If I had to pick only one fantasy analyst to listen to. I would pick you Gretch. Thank you for putting so much thought, care, energy, and time into this and always keeping it on the edge and fun. You’ve talked me off the tilt and the ledge multiple times. And when I’ve made mistakes I appreciate reading this even more because I feel good that the structure was sound and the process was good. I’m hoping to get into Fantasy Analysis sometime soon. You, Shawn Siegele, and the Ship Chasing boys rock and have been my rock this season and I’ve never had more fun playing fantasy. #BananaThieves
Ben - Great points, as always, and I've been thinking a lot about chaos/luck/probability since starting FF about 5 years ago. I like to think in terms of probability to guide my decisions and live with the consequences, but I also have this unreasonable belief that I tend to have bad luck as well. That said, in redraft leagues, I have started to drift into points only leagues where you still need to set a starting lineup to accrue points (so not bestball), and there is active management in-season. I have found myself doing much better in these leagues and it has tampered down some of the randomness of being in H2H and having a losing record even though you score a lot of points overall due to back luck in who your opponent happens to be (for example, I faced off against the last place team this week that started T Hill, C Patterson, M Ryan, J Robinson, C Davis, K Golladay - you can see why they were last place thru Week 3!). I know that you lost out on any trashtalking of H2H, but I'm in many leagues where I don't even know the other players, so this aspect doesn't hold much allure for me anyways. For the points only leagues, I have found that over the course of the season, better management and the better players overall will give you the best chance to win and you don't have to sweat some of the chaos that happens against you as much. Your thoughts?
H2H is always the most random thing, and listening to the insistence of anybody that it is necessary because that's how "real football" is played is asinine. You can't play defense against your FF opponent! As you note, point leagues are one way to mitigate that randomness, as are all-play, multiple opponents, average score... anything that gives you more points of data will help smooth out the results. In my primary home league, in the first three weeks, I've already had a week where I lost with the second highest points, and won with the third lowest. Insanity!
So so good. The Dunning-Kruger Effect has been evident in my personal behavior as I launched several new businesses. I think that's a really good chart to look at most guys and their life experience and behavior from 18 to 40.
The analysts who are always right drive me nuts. I think that's why I gravitate to the Gretch, Barrett, Bloom types in the industry. Cerebral takes. As much economics and philosophy as hard core analytics. Another guy that does that well but with more of a film grinder influence is Matt Waldman. Good stuff from him as well.
Good stuff Ben. Glad I signed on to this newsletter. I enjoy listening to you and Shawn on Stealing Bananas and I get a kick out of your Ship Chasing pods. Keep up the good work!
Ben…priceless! You are spot on with your assessment. This type of writing is exactly why I’m here. You said what other analysts, I presume, are thinking but they don’t have the $%#@& to put it in an article. We understand what you are doing and you understand why we are here. This is not an exact science but it’s that “tacit knowledge” that we are learning to interpret that is making us all better at making decisions…on our own! Keep up the good work Ben…you are providing a service that cannot be found anywhere else…that’s why we’re here!
If I had to pick only one fantasy analyst to listen to. I would pick you Gretch. Thank you for putting so much thought, care, energy, and time into this and always keeping it on the edge and fun. You’ve talked me off the tilt and the ledge multiple times. And when I’ve made mistakes I appreciate reading this even more because I feel good that the structure was sound and the process was good. I’m hoping to get into Fantasy Analysis sometime soon. You, Shawn Siegele, and the Ship Chasing boys rock and have been my rock this season and I’ve never had more fun playing fantasy. #BananaThieves
Ben - Great points, as always, and I've been thinking a lot about chaos/luck/probability since starting FF about 5 years ago. I like to think in terms of probability to guide my decisions and live with the consequences, but I also have this unreasonable belief that I tend to have bad luck as well. That said, in redraft leagues, I have started to drift into points only leagues where you still need to set a starting lineup to accrue points (so not bestball), and there is active management in-season. I have found myself doing much better in these leagues and it has tampered down some of the randomness of being in H2H and having a losing record even though you score a lot of points overall due to back luck in who your opponent happens to be (for example, I faced off against the last place team this week that started T Hill, C Patterson, M Ryan, J Robinson, C Davis, K Golladay - you can see why they were last place thru Week 3!). I know that you lost out on any trashtalking of H2H, but I'm in many leagues where I don't even know the other players, so this aspect doesn't hold much allure for me anyways. For the points only leagues, I have found that over the course of the season, better management and the better players overall will give you the best chance to win and you don't have to sweat some of the chaos that happens against you as much. Your thoughts?
H2H is always the most random thing, and listening to the insistence of anybody that it is necessary because that's how "real football" is played is asinine. You can't play defense against your FF opponent! As you note, point leagues are one way to mitigate that randomness, as are all-play, multiple opponents, average score... anything that gives you more points of data will help smooth out the results. In my primary home league, in the first three weeks, I've already had a week where I lost with the second highest points, and won with the third lowest. Insanity!
So so good. The Dunning-Kruger Effect has been evident in my personal behavior as I launched several new businesses. I think that's a really good chart to look at most guys and their life experience and behavior from 18 to 40.
The analysts who are always right drive me nuts. I think that's why I gravitate to the Gretch, Barrett, Bloom types in the industry. Cerebral takes. As much economics and philosophy as hard core analytics. Another guy that does that well but with more of a film grinder influence is Matt Waldman. Good stuff from him as well.
Scott Barrett actually was the first guy who came to my mind for the "guy who thinks he's always right but is just really good at marketing"
Loved this Ben, especially the confidence portion
Good stuff Ben. Glad I signed on to this newsletter. I enjoy listening to you and Shawn on Stealing Bananas and I get a kick out of your Ship Chasing pods. Keep up the good work!
Doing what u love.. thank you for being you.. don’t hold back
YES!!!!
Ben…priceless! You are spot on with your assessment. This type of writing is exactly why I’m here. You said what other analysts, I presume, are thinking but they don’t have the $%#@& to put it in an article. We understand what you are doing and you understand why we are here. This is not an exact science but it’s that “tacit knowledge” that we are learning to interpret that is making us all better at making decisions…on our own! Keep up the good work Ben…you are providing a service that cannot be found anywhere else…that’s why we’re here!