Analyzing Fantasy Matchups

[mattb47]

I once tracked defenses against the pass vs. WR1, WR2, WR3, TE, and RB and the system did a pretty good job of highlighting players who had a high potential to exploit a pass defense weakness in a given week. It was a lot of work each week, and in some cases I was kind of guessing which spot to put a receiver in, but it was eye opening too. In some cases, teams that were "horrible against the pass" were actually great at shutting down the #1 receiver, and teams that were "great defending the pass" consistently gave up scores to a TE or RB. The system was a little flawed though, as leopards don't change their spots. A TE who never catches passes doesn't suddenly get a 100 yds and 2 TDs vs a team that gives up lots of fantasy points to TEs.

No matter what system you apply, don't forget a smidgen of common sense.

That's what I think is one of the best things about the system I'm working to put together. It has a few parts to it. I can not only see what defense give up the most fantasy points to a position overall (QB, RB, WR1, WR2, and TE) but also see what they give up in comparison to the average for that player. That comparison can then be used to "project" the output of whatever player(s) are going up against that defense in the current week. So if a defense gives up 1.25 times the average fantasy points for QBs and you have a QB that averages 20 FP/G, we can project about 25 FP for that matchup. It's not a perfect system but it probably gives a better idea of expected performance than just saying that a mediocre player is going to put up big points because of how much his matchup usually gives up.

I'm working my spreadsheet in such a way that I should be able to pull whatever information I want from it in whatever way I want once I get the data in there. It's still got some work to get done but I don't really expect it to start being useful in any way until week 5 or 6 at the earliest...before then there's just not enough information for it to come up with reasonable averages or anything.

Now there are some things I'm not sure how I want to do it yet though. One thing is with RBs, with so many teams running multiple RB systems, should I just take the RBs as a unit for a team or look at the RB1 and RB2 as separate things? I feel like it's less useful to separate out the different RBs for these purposes than it is to look at WR1 and WR2 as different entities. Thoughts?

[mattb47]

Ok, so it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would to get my spreadsheet up and running. I think I have it worked out pretty good, just need more data for it to really mean anything. I am open to adding more aspects to how it calculates how well teams defend a certain position but it has to be something that is able to be calculated number wise, so it can't be too subjective. Any more thoughts on ideas to add?

[mattb47]

Well, 2 weeks in there's still not quite enough data for the numbers to be really meaningful but I'll go ahead and reveal what the numbers say anyway for this next week and we'll see what happens. I wouldn't put too much stock into these stats at this point for sure but it can give an idea of which matchups are the best and worst right now.

Quarterback:

Best Matchups:
1. Buffalo - 1.47
2. New England - 1.28
3. New York Giants - 1.26
4. San Francisco - 1.21
5. Miami - 1.17

Worst Matchups:
1. Houston - .65
2. New York Jets - .69
3. Chicago - .75
4. Detroit - .76
5. Indianapolis - .78

Alot of these have to do with the teams each has played, Buffalo looks like a good matchup because they've played KC and OAK and both teams just put up better fantasy numbers against Buffalo than the other team they played. They probably aren't a bad matchup but it has definitely skewed the numbers a bit.

Running Backs:

Best Matchups:
1. Cleveland - 1.38
2. Seattle - 1.32
3. Philadelphia - 1.31
4. Indianapolis - 1.27
5. Buffalo - 1.26

Worst Matchups:
1. New York Giants - .60
2. Detroit - .65
3. Denver - .66
4. San Diego - .73
5. Houston - .79

The Giants are down as the worst matchup in big part due to them playing a Steven Jackson-less Rams team in week 2.

Wide Receiver 1:

Best Matchups:
1. Detroit - 1.88
2. New England - 1.43
3. Cincinnati - 1.40
4. Washington - 1.39
5. San Francisco - 1.38

Worst Matchups:
1. Minnesota - .13
2. San Diego - .40
3. Atlanta - .56
4. New York Jets - .64
5. Cleveland - .65

Detroit is the surprise team up there especially having dominated KC last week but really it has more to do with the #1 WRs for TB and KC being pretty much no-shows in their team's other games which made it look like Detroit gave up way more. Chances are they won't be top on this list come next week.

Wide Receiver 2:

Best Matchups:
1. Atlanta - 1.72
2. Dallas - 1.71
3. Tennessee - 1.58
4. Buffalo - 1.50
5. Oakland - 1.40

Worst Matchups:
1. Pittsburgh - .32
2. St. Louis - .44
3. Jacksonville - .45
4. Detroit - .47
5. Washington - .48

The surprise team on this one is Pittsburgh as the worst matchup, they played the Ravens (where Lee Evans was a complete no-show) and the Seahawks who have no receivers, so expect them to start moving down that list. St. Louis' numbers are skewed too by Maclin having a bad game against them and then a huge game in his 2nd game. They'll probably move down as well.

Tight Ends:

Best Matchups:
1. Cleveland - 1.63
2. Pittsburgh - 1.45
3. Philadelphia - 1.35
4. Kansas City - 1.33
5. Cincinnati - 1.27

Worst Matchups:
1. Denver - .24
2. Houston - .37
3. St. Louis - .41
4. New Orleans - .51
5. Tennessee - .57