Value-Based Drafting was just the beginning. The next step in the evolution of VBD is "Dynamic VBD."

What does the term "dynamic VBD" mean?

Dynamic VBD means that the baselines you use to determine the value of a player you are considering drafting changes depending upon:

• the number of draft slots between your current pick and your next pick



• the position needs of the teams drafting between your current pick and your next pick



• the average draft position of the players under consideration



• possibly the drafting trends of your league.

In other words, the baseline you use to determine value shifts, rather than using an arbitrary "worst starter" or similar type of base line. (Because the baseline moves, the term "dynamic baseline" is generally used. For a baseline that is determined pre-draft and remains fixed, the term "static baseline" is generally used.)

Examples

Allow me to give some simple "common sense" examples to demonstrate the theory before I delve into the process.

Suppose you are drafting 11th in a 12 team serpentine draft and the Big 3 WRs offer the best value on your board, by far, but you have them all ranked about the same, with Harrison first. You also have Edgerrin James available and he is far and away the highest rated RB on your board. The obvious move here is to take James. Why? The guy in the twelfth slot can take at most two of the big three WRs If you draft James, you are still guaranteed to get one the big three WRs When making this choice, we didn't compare Marvin Harrison to a static baseline WR like, for example, Darrell Jackson and Edgerrin James to a static baseline guy like Stacey Mack to determine value. We compared Harrison to Moss/Owens and Edgerrin James to (perhaps) Tiki Barber and decided that an Owens-James combo was better than a Harrison-Barber combo. In this example, instead of a traditional static baseline, we used Moss/Owens as our WR baseline and Tiki Barber as our RB baseline. This example is the true essence of Dynamic VBD.

Suppose its' the fourth round and you are deciding between a QB, let's say Trent Green, and a RB. You notice that all but two of the teams drafting between your current pick and your next pick have already selected a QB. Common sense dictates that, at most, only two QBs are likely to be selected between your current pick and your next pick. Rather than comparing Trent Green to a static baseline starter to determine value, why not extend the logic from the example above, and use the QB two slots below Trent Green as our QB baseline. Similarly, we can choose a more appropriate baseline RB, based on the other teams' positional needs.

Suppose you have 11 QBs rated very highly and the rest of the pack is rated very low. If I use the 12th rated QB as my baseline, I will see more value in the position than what is really there. If I use the 11th rated QB as my baseline, I may never see value at the QB position until it's too late. Given that there are so many QBs at such a high level, there really shouldn't be any value in drafting a QB until almost all of them are gone. You will see that if you use dynamic VBD, it will help you to determine, even in this situation, at what point in the draft that there is value in drafting a QB

Suppose you have a kicker (silly, I know) rated as the top value in the draft. Common sense and a review of Average Draft Positions dictate that you can wait at least a few rounds to draft him. Dynamic VBD has a mechanism to allow you to factor in average draft position and "super sleepers" values.

The Process - Basic Version.

You will need the following information:

1. Your point-value projections of the players.



2. In general, during the first part of the draft, people will be drafting to fill out their starting lineup configurations, with maybe (depending upon your league) an extra RB thrown in. Make a good guess as to what the roster configurations will be (i.e. 1 QB, 3 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE). You will use this information in the first part of the draft.



3. You must also track, during the draft, what positions each team is drafting, so that you can forecast their roster needs.



4. Calculate how many selections are between your picks. For example, if you are in a 12 team serpentine draft, and you are drafting 8th,there will always be either 8 or 14 picks between your current pick and your next pick. You can calculate all of these numbers prior to the draft. We will refer to this number as M below

Now on to the process: It is your turn to pick, and you need pick a baseline for each position to determine value.

1. For each position, the player M spots below your top player is your initial baseline for that position. You know that's impossible for more than M players at that position to be drafted between your current pick and your next pick, so this is a pretty good starting baseline player.



2. If you are in the section of the draft where everybody is basically drafting his or her starters, take a look at the rosters of the teams that will be drafting between your current pick and your next pick. For example (assuming we estimated 1 QB and 3 RBs), How many haven't drafted their QB1 yet? How many haven't drafted their RB2 and RB3 yet? Calculate how many players at that position that, at most, are likely to be drafted between your current pick and your next pick. We will refer to this number as N. The minimum of N (for each position) and M makes a better baseline player.



3. Compare the top player at each position to the baseline player at that position to determine the largest drop-off (we will call this the X-value), and select this player.
   

