If you're a die-hard fantasy footballer, then you probably know all about the concept of Value Based Drafting (VBD). At its purest form, it calls for owners to establish a "baseline" for each position, at which point a value is placed on every player in an effort to determine a relative total.
Ummm, OK so what the heck does that mean?
Simply stated, it's a way to look at how positions have performed in the past and which of those positions warrant an earlier selection in future drafts. My good friend from ESPN.com, Tristan H. Cockcroft, believes in a "replacement-level" baseline. I tend to agree with his assessment.
This train of thought asks the question, "how much better is a starting player than his best replacement?" Quarterbacks and tight ends are a bit easier to replace. For example, if you are in a standard 10-team league, then 10 quarterbacks are starting each week. As a result, the field general who finished 11th in a given season is the baseline for that position. The same goes for tight end (10 starters). All starting spots are of equal value.
On the flip side, running backs and wide receivers are tougher spots to fill, due in large part to the fact that you're starting two or three of them each week. The baseline at running back and wide receivers swells to the 26th player per position, since you're starting two of each plus a flex (we split up the flex spot five and five, thus assuming 25 starters per position).
While VBD is frequently used with projected totals in an often futile effort to predict the future, I like to look back at factual numbers in order to learn how to better draft and which positions to target earlier. With that said, here's a look at the 2014 VBD results. The baseline players are as follows: Tony Romo (QB), Ahmad Bradshaw (RB), Roddy White (WR) and Heath Miller (TE). The players listed with negative values scored fewer points than the baseline player produced at their respective position.
Top 100
So, what have we learned?
Well, the final totals per position are as expected (17 QBs, 32 RBs, 33 WRs, 18 TEs), though we are seeing an increase in wide receiver values ... in a lot of cases, running backs are the dominant position. Overall, six of the first seven players on the list are runners, and they're the names you would expect (Murray, Bell, Lynch, Forte, Foster, Lacy). Murray and Bell were the top VBD players while the biggest surprise was Forsett, who was left off most draft boards but became one of the best waiver-wire adds of 2014. In fact, he finished in the top 10 among fantasy runners overall.
The lesson here?
Target a running back (or two) in the earlier rounds or face a White Walkers-like wrath at the position.
Murray didn't outscore Rodgers based on fantasy points, but he was far more difficult to replace based on VBD (-89.76 difference). Furthermore, look at the decline from Luck to Wilson, from Wilson to Brees and from Brees down to Matt Ryan. This shows us that unless you land either Rodgers or Luck in your draft, there's no reason to reach for a quarterback. Want more proof? In 2014, six signal-callers recorded 290-plus points while another 10 had between 250-289 fantasy points. In 2009, two quarterbacks had over 290 points and just eight were over 250.
One other glaring part of this list is the difference between Gronkowski and every other tight end. With an almost 40-point separation between himself and Graham, it's obvious that Gronkowski is the lone player at his position who warrants a high draft pick in 2015. In fact, he's the lone tight end worth a first rounder or even a top-40 overall pick.
Michael Fabiano is an award-winning fantasy football analyst on NFL.com and NFL Network and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) Hall of Fame. Have a burning question on anything fantasy related? Tweet it to _**@MichaelFabiano**_ or send a question via **Facebook**!
