At Ron Shandler’s fantasy baseball symposium in Phoenix, Arizona, Joe Sheehan of the Baseball Prospectus was put on the spot and gave a very interesting discussion on risk.  Although the subject was baseball, it is easy to turn it into a fantasy football article.

 

Sheehan’s talk was about how we humans analyze risk.  He pointed out that human beings are not very good at analyzing risk.  I agreed with him.

 

Studies have shown that if you ask a group of people if they would rather have five dollars now or a one in one hundred chance for one hundred dollars, many people would take the chance for $100 rather than the sure thing. 

 

I remember hearing a story about a stepfather who convinced his son to spend the $10,000 dollars he was saving for college on lottery tickets.  His stepson protested.  When he was asked what argument convinced his stepson to waste his money, he said that they worked it out.  By buying the $10,000 in tickets they reduced the odds from 55,000,000:1 to 5,500:1.  They didn’t realize that all they did was reduce their chances to 54,990,000:1.

 

My local food store hands out scratch off tickets for every $50 you spend.  Each ticket is a “winner”, but you have to scratch off three of ten boxes and have a match in all three to win.  If you scratch off more than three boxes, you are a loser.  There is a $1,000,000 ticket out there, but the odds of scratching off the three boxes and getting the prize is 720:1.

 

I don’t need to tell you about all the old ladies I’ve seen in Los Vegas spending their Social Security check on the nickel slots.  When I’d go on road trips when I was younger, I’d stop and stay at a hotel off the strip because the food was good and the hotel cheap.  I could walk through the maze of lights to get to my room with a pocket full of change and not be tempted to spend a quarter.  Why would I give even a penny to someone who has much more than me?  I freely give to those in need, but the rich won’t get my help to get richer.

 

Sheehan’s then pointed out that we must properly analyze risk in fantasy sports.  A team of sure bets will put you in the money was his conclusion.  At first I agreed with him and I wrote a whole article agreeing with him.

 

I agreed with him on the principle that many smart people became rich investing in Coca-Cola®.  Coca-Cola® is a company that makes a profit every year.  Their stock goes up every year.  They are a sure bet.

 

Well, my NFFC team is a sure bet and guess what?  I’m in the middle of the pack!  I am 6-5 and 140 out of 322.  It is good, but I’m not going to win the money with a score like that.  This is my first season and I have been learning quite a bit.  I use the same draft list in all the leagues I’m in.  I tweak them based upon the rule set, but I use the same projected statistics.  I’m 7-4 and 6-5 in the other two.

 

So, I look at the guy who is first overall and I see that his team is built on players, two of whom I would not have taken.  He’s got Frank Gore and Joseph Addai.  That is the difference between him and me.

 

I’ve had some bad luck with Devery Henderson and Reche Caldwell having great games while sitting on my bench while he has always had Mark Bradley in when he has a good game and on the bench when he doesn’t.

 

On the other hand, I predicted big years for Laveranues Coles and Javon Walker.

 

So, the question is, did he know that Gore was going to have a breakout year, or was he just lucky?  Only he can answer that question.

 

As it stands, next year I will do some things differently.  I’m going to make sure I pick up two running backs with my first two picks and two wide receivers next.  I’m not going to pick up a quarterback early as I can get the same value.  I’m going to over stack my lineups with as many running backs and wide receivers as I can carry and only keep one TE, QB, K and Defense.  I’ll pick up spares for bye weeks as necessary from the scrap heap.

 

Still, I have some breakout potential.  I just need to get lucky!