Even in dynasty fantasy football leagues, there is a microwave mentality for many owners. We jump at the waiver wire weekly looking for the next uptick player in opportunity or matchup. We wring our hands to set the right starting lineup combination, hoping not to leave the best option on the bench. The entire process led me to dig into one of my more typical dynasty league formats to gauge the impact of a single player on a weekly head-to-head result.
League Format: 12-team, PPR, 5-point passing touchdowns, typical kicker scoring, added element of yardage allowed to team defense scoring.
Starting Lineup: 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1RB-WR-TE Flex, K, DST
Sample Size: 2014, 2015, 2016
Typical Scoring: Weekly team averages are in the 130-150 range depending on team strength of this existing dynasty league.
Starting Fantasy Output by Position (PPG):
- Quarterback: 20.7
- Running Back: 12.8
- Wide Receiver: 13.6
- Tight End: 11.4
- Kicker: 8.6
- Defense: 10.6
The Results: How much did a single player matter?
First off, the results surprised me. I have a few takeaways, but first to the data:
I broke up the results by position and designated if the winning fantasy team would have still won (or lost) the matchup without said player in their lineup. When using a zero as their new score, here was the change in head-to-head results:
| Position | Won | Lost | Win% |
| QB | 56 | 40 | 58% |
| RB1 | 61 | 35 | 64% |
| RB2 | 75 | 21 | 78% |
| WR1 | 57 | 39 | 59% |
| WR2 | 71 | 25 | 74% |
| WR3 | 83 | 13 | 86% |
| TE | 76 | 20 | 79% |
| K | 77 | 19 | 80% |
| DST | 76 | 20 | 79% |
The first observation I have mining the data is just how many fantasy matchups are not particularly close. The league in question is fairly balanced in terms of competitive teams without a significant canyon of team-strength differences over the years. Yet, there were plenty of matchups decided by 30,40,50, even 75+ points in a single matchup in the sample.
As a result, nearly 60% of the matchups would not have been decided even with a zero at the highest scoring position in the league: quarterback. This also shows the lack of impact the ancillary starters of a lineup have on a head-to-head result, namely RB2, WR3, TE, Kicker, and Defense.
Also, projecting out for an entire season, missing one of these ancillary positions every single week would impact a team by around a single victory. This study opened my eyes to the true team nature of building a strong weekly contender to win head-to-head matchups.
Takeaways
A couple of takeaways I have are real world examples from my leagues and ownership this season specifically. The first is when owners overspend on the waiver wire for a declared stopgap starting option. This is where the NFL starter is a clearly better player than the fill-in and there is virtually zero chance the reserve starts beyond when the incumbent returns to the lineup in a week or two. If they will be out for a longer duration (or placed on Injured Reserve, it is a different conversation). We specifically see this at RB2 and TE1 in leagues where a single player's injury status impacts a waiver wire move for the week and owners can spot-start the beneficiary in the meantime. In a longer view, I have rarely been able to flip these shorter-term stopgap opportunist players for even a marginal rookie pick upgrade when they have a playing time (and/or production) uptick. What is their ultimate utility then? We are churning roster spots for the sake of it.
The second takeaway would be on teams with tight roster spots. These are the ones where the final player on the roster is good enough to be fifth from the end of the bench on other teams in your dynasty league. They roster a single defense and kicker because they do not have excess spots. They typically go lean at quarterback as well in a start-1 format. The crunch for these owners-rosters is when they find a strong kicker or defense worthy of starting most (or all) weeks and a bye week hits.
A good example this year would be Denver or Seattle or Minnesota, a team like that on defense or Stephen Gostkowski or Adam Vinatieri at kicker. When their bye week hits, they are too good to drop but now the crunch occurs to find another roster spot for a second positional option. The same could be the case at tight end if rostering two options. A single injury and a bye week leaves an owner without a starting option for a given week.
The data above gives support to potentially not picking up a low-upside option from the waiver wire if league rules allow. Through the data mining I did not subjectively label fringe or questionable starters from the obvious ones within the sample. However, a waiver wire add has a high rate of performing below that of an already-rostered player at the position - boosting the 'Still Won' rate if going more granular with the results above.
My real life example includes a league where I had the Seattle defense and tight roster spots to find a legitimate cut player. The scoring in this example league is lower for defense than the one I collected data (no yardage allowed scoring), making the projected defensive impact even less. As a result, I figured at least 90% of the time, my result would be unaltered if I take a zero from Seattle being on bye versus picking up a marginal waiver wire option to hopefully scrape together a few points.
The other aspect of this exercise is how to approach waiver wire spending and the ability to get your 'cut' player from one week back the next. Some leagues have cut players immediately available to other owners beyond the blind bidding waiver period. As a result, cutting a handcuff running back for example, could lead to him being picked up before that week's games. I am very hesitant to cut running backs I feel are one injury away from being the hot waiver pickup the following week. They may be seeing 20-30% of the snaps as the NFL backup currently and unstartable based on projected touches, but would be a mid-RB2 or better based on opportunity with a single tweaked ankle, big hit, or knee hit the wrong way the coming week. So the 'juice' of a few percentage points of added win rate in a single matchup is not worth the potential loss of having the one-injury-away running back already rostered if injury should strike.
Overall, this exercise a thought-provoking one of how winning a fantasy week is rarely the production of one player's performance. Even the high-flying production of quarterback and the top running backs and receivers being zeroed out would result in still winning head-to-head matchups greater than 55% of the time. Gauge the back-end of your roster carefully and the waiver wire tendencies of your league. Evaluate the matchup if one team is a clear favorite or underdog. The quality of the waiver pickup - including the week's upside and flip potential to maintain some value or role deeper into the season - is another key factor. Know your league, know the odds, and maximize roster value for this week and the long-haul.
