Bestball Quick Hits: How to Win with A Hyperfragile Roster Construction
Bestball league win rate data referenced in this edition is courtesy of Rotoviz‘s Fanball Roster Construction Explorer.
Despite the growing popularity of the bestball fantasy football format, there are still many edges to the game to make it profitable for smart players in the long run. In my opinion, the biggest and easiest edge is understanding the fundamentals of roster construction to optimize your team’s output throughout the season. In almost any draft I’m in, there’s at least one opponent that shoots themselves in the foot by drafting too many quarterbacks, not enough running backs, etc. for the context of their team or the league. These players are paying the rake, leaving more profit on the table for us savvy drafters.
fantasy football draft kit
Today we’ll focus on a particular type of roster construction: hyperfragile. The main thesis of this strategy is to take the opposite approach of Zero RB (antifragility), and take several running backs in the first few rounds of the draft, trying to capitalize on the advantage that high-end running backs can have over later round options if they stay healthy and don’t bust. Like any construction, this isn’t something that I ever go out of my way to do, but it’s always good to understand different strategies that have been proven successful so that you can confidently build your teams in different ways, depending on how your drafts play out.
To measure the effectiveness of the hyperfragile strategy in past seasons, I used Rotoviz’s Fanball Roster Construction, which provides win rates for Fanball bestball teams (and previously MFL10s) since 2015 that fall under certain criteria. For the purposes of this study, I looked at the win rates of teams that drafted three running backs in the first three rounds.
The data shows that the key is to go all in on three early running backs with your first three picks, and then to stop drafting them altogether. Teams that did this have had a 9.7% win rate (for context, the average win rate in 12-team leagues is 8.3%). Interestingly, the win rate drops for each additional running back drafted onto these teams with a RBx3 start. These teams that drafted four RBs total have a 7.7% rate, and plummets to 4.6% by the time you get to seven.
https://yardsperfantasy.com/2021-best-ball-rankings/
The theory behind this is actually pretty intuitive. If you’re taking several running backs in the highest leverage rounds in the draft, you’re basically betting that each of them will provide solid production for your RB lineup slots throughout the season (if any of them bust, there’s a strong chance your team is already dead in the water). When these RBs do hit, you’re lighting roster spots on fire every time you take another one later in the draft for two reasons: they are highly unlikely to add points to your weekly lineups, and you aren’t using those picks to make up ground on your opponents in the positions that you’re weaker in. Stopping at three running backs affords you the luxury of taking more wide receivers that your opponents, whose volatility is higher week-to-week so you can better your chances of having enough strong WR/FLEX scores throughout the season.
For one reason or another, this drafting method has been rare to this point; my guess is that most drafters are just too uncomfortable with only three running backs on their team. Out of all the teams who drafted RB in rounds 1-3, only 1.6% of them stopped at three. Over 75% of the teams drafted between either five or six RBs, which is normally the optimal amount with other types of builds.
Conclusion
So to summarize, the takeaway here is simple. You can definitely win in the long run by loading up on running backs early in the draft, but it requires you to veer from the typical “balanced” constructions and resist the urge to draft bench depth at the position. The optimal way to approach the rest of the draft is to assume your main running backs will stay healthy and meet expectations, and load up on wide receivers more than your competition in an attempt to close the gap created by not taking any in the first few rounds.
