All in One Rankings: Uncertainty Analysis

John Bush
August 28, 2019

All in One Rankings: Uncertainty Analysis

Introduction

This article is the third of 3 that shows you my journey using my ALL in ONE (AIO) rankings analysis. I have gathered using meta-data processes current Dynasty, PPR, NON-PPR, and Half PPR rankings. I placed all these rankings into the same numerical scale of 100 to 0 (best to worst). This normalization allows us to build landscape views of Teams, Positions, and Players. As an aside, I am researching this ALL in ONE deeper and will report in my textbook for 2020! All in One Rankings: Uncertainty Analysis

Uncertainty Levels for Each Player (All from my textbook as well)

The following are a few differences between risk and uncertainty:

In risk, you can predict the possibility of a future outcome while in uncertainty you cannot predict the possibility of a future outcome.
Risk can be managed while uncertainty is uncontrollable.
Risks can be measured and quantified while uncertainty cannot.
You can assign a probability to risks events, while with uncertainty you can’t.

Conclusion:

Risk and uncertainty are different terms, but most people think they are the same and ignore them.
Managing risk is easier because you can identify risks and develop a response plan in advance based on your experience.
However, managing uncertainty is very difficult as previous information is not available, too many parameters are involved, and you cannot predict the outcome.*
*https://pmstudycircle.com/2012/02/risk-vs-uncertainty/. This source explains risk vs uncertainty

I think the issue for Fantasy Football is better described as uncertainty. I have previously outlined some steps to mitigate uncertainty. On average the level of uncertainty goes up in a draft, so your process must change as you go into the draft. Knowing the positional patterns helps as well as team usages of positions and the pecking order within the team. I provide a view of the level player uncertainty within a Team framework.

Uncertainty Player Insurance

*To Insure yourself from uncertainty by considering the max/min of each pick (floor to ceiling).

Usually, you hear that you should draft for the high ceiling but what is the floor. Also, you can be told draft for a high floor but what is the maximum?

Fake Pigskin Exclusive: Join Monkey Knife Fight and Get an Instant 100% Deposit Match PLUS a Free $5 Game!

* Insure yourself from uncertainty by considering decision trees associated with your information.

Mock Drafts or Best Balls can work these decision trees out for you.

* Insure yourself from uncertainty by considering the Hurwicz Criterion **

** Hurwicz Criterion: The maximax and the maximin criteria of a draft pick, assumes that the fantasy player is either optimistic or pessimistic.

A more realistic approach would, however, to consider the degree or index of optimism or pessimism of the decision-maker in the process of decision-making which players to draft

For each player considered determine your degree of player success as well as the Ceiling and Floor for that player.

If a, a constant lying between 0 and 1, denotes the degree of your draft pick optimism, then the degree of pessimism will be 1 – a.

Then a weighted average of the maximum and minimum payoffs of action, with a and 1 – a as respective weights, is computed. The action with the highest average is regarded as optimal.

I suggest using an estimate of PPR production. If you think a player will get 160 FP as your optimum, then decide the worst-case say 90 FP. Do that for all major choices.

We note that a nearer to unity indicates that the decision-maker is optimistic while a value nearer to zero indicates that he is pessimistic. If a = 0.5, the decision-maker is said to be neutralist.

Fake Pigskin Exclusive: Join Monkey Knife Fight and Get an Instant 100% Deposit Match PLUS a Free $5 Game!

Assume that the index of optimism a = 0.7. or a 70% chance you predict of hitting 160 FP for player 1 then you are saying he has a 30% chance of 90 FP.

Example Matrix of Decision

The first Player is 160 90 = 160*.7 plus 90*0.3 = 139

Player 2 150 100 = 150 *.75 plus 100*0.25 = 137.5

Player 3 175 80 = 175*0.6 plus 80 *0.4 = 137

Since the average for Player 1 is maximum, it is optimal.

** https://www.wisdomjobs.com/e-university/quantitative-techniques-for-management-tutorial-297/decision-making-under-uncertainty-10067.html

All in One Rankings: Uncertainty Analysis

Given the discussion above and your time for this task, I present my All in One Uncertainty Annotations for Players within their teams. Consider these following figures a “rule of thumb” for quick player drafting. Use the above methods for deeper uncertainty analysis.

Each 2 Team Level Figures presents:

Team,
Player,
Position,
League Style (Dynasty/Half Point PPR/Non-PPR/Full Point PPR)
and level of uncertainty (Red, Yellow, and Green – High, Medium, and Low Levels)