Dynasty, in Theory: On Paper Champions

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.

The Problem With Relying on Imperfect Player Values

These last few weeks, we've been discussing the very concept of "player value" in dynasty leagues. First, I asked us to imagine a hypothetically ideal set of "player values" that perfectly measured how well each player helped us achieve the things we cared the most about (winning championships, predominantly). Then I talked about how this hypothetically ideal value would move over time and how that compared to the movement of actual real-world values. Last week, I addressed an objection to one of my claims that real-world values behaved irrationally in certain predictable ways.

Today, I want to talk about one of the most common errors I hear about, especially from newer dynasty managers: they're so concerned about building a "pretty roster" that they lose sight of the fact that the goal is to win.

Now, If we had access to the perfect, Platonic ideal of player values, things would be different. Tautologically, the most valuable roster would win the most championships—this conclusion naturally flows from the premise. We've stipulated that this hypothetical is a perfect measure of value, "value" is defined as "the ability to help you achieve the things you care about", and the top thing most managers care about is winning championships. Ipso facto the argument is prima facie true, quod erat demonstrandum.

But the dynasty values we have access to fall short of this lofty ideal. At one point, Trent Richardson was the consensus most valuable player in dynasty. Teams that had him on their roster looked great on paper, but they probably didn't win many championships (and if they did, it was despite Richardson, not because of him).

In the real world, players routinely contribute to championships without having much value (see: Rico Dowdle) or have lots of value without contributing to championships (see: every highly-drafted bust). Again, the real-world values we see are not the perfect ideals.

But they are correlated with the perfect ideals. And that matters.

Why Does That Matter?