Build for the Future

I was wondering what the benchmark for steady success was for Maize and Blue. See, my longtime league is a ten team keeper, and to stay competitive you gotta put up over 100+ points per game. We call those “century” games and a good measure of how well a team is doing is to simply count up how many century games they have. Well, needless to say, that 100+ points number is not the same for a sixteen team league. Even taking account differing scoring systems I wanted to know what Maize and Blue’s version of a century game would be. What’s the benchmark for a consistent winner?

The obvious way to look at this is this season’s Points For marks. We have four 5-2 teams so far this season, and three of those teams are our top scorers for the season: Mandalorian Warriors, Jedi Knights, and 100 Acre Wood Pooh Bears. (The outlier is Detroit Players, who are only #12 for PF.) Those three have scored 639, 603, and 584 points respectively. Average that out and we get 86.95 points per game.

To put that into context, I averaged out the scores for our bottom three PF teams -- P Funk All Stars, WS Tartars, Ann Arbor Bamfers -- and came up with 60.3 points per game. (If we take out the Bamfer’s putrid 397 points and insert Team Cameltoe’s numbers instead, we get an average of 63.10 points. The reason we would take Bamfers out was because their numbers were skewed by a 25 point WK3.) It’s clear that the difference between a top tier team and a bottom feeder is about twenty-five points per game. The teams at the back of the pack put up only about 72.5% of the points of those at the top. They're playing six on eight essentially.

Let’s look at what an average team might be expected to put up though. I took the middle four PF teams -- Hungry Hungry Ouroboros, Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, MoRRie’s Pogiboys, *Fockers -- and averaged their scores out. The number was 77.9 points per game. Those teams, the #7-10 PF teams, were only 9.05 points away from becoming perennial powerhouses. What this tells us is that the leap from cellar dweller to average team is a long one -- an owner needs to find an extra 17.6 points per game -- but from from average to contender isn't nearly as large a jump. Woohoo, hope for everyone!

For our league, I think the benchmark for a good game should be somewhere north of 86.95 points. It would be easy to say that 90 points per game is the “century” mark for our sixteen team league but that's not fun at all. I propose we nudge that number down to a much more exciting 88 points. Why 88? Because it’s an homage to one of the greatest movies of all time that’s why!

From now on, any game over 88 points is now dubbed a “DeLorean” and it’ll be the new benchmark for success. If you can average a DeLorean over the entire season, well, I’ll let Doctor Emmett Brown say it. "When this baby hits 88 mph, you're gonna see some serious shit!” And if you can put up 88 points in any individual week, there's a good shot you're winning. Hitting 88 points also means you've got some explosiveness in your team.

Unsurprisingly, the top PF teams lead the DeLorean charts this season. 100 Acre Pooh Bears and Another Bad Creation both have four, while Jedi Knights and Italian Stallionz have totaled three each. Mandalorian Warriors blows everyone out of the water with six DeLoreans so far. Take a look at the PF charts with DeLoreans added in, plus columns for PF/PA averages per week. As you can see, none of the bottom four PF teams have recorded a DeLorean yet.

What’s the point of all this? Well, if you scroll down Matthew Berry’s (incredibly longwinded) Draft Day Manifesto 2013 you can get to the bit where he breaks down how to get to a certain number of points to consistently win games. For a standard ten team ESPN league, Berry says it takes about eight wins to make the playoffs. More importantly, “the totals from the four playoff teams average out to 94 points per week….we're speaking in generalities, but average 94 points in the first 13 weeks this upcoming season and there's a pretty good chance you're going to win at least eight times. Enough to make it likely -- not guaranteed, but likely -- that you're in the playoffs.” Then he goes on to break down how to get to 94 points each week. ESPN standard weeks have an extra flex position but otherwise it’s very similar to our rosters.

I think Berry's breakdown is an interesting way to look at what your roster needs are and which positions should be in line to improve. For example, assuming we want to hit 83-88 PF per game to be consistently competitive, we might break down a roster like this: #7 Hungry Ouroboros versus #10 Fockers. As we can see, assuming ideal lineups and consistency from players, Ouroboros isn't that far away while the Fockers are a tad bit short. Of course, Fockers is 4-3 now while Ouroboros is only 3-4, so PF can only tell us so much. The point of it all is that just a handful of points really can make the difference between an average team and a good team. And if you're posting 20+ points per game below the leaders, it's time to start coming up with some genius moves! Below is the full PF/PA charts, and here's the Google Doc if you wanna play around with the numbers yourself.

Additional notes:

• I went back to last year’s standings to see if this mark would hold true. I looked at Mandalorian Warriors, 100 Acre Wood Pooh Bears, and Another Bad Creation, who were the top three PF teams from 2012. In sixteen games each, they averaged 90.75 points per game.
• Just for kicks, I took the #2 player from each position — the #1 was sometimes way too much better than everyone else, and an outlier — and put them on a roster to see what a truly outrageous team was capable of averaging. The team of Drew Brees (21.7), Matt Forte (15.7), Marshawn Lynch (15.4), AJ Green (12.9), Wes Welker (12.7), Julius Thomas (12.6), Seahawks (11.9), and Mason Crosby (11.3) would combine for 114.20 points per game. That’s your high water mark folks. If you can get to 110+ points per week, you’d never lose!
• Mandalorian Warriors actually average 95.5 points per game this year if you take out their WK7 bye week induced 66 points. (“Justin” Case Keenum started in place of Drew Brees and the Warriors won anyway.) If we took Mandalorian Warriors off the top three PF charts and substituted #4 Original Salt in instead, the top three teams would really be averaging 83.67 points per game. 
• Where you at members of The Wood?! Your "division of death" label is currently in the hands of The Knights Who Say Ni so far this season. They have three winning teams and also three of the top five PF scores. Interestingly, Original Salt, who has outscored everyone in the division except Jedi Knights, is the only non-winning team. That may have something to do with facing the league’s toughest schedule so far. See below.
• We can’t forget to account for PA while looking at these charts. It just so happens that the top two PF teams have faced two of the softest schedules in the league. Is the competition wilting in front of them? I thought our schedules were weighted so the better teams played each other? What’s going on? Poor Original Salt, who is #4 in PF but getting hammered by the toughest schedule so far on their way to a 2-5 record. The only winning team that’s facing a top five fiercest schedule? Italian Stallionz. The poor Ann Arbor Bamfers are the lowest scoring team in the league AND are getting pounded by the third worst schedule. Ouch!
• I'm for adding a new starting position next year. With nine starters versus eight, it would mitigate the effect of a DEF and K. Also, NFL teams now almost require two RBs to platoon, so adding another RB position or maybe just another flex would increase the players on the fantasy field and give more chances to actually beat your opponent with skill position guys versus entrusting 25% of your score to DEF/K. Who's with me?