Alright, so I’ve been messing around with fantasy football rankings, and let me tell you, it’s a whole different beast this year. I wanted to share what I did and how my approach went.
Diving In Head First
First things first, I grabbed a bunch of ranking lists from different websites. I figure, the more data, the better, right? I didn’t just stick to the big-name sites, either. I dug around for some smaller, independent blogs and forums to see if they had any unique takes.
Cleaning Up the Mess
Once I had all these lists, it was a total mess. Different formats, different player orders, the works. So, I spent a good chunk of time organizing everything into a single spreadsheet. I made sure to standardize the player names and positions, so I was comparing apples to apples.
Finding the Average
- Next up, I calculated the average ranking for each player across all the lists I had. This was pretty straightforward, just summing up the rankings and dividing by the number of lists.
- Then and only then, there are differences between these rankings, so after I got average number, I compared the number to orignal data, to check their differences.
- Finally, I got my own rankings.
But here’s where I started making some personal tweaks. I noticed some players had huge differences in rankings across different sites. Like, one site would have a guy as a top-10 pick, while another would have him way down the list.
It took up all my free time. But at the end, I got a list that I could confidently rely on.
Trusting My Gut
Finally, I went through the list and made some adjustments based on my own research and gut feeling. I watched some games, I read some articles, and I considered things like player injuries, team changes, and offensive schemes.
The Result
What I ended up with is a set of rankings that I feel pretty good about. It’s a combination of the wisdom of the crowd and my own personal biases. Of course, only time will tell if I made the right calls, but at least I have a ranking system I can call my own!