r/dataisbeautiful • u/rsrgrimm • 2d ago

How did draft position affect fantasy football league performance in 2024? (12-man leagues, snake draft)

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To assess how draft position affected league performance, I looked into over 400 12-man leagues (all snake drafts) and plotted win ratio, normalized points earned (normalized within a given league to account for various scoring and roster settings), and final league ranking for each draft position.

Surprisingly, 1st pick performed worst on average across all metrics.

League data collected from Sleeper API.

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u/rsrgrimm 2d ago

I plan on diving into this data more, so let me know if you have any suggestions for further analysis

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u/JamminOnTheOne 2d ago

I’d suggest looking at multiple years of data, so it’s not overly influenced by the specific players drafted in certain spots having especially good or bad seasons (like McCaffrey at #1 in 2024).

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u/rsrgrimm 2d ago

Yeah, I plan on doing that analysis. This data definitely isn't robust enough to indicate whether draft position has a consistent influence on season performance. But I still thought it was interesting.

2

u/zanderman12 1d ago

Its actually pretty consistant in that the consensus #1 has busted for like 5 years in a row. I did this a few years ago but even 4 years of data shows a similar pattern: 2022 Snake Draft Strategy Review