Dynasty, in Theory: Winners and Losers

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.

Winners and Losers

I often find myself writing about the fact that dynasty leagues are, by their nature, "zero-sum" competitions, which is just a quick way of saying that every manager's gain is perfectly offset by another manager's (or managers') loss. If you and I are facing off and I register one win, you must necessarily register one loss. If I see my chances of making the playoffs rise from 50% to 60%, then the other managers in the league must necessarily see their collective playoff odds decline by exactly 10% to offset.

If you and I manage to find a win/win trade that makes both of our rosters better, that's still zero-sum; in a 12-team league, any win/win trade is likely actually a win/win/lose/lose/lose/lose/lose/lose/lose/lose/lose/lose trade. When we both get better, that improvement doesn't come from nowhere; we take expected wins and championship shares from every other team that stayed the same.

This fact is tremendously important. It highlights, for instance, why vetoes are bad (because even fair trades I'm not involved in likely "steal" market share from me and leave my team worse off, which predisposes me toward vetoing from the jump). It highlights, for instance, several bad reasons to oppose tanking (one cannot oppose tanking on the grounds that it shifts top picks to one team over another, because the zero-sum nature of the competition means literally every action does that).

Typically, I then move toward a two-layer analysis. Fantasy football leagues are interesting in that they are competitive... but also cooperative. The competitive layer is always zero-sum. The things that make me happy likely make you sad. But the cooperative layer is not zero-sum. If we meet up before the season for a draft party where we eat pizza and drink beer and make our picks, that makes me happy... but it likely makes you happy, too. That's a positive-sum interaction.

Rules exist to maximize the positive-sum interactions across the cooperative layer. I think it's more fun playing in leagues where people trade, you think it's more fun playing in leagues where people trade, so we have a rule that there are no trade vetoes so that we both play in a league where people trade, making us both happier overall. (Even if those individual trades are sometimes against my interest or yours.)

But What If...