Dynasty, in Theory: How Does Value Move?

There's a lot of strong dynasty analysis out there, especially when compared to five or ten years ago. But most of it is so dang practical—Player X is undervalued, Player Y's workload is troubling, the market at this position is irrational, and take this specific action to win your league. Dynasty, in Theory is meant as a corrective, offering insights and takeaways into the strategic and structural nature of the game that might not lead to an immediate benefit but which should help us become better players over time.

How Does Value Move?

Last week, I wrote about Platonic idealism, or the philosophy that everything in our world is a flawed example of a larger concept, which exists in its purest form independent of our own reality. Any triangle we ever see, for instance, will not be a perfect triangle; its lines won't be perfectly straight, its angles won't be perfectly precise. It's merely a simulacrum of the concept of triangle-ness.

I brought this up specifically to write about player value. The Platonic ideal of player value addresses the very concept of what makes something valuable—it perfectly encapsulates how well a player will help us achieve the things we care about—and all real-world "player values" we see (from various trade value charts, say) are just shallow reflections of this core concept.

(Henceforth, when referring to the ideal, I'll call it capital-v "Value", while the real-world examples will be lowercase-v "value". Also, as representative examples of lowercase-v value, I will refer to KeepTradeCut's crowdsourced dynasty values, FantasyCalc's real-world trade values, and Dan Hindery's dynasty player values.)

This may seem like navel-gazing, even by my standards, but I think by drawing a distinction between the concept and the reality and seeing how the two diverge, we can discover several very important (and potentially actionable) truths. Hopefully I can illustrate today with a simple question: "What happens to a player's value after a big game?"

What happens to a player's value after a big game?

This is an easy one: it goes up.

Oronde Gadsden was the top fantasy tight end in Week 7. What happened to his value after? It went up. DeVonta Smith led all receivers in receiving yards. What happened to his value? It went up, too. Chris Olave's value went up, too. Quinshon Judkins' value after his three-touchdown game? You guessed it—up.

The size of the effect can vary. An 8th-year veteran moves less than a rookie. A "big game" for Josh Allen is different than a "big game" for Michael Penix Jr.. But at the end of the day, if you have three receiving touchdowns or rush for 200 yards, it's a pretty good bet that you're going to be worth more after the game than you were before it.

I know, I know—stop the presses. This is a gobsmacking observation, exactly the kind of penetrating insight you read Dynasty, in Theory for. Now, let's turn things on their head.

What happens to a player's Value after a big game?

This is a harder one: it goes down.