Example:

I'm drafting 8th in a 12-team serpentine, and it's the fifth round. Team's 9-12 will be drafting between my current pick, and my next pick, and their roster's look like this:

I'm trying to pick between grabbing my TE, a QB, a WR3 or a RB3. The players under consideration are in row 0 of the table below, and my rankings and projected fantasy points look like this:

• Since there are 8 picks between my current pick and my next pick, my initial baseline is the Row numbered 8 at each position. My drop-offs look like 55, 30, 40, and 19 respectively.



• A glance at the rosters tells me that at most (in all probability) 2 QBs are likely to be drafted before my next pick, as teams 9 and 12 have already drafted a QB, and only 10 and 11 have not.



• Similarly, 3 RBs, 2 TE's and 8 WRs at most will probably be drafted between our current pick and our next pick. Minor Note: Even though the WR needs for teams 9-12 were 2,2,2 and 3 respectively, for a total of 9, at most only 8 WRs can be drafted in the next 8 picks, as we determined in the previous step.

  Our Baselines/X-values now look like:
  Hearst - 15, Chambers - 30, Hasselbeck - 10, Sharpe - 5.




• Draft Isaac Bruce as your WR3. As an aside, looking at the roster configurations for teams 9-12, one can sense a mini-WR run coming up, so filling the WR3 position makes sense, as we can fill out another position next round and not lose out on much value (if any).

ENHANCEMENT 1 - Using ADP:

Average Draft Position and the "herd mentality" allow us to tweak this process a little so that we can discover even more value. Take a look at our example above. Note that we have Marcus Robinson rated as a 5th or 6th round value. A quick glance at average draft position reveals that, on average, Robinson is going in the 15th round. Here is an opportunity, we can pass on Isaac Bruce and still get Marcus Robinson as our WR3 without losing much value. The way this is handled in dynamic VBD is simple - six words - use Marcus Robinson as your baseline.

Our Baselines/X-values now look like:
Hearst - 15, Robinson - 2, Hasselbeck - 10, Sharpe - 5

This tells us that our best value is to get Antowain Smith as our RB3 because we (most likely) can still get Robinson as our WR3 in a much later round. There is, of course, a little risk involved with this enhancement, as somebody may snag Robinson out from under us.

ENHANCEMENT 2 - Drafting Trends:

This involves adjusting your baselines based on how many players at any given position you think will be drafted between your current pick and your next pick. Consider again, our same example from above. We determined that, at most, 3 RBs would (in all probability) be taken between our current pick and our next pick.

Suppose, based on our knowledge of these teams and these owners, we believe that 2 of the 3 teams that have not drafted their RB3 yet will not draft their RB3 until later in the draft. This means that we believe that, at most, only 1 RB will be taken between our current pick and our next pick. To incorporate this into our value calculation we simply change our baseline RB from the player 3 below Antowain Smith (Hearst) to the player 1 below Antowain Smith (Amos Zereoue).

Our Baselines/X-values now look like:
Zereoue - 5, Robinson - 2, Hasselbeck - 10, Sharpe - 5

This tells us that the best value is to draft Jeff Garcia as our QB. We are likely to grab Antowain Smith or Amos Zereoue as our RB3 next round, and then Marcus Robinson at some point later on in the draft with expected WR3 value.

Some common examples of where you might use drafting trends of your league to set an appropriate baseline:

• In my league (probably like most others) a lot of RBs will be drafted in the first 2 rounds, while few WRs and QBs and no TE's will be taken.



• We saw in our example that it was possible for the next 8 picks after ours to be WRs Seeing 8 WRs drafted in a row might seem unrealistic, and we may want to adjust this to a more realistic 6 out of 8. Looking at the table, this would've changed our baseline WR from Chris Chambers to Darrell Jackson.



• After the big 3 TE's are off the board in my league, and with ADP, the TE's tend to trickle out at a rate of 1 or 2 per round. Therefore, I will probably never set my baseline TE any more than 2 from the top.



• Defenses won't even be looked at in my league until at least round 8. After the top 2 or 3 are gone, they will probably trickle out 1 or 2 per round until about the 14th round. I will set my baseline defense at 0 below he top for the first 6 rounds, at 1 or 2 for the next 8 rounds, and at a more need appropriate number starting in the 13th or 14th.



• Ditto with the kickers, except they'll last even longer into the draft.

In actual practice: I start out with the basic version - finding the maximum player for each position, and then I lower that number based on ADP of some of the players listed (enhancement 1) and how many players from each position I think will be drafted (enhancement 2).

Summary

No system is perfect, and you always need to use common sense, but Dynamic VBD, in my opinion, provides a better insight in to where the value can be found in your draft.