Value Over Replacement Rankings for your 2024 Fantasy Football Draft
Estimated 5 minute read
You can be the homer fan that has already written your draft strategy in stone - draft CMC, Purdy, Aiyuk, and Kittle stack. You can be the draft with your gut team owner - this year is THE year Trevor Lawrence breaks out! Or you can work the numbers and use VOR - Value Over Replacement.
If you’re the calculated type like I am, then you would put your trust in drafting based on VOR. Anecdote here: In my 3 years of drafting based on VOR, I made the fantasy playoffs in two years and missed it last year. Year 1: I drafted CMC #2 and he had an injury-plagued season, but I still managed to make it into the playoffs because of the other solid players I drafted. Year 2: I drafted Travis Kelce #7, I got into the playoffs and won some of my entry fee money back. Last year, my draft looked awesome on paper (whose doesn’t right after their draft), but damn did the bad luck bug hit me hard. Rd. 1 Austin Ekeler (injuries), Rd. 2 Tony Pollard (underperformed), Rd. 3 Josh Jacobs (underperformed), Rd. 4 Mark Andrews (injuries), Rd. 5 Calvin Ridley (wild card). When your top picks underperform the way these 5 did, then you just have to accept that luck is a big part of fantasy football and just take the L when it doesn’t go your way.
The 13 years of fantasy football I played pre-VOR, I made the playoffs thrice and donated my entry fee money in the other years. Sure, my experience is anecdotal, but I’m putting all my stock into VOR this year - except for the one homer Bucs player pick I allow myself each year. Mathematically speaking, VOR just makes too much sense to me.
You choose the player based on how many more points they will score against another player of the same position.
You may be thinking, “No sh*t!”, but I’m referring to the situations similar to my 2022 draft: I have the 7th pick. Sophomore season Ja’Marr Chase is still available, Justin Jefferson is available, Justin Herbert is available. I chose Travis Kelce. Sure, I got laughed at for choosing a TE in the first round, but I trusted the VOR rankings and it ultimately paid off. Travis Kelce was the highest scoring TE that year, scoring 66.3 (standard scoring) points more than the second-place TE - a net average of +3.9 points per week. For the other positions that year: Patrick Mahomes was the highest scoring QB scoring 16.2 total points more than the second place QB; top scoring RB Josh Jacobs scored 3.9 total points more than the second-place RB; and top scoring WR Justin Jefferson scored 5.2 total points more than the second-place WR.
To recap, Travis Kelce had a larger scoring gap between himself and the second-place player in his position than ALL of the other top scoring players of their positions vs. their respective second-placers COMBINED. The idea behind VOR is not how many points your TE will score overall, but how many more points your TE will score vs. your opponent’s TE week-to-week. In the realm of TEs, it’s a wasteland once you get past the top 2 or 3 TEs, so snagging a player like a 2022 Travis Kelce in the first round was a very good decision. Take this concept and apply it to your QB, RB, and WR. Stop drafting based on their total projected fantasy points. Pay attention to the projected Value Over Replacement. I won’t spend more effort explaining it. I’ll just offer you my VOR rankings for 2024 (see link to the Google Sheet). Note that the projected fantasy points were compiled by Fantasy Pros and the VOR is calculated from those numbers. A strategy based on VOR will likely get you into the playoffs, or at least in the running as you enter the final weeks of your fantasy regular season. Once you get into the playoffs, you’re on your own because fantasy is partially based on draft strategy and mostly based on luck in choosing the right starters week in and week out, working some of that luck in the waiver wires, and making some splash trades here and there. Good luck!