Drafting and Volatility

Table of Contents

• Overview
• The Basics
  • Volatility
  • Initial Player Camp
  • Pre-sort by position
  • The Draft
    • First Round
    • Second Round
    • Third and Fourth Round
    • Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Round
• The Breakdown
• 0.4.3 Changes

Overview

This page details a guide to Drafting and the Volatility player attribute. The aim is to provide tips for the player to improve their drafts.

Data taken from thread Drafting and Volatility written by Setherick on 4/5/2017 and the update on 9/30/2018.

The Basics

The basics of drafting.

Volatility

It is believed that volatility may play a part in determining if a player booms or busts in training camp, although no data studies have evidenced that either way. It is also believed volatility controls the level of boom or bust.

A high volatility player with a high overall potential may well bust much more than he will go up; likewise, a high volatility player that starts with a lower overall potential may boom much more than he will bust.

Initial Training Camp

The initial training camp is the first camp after drafting a player.

This first camp defines the direction of progress for the player (boom or bust). This degree of travel will continue in future camps until they hit their hidden potential. It is believed the initial training camp has the highest boom / bust value.

Pre-sort by position

Recommended to pre-sort players by the positionyou will have them play. Approach in this thread is to set board with best player available in mind and tweak as necessary. So if a RB is listed as a 70 in my weights, but as a 78 WR,

Example :-

Peter Jones would be sorted as WR as that would be where he will play.

It needs to be remembered that any consideration of position changes like this need to take on board IF the position matrix for the league allows that change. If it does not, then Peter Jones needs to be evaluated as a RB.

Useful to look at all players.

The Draft

Basic approach is listed here - flexibility is key. The advice here should be regarded as pointers rather than hard and fast rules.

First Round

Essential not to waste a pick. Place all players with >=80 overall potential based upon your player weights and <=20 volatility on draft board. Compare draft board with roster to determine key needs and ordering. Shuffle players with potential >=90 overall potential to the top - leave rest in best player order.

With the the remaining high potential, high volatility players left in the draft class, add the highest (usually >=95 overall potential) to draft board under top picks if the player has decent secondary attributes or can position switch if he busts at his listed position.

Examples

WR with the following attributes: Speed, Acceleration, and Ball Carry >=90, Volatility >=80. If he busts at WR, could still be an effective running back = add to draft board under top picks. If his secondary attributes are high enough, consider making a top pick.

DB with the following attributes: Speed, Acceleration, and Punish >=90 or Speed, Acceleration, and Tackle >=90. Even if he has a high volatility rating, he can be useful if he busts or can be a position switch candidate. If he doesn't bust, you have a great all around player.

Second Round

Start to gamble more in this round without risking a waste of a pick. If there is a >=90 overall player still on the board, consider that guy on top of the draft board even if he has a high volatility. The reward could be too great to pass up.

Reset draft board and add all of the players with a volatility of <=30-50. Consider not going 50 with this round unless it's a position of need - risk a player could drop from 80s to 70s overall potential is a possibility.

Third and Fourth Round

Look to draft the best available player to an extent. Good secondary attributes / being position of need can make a high volatility player a candidate for drafting in these rounds.

Pre-sorting players helps for these rounds.

Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Round

Reverse strategy and start removing players with <=70 volatility off of the board. Make exception here is a player that meets a need that can be got early in the fifth round. Make exception for players playing out of position - as allowed by league position matrix.

Other than these exceptions, the higher the volatility the better for these rounds. The rationale for this is that the higher the volatility then the higher the potential boom / bust - so if a player booms with high volatility, then you may have drafted a 3rd-4th rounder or better in a far lower round.

The Breakdown

Past three drafts in MFN-19, showing consistency in approach.

0.4.3 changes

Boom or bust effect amplified for 5th-7th round players. Aim to generate more average players within the player pool. Volatility is the indicator of the risk/reward ratio of drafting in these rounds.

Each player attribute may have a median baseline at the time of creation that is somewhere between their current actual score and their potential score. Volatility tells you how far they will deviate from that median score.

A booming player (+5 overall potential) may deviate in a positive direction to such an excessive amount that it exceeds the listed potential. That's why you may see 60 potential accuracy QBs becoming 100 accuracy QBs. Even booming players may never max out any one attribute especially if their starting functional value was so low. It's really hard to go from 20 functional accuracy to 100 to stick with QBs.

Similarly, a bust (-5 overall potential) deviates in a negative direction and causes a potential reset. This is where it's important to remember that your investment was always based on potential and not actual player attributes.

There are going to be more busts in a draft than booms. The reason why is because of potential again.

Many important player attributes are static. That means that if you take the value of these attributes that is the minimum value of the player.

As it's believed dynamic attributes are all rolled against Volatility individually, there is a good chance that many of them will not reach their potential and the player's overall score will go down. Depending on how your weights are set up, this fall can appear much worse than it might actually be.

It's also important to consider where a player was in terms of potential before training camp. A 95 potential player that falls 9 overall points is unfortunate, but he's still an 86 overall player. And should otherwise continue to have a stellar career.

It is believe that players that get the boom/bust bonus modification will have their volatility ratings go up. As far as is known, it is random which players will get it - observe vol rating when drafting. Also, low Vol late round players are now more attractive to draft.