Method to the Madness - There's A Hole

Photo: Jerry Habraken, USA Today Sports

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This year I will be putting together a few articles in a series called "Method to the Madness," where I will look at different approaches to fantasy drafts.  This particular article, "There's A Hole," first debuted back in 2007, but many of the concepts still hold true today.  

"There's a hole, there's a hole 
There's a hole in the middle of your draft...."

Allow me to point something out to you that you probably already knew. You have a hole. That's right - a "hole". It's there, even if you don't see it yet - trust me on it. By the time you are done reading this, it'll be staring right back at you. The good news is that we can take advantage of it.

So where is this "hole" exactly? Well, it is in the middle of your fantasy draft. Those of you who have run a mock draft or two probably know exactly what I am talking about. This "hole" is a void in value - meaning that you really don't care who you draft at that point of the draft, everyone feels about the same as far as value, upside, potential, risk, etc. All things considered, you are completely ambivalent as to who you pick.

Digging a Hole

If you haven't run a few mock drafts yet, you may want to try out a couple and you will probably see what I mean. The talent pool just seems to peak at some points and then some other places there is just a feeling of "who cares" for that round. Examples always help me, so let me walk you through some of my perspective on this for this season.

After the first 60 players are gone in a fantasy draft for me, I start to not care as much as to who's left. The Top 25-35 RBs are gone as are the Top 25 WRs, along with a few tight ends and quarterbacks. The next 2-3 rounds seem kind of boring as you wait for the later rounds where you start to feel another round of anticipation as you hope a guy falls to you at your later picks.

How does this happen? Well, talent often fits into "tiers" or "buckets" in drafts, and after the first few tiers there are just these big buckets of similar players that all seem like the same guy. Picking the first player out of the pile isn't much more of an advantage as picking the last one in the pile, so there's no advantage to going first. In fact, there is an advantage to going LAST. That leads into the strategy of exploiting the holes to your benefit.

Under Construction

The first thing you want to identify for your fantasy draft is where you believe the tiers lie. That means you need to know where there are long runs of players that are similar in value. Again, in my example I believe that the first 30 players are advantageous over the next few tiers, and after about 60 players I see a bid drop in value. The value "comes back to me" at about Player #85 and stays there for another 20-25 players. Therefore, there exists a "hole" between Player 60 and Player 85, which lines up nicely with Rounds 6 and 7 for 12 team drafts.

So, let's look at how to take advantage of this hole. First of all, I don't care much about these players as they are all the same to me. If at all possible, I don't even want to pick in this part of the fantasy draft. I would much rather be picking in the adjacent peaks of value (Players 31-60 and 85-105) than be in that hole. That's the first half of what we needed to discover - where we want to be drafting from if at all possible.

Now comes the tougher part - what do we want to give up to other fantasy team owners in order to make our wish come true and get out of Rounds 6 and 7? Looking again at our tiering system, the players near the trailing end of the first larger tier also start to look similar. Picks 17-30 start to feel pretty similar with a lot of very good WRs being available there but not much distinct value between any two of them. This becomes the second part of what we needed - something to give up to other owners in a trade to get out of Rounds 6 and 7 later in the draft.

Patch That Hole

Here's all that is needed at this point to improve your fantasy draft - a trade partner. As long as you can get a fair trade, or at least close to one, you have a great chance of improving your team. Let's look at two example trades, and for the sake of argument I will assume that you are picking in the middle of your draft (Pick #5). In Figure 1, I highlighted your picks and also broke down the values of each draft pick from the Footballguys Pick Value Calculator.

Figure 1 - Team #5 Pick Values

Suppose now that Team #3 is interested in moving up into the second round and having two picks nearly back-to-back. You offer him (or her) your second round pick (2.08) in exchange for his third (3.03), and to make it fair you ask for his fifth pick (5.03) for your sixth (6.08). Here is Figure 2 we see the picks you are trading in orange and his in blue:

Figure 2 - Trade #1 Pick Values

So is this a fair deal? Looking at the pick values in Table #1 we have you actually LOSING value based on the calculator (-2 points), but given the big totals this is nearly a dead heat. All things considered this is a very fair deal.

Table 1 - Trade #1 Pick Values

Team #3 has shown that they are a fair trader, so let's go back to them once again and work a second deal. You are now interested in moving down from Round 7, but you want to move a later pick up into Round 9. Going to the chart again (See Figure 3) you ask for Round 8 (8.10) and Round 9 (9.03) picks in exchange for Round 7 (7.05) and Round 13 (13.05). Round 13 to Round 9 sounds like a lot, but we'll check the math in a moment.

Figure 3 - Trade #2 Pick Values

So once again, is this a fair deal? Looking at the pick values in Table #2 we have you actually LOSING value based on the calculator (-5 points) yet again, and now the values are smaller here later in the draft. Even though you are technically losing about 2% value here, it is still advantageous to you because you are getting "something for nothing", as you don't believe in the value of the player matching the value of the pick. That's important to remember - your goal is getting out of the hole.

Table 2 - Trade #2 Pick Values

Note - even if you think that he won't take the deal, try. You will still "win" if you can get your 12th or 11th pick up into Round 9 at the expense of giving up the earlier round (moving down from Round 7 to Round 8). The goal is to (A) get out of the hole that is Round 7 and (B) pick up an extra pick in Round 9, where there is still a lot of value.

Wrapping it all up, we can take a look at Figure 4 and see the net results of these two deals. To make it easier to read, I grayed out the rounds that have zero picks and highlighted the four rounds (Rounds 3, 5, 8 and 9) where you now have an extra pick.

Figure 4 - Net Results

Something from Nothing

So how did you do? Let's look at the positives from these two moves:

• Two picks early in Round 3 - Yes you lost a Round 2 pick, but you still have two picks in the Player #18-#30 range. As mentioned before, those players were similar enough that you didn't mind moving down.
• Six Picks by 5.05 - This is probably the biggest deal of them all. Before seven other teams even have their fifth player, you will have SIX. That's huge. You also stay in the Top 55 players in the draft at this point, and will have six of them as your starters and / or top RB backup. Great job.
• Four picks in Rounds 8 and 9 - Another bonus. Here is where you get instant flexibility. After the other teams start to catch up to you by grabbing their sixth and seventh players, you come right back and have eight by the end of Round 8, then add two more by the middle of Round 9. Here is where you can go early for a defense if you like or grab a handcuff RB if it makes sense, grab two QBs for a nice committee starter approach or just grab the four best players on your board. Again, you will now be two players / picks ahead of all but three teams.

The concept of identifying the "hole" in your draft and using that knowledge to your advantage can instantly make you into a savvy trader and drafter. Making two simple moves that does little more than shuffling around your draft order can change your fantasy fortune for the better overnight. Some holes are better than others, now aren't they?