Embracing the Snipe
There’s been plenty of data and opinions disseminated concerning the virtues of stacking in Best Ball tournaments. We’ve learned that it’s a way of manipulating variance by bottling the upside of a teams’ offensive success. We’ve also learned that it’s –EV to reach for a stack and sacrifice value. If a higher-tiered player with a substantial projection is available, we need to grab that value. Value > Correlation is important to remember.
Something to keep in mind if you drafted two wide receivers from the same team is that you’ve already drafted the most important part of the stack. That’s right. If you took Robert Woods in the 3nd round and Cooper Kupp in the 4th, it would certainly be neat to get Matt Stafford in the 10th but it is not worth reaching for him in the 9th round at the expense of selecting value at another position. It may even be worth the risk to hold off on drafting Stafford until after his ADP. Why? Because you already have Woods and Kupp. A good percentage of drafters will be reluctant to grab a player that has limited stacking potential and he may slide past his ADP and right into your waiting arms. Select Tyler Higbee in the 9th round to avoid fading the one team that may be able to build a stacking case towards picking Stafford.
But what if you do all the right things and some donkey that already has two quarterbacks rolls in and snipes Stafford right in front of you? What a dick! He obviously did that just to piss you off! You go on complete tilt and begin drinking heavily, right?
Not so much.
Let people be donkeys. It’s what they do. Celebrate them. Play the long game. Keep smashing value and revel in fact that he’s taken himself out of contention by spending too many early picks at a “onesie” position.
Anytime Stafford throws a 25-yard TD to Woods or Kupp, you’ll scoop up 9.5 points while your sniping nemesis will get 5.
Here comes the inevitable Sonic poker analogy: Your opponent calls a big turn bet with a straight draw and gets there on the river. He makes it obvious with a huge river bet and you make the disciplined play by laying down your top two pair. He shows you his cards and celebrates. “I knew it was coming,” he says. If you’ve played poker long enough, you know to simply knock the table and say “nice hand”. Despite losing the pot, this is a good outcome for you. You’ve identified the fish at the table and he has enough chips to likely stick around longer than usual. A +EV situation for you in the long-term timetable of this evening’s session.
When someone snipes you, especially to the detriment of his own roster construction, tap the table, say “good pick” and continue smashing value at every opportunity.
Sex Sells
Searching for another tiny edge? Perhaps we can exploit our opponents’ fish-like tendency to chase after the latest shiny object. Most Best Ball players have the ADP information right in front of them and will often adhere very closely to those numbers. But what if the ADP’s are flawed? How could the ADP information be leading drafters down the wrong path?
Every year the NFL Draft becomes more and more popular. Many of the league’s rookies put on their best suit, their new team’s hat, give Roger Goodell a slightly cringey, forced man-hug, and raise the expectations of their rookie season to an astronomical level. But the only time you know for absolute certain that a player is going to dominate in the NFL is when he reacts to his selection in this manner:
It is a basic human tendency, especially the male versions of our species, to reach for the newer, mysterious, and unknown commodity rather than “settle” for the reliable entity that’s been right in front of us for years. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in public with your girl and been caught giving a longer-than-normal glance at an attractive female. Ok, you may all lower your arms now.
We’re only human, and it’s only natural to look, within reason. In a Best Ball draft, the consequences of picking the latest shiny object has no immediate consequences. I mean, you aren’t going to be sleeping on the couch if you select Rondale Moore over Marvin Jones. You may, however, be giving up some value. One of these players has been outperforming their ADP for years and the other has taken exactly zero snaps in the NFL. Rondale may be the next Tyler Lockett but we don’t know that yet and it may take a few weeks or more to manifest. His ADP is actually pretty solid in my opinion and I have been taking my fair share of him but Marvin is a proven commodity and should be drafted a bit higher than the 10th round. You may or may not agree with this example, but here at One Week Season, we try to instill ideas and philosophies rather than “picks’. Rondale may smash out of the gate and Marvin, at age 31, may begin showing signs of slowing down. This is certainly within the range of outcomes. But as we discussed in my previous article, it may be prudent to balance your high upside, “boom or bust” wide receiver group with a guy like Marvin who brings his lunch pale and hard hat to work every year and gets the job done.
But hey…just because I’ve been happily married for a couple of decades doesn’t mean I’m unfamiliar with the doghouse. Do your best, guys (and gals).
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