As leagues get larger, there are important considerations you need to make around your strategy. More teams mean more starters, more players rosters, and more strategy in your teambuilding process. Below are some strategies to consider for larger leagues.
Move the Baselines
With more teams in your league, you will have different starting ranges at positions than you would in a traditional 10- or 12-team league. Players that would be fringe starters in a 10- or 12-team league likely are weekly starters in a 14-team league.
This moves the baselines of replacement players and can be seen easily at the quarterback position. Since 2000, in six-point passing touchdown leagues, the QB1 finisher has scored an average of 427 points. That is a big advantage over the QB12 finisher who averaged 283.3 points. Assuming each played a 16-game season, the average QB1 finished at 26.7PPG while the average QB12 finished at 17.7PPG. Throughout a 13-game regular season, that nine-point difference between starting the QB1 and QB12 is worth about 1.1 wins fantasy football wins.
When a league expands teams, the difference between QB1 and the worst starter expands. For example, if you are in a 16-team league, the average QB16 finish since 2000 has been 254.8 points or 15.9PPG. The difference between QB1 and QB16 is 1.3 wins during a 13-game regular season.
Those differences can add up over 8, 9, or 10 roster lineup spots.
Fixing Your Problems
With the baseline of starters lower, it becomes more difficult to fix a problem. In a 14- or 16-team league, there will be more players rostered than a 10- or 12-team league. That has important consequences.
For one, streaming is more difficult. Not every team will roster two quarterbacks each week, but a good approximation is a team will roster 1.5 quarterbacks per week. If you are looking for a streaming quarterback in a 12-team league, that will put you around QB19 that you can find on the waiver wire. In a 14-team league, that is QB22 and a 16-team league that is QB25. This will leave you scraping the bottom of the barrel for options to replace a starter in the event of injuries or poor play, especially in weeks where six teams are on a bye.
The same is true across positions. As you roster more players, the drop off in the waiver wire is steeper. This is critical when making team decisions. Drafting, waiver wire, and trading decisions should recognize this drop-off.
Team Balance
With problems more difficult to fix in larger leagues, you should strive for balance on your team. Strategies like Zero RB and Late Round Quarterback can work well in traditional size leagues. However, once you get into deeper leagues, lopsided strategies can be dangerous. If you wait on a quarterback in your 16-team league, it is more difficult to fix the position with a waiver wire addition in the event of an injury or poor performance.
Similarly, if you wait on selecting a running back or wide receiver until the fifth or sixth round, you run the risk of creating a hole in your lineup that is a hindrance to your team.
This creates an incentive to draft with balance. While it is difficult to have your team completely balanced in positional strength, trying to fix one deficiency on the waiver wire or through trade is easier than two or three positional deficiencies.
Draft Preparation
A great technique to prepare for any draft is to build from the end of the draft back to the beginning. Average draft position (ADP) is an outstanding resource for the exercise. When you are doing this, make sure to adjust for the league depth in ADP. The 100th pick in a 12-team league will be in the ninth round, but in a 16-team league, that pick will be in the seventh round.
As you work through each round and range of the draft, note the players you would feel comfortable depending on in your starting lineup. If you are used to playing 10 or 12-team leagues, this will feel less comfortable in 14- or 16-team leagues, because the players you will be starting are weaker.
Work through each position this way and identify the line where you would last be comfortable drafting traditional benchmarks like QB1, RB2, WR3, and TE1. To have a successful draft, you want to make sure you are inside your comfort category at each benchmark.
Waiver Wire Management
In a bigger league, think ahead on waiver wire selections. Last year, players like Raheem Mostert and Breshad Perriman came from off the radar to provide critical fantasy production during the season. In deeper leagues, there will be more players rostered and lesser options on the waiver wire. This makes it critical to be a week or two ahead on waiver wire additions. For example, when there is an injury to a running back, try to add the backup, but look to preemptively add the next player on the depth chart who will be an injury away from fantasy relevance.
