want to watch. You don't really need to be an economist to do that, per se. Do you think you can come up with a better ranking system than the fantasy website? If so, go for it. Because essentially it is all about ranking the players and which positions are most important. That can change based on individual league rules.

It’s not so much about ranking as it is about how to best utilize the rankings. Many factors must be accounted for in each league that goes beyond the yahoo rankings.