Below are common questions about our Fantasy Football Sleeper Accuracy competition. The answers below explain the scoring methodology and the general process for collecting sleeper picks from fantasy experts.
In a nutshell, how do you measure an expert’s fantasy football sleeper accuracy?
We ask experts to make sleeper picks at QB, RB, WR, TE, and DST. Our competition aims to evaluate the experts’ ability to (1) Pick the best sleepers at each position and (2) Rank their sleeper picks within each position.
What is your definition of a Sleeper?
We define Sleepers as players that fall outside of specific Expert Consensus Rank cutoffs. All experts have access to the same player selection pool that corresponds to the following:
- QB: Outside top 15
- RB: Outside top 45
- WR: Outside top 55
- TE: Outside top 15
- DST: Outside top 10
How many Sleeper picks do the experts make?
Each expert submits 13 sleepers at the following positions. For positions where multiple sleepers are entered (QB/RB/WR/TE), the expert must rank-order their picks.
- 2 QB
- 4 RB
- 4 WR
- 2 TE
- 1 DST
Are there any scoring considerations for the expert picks?
Yes, the experts use Yahoo default settings (Half PPR scoring) for their sleeper selections and rankings.
How are the Sleeper predictions scored?
The picks graded at the conclusion of the fantasy season via several calculations using Half PPR scoring:
Point Gap
For each of the 13 players an expert selects, we identify the fantasy points they scored above (or below) a replacement player at each position. This value is known as the “Point Gap” for each expert pick. The replacement player in the calculation is the player at the edge of our Sleeper cutoff range at the position (using Actual point production). The QB replacement player is the 15th best QB for the season, for example. More specifically, let’s say one of an expert’s RB sleepers scored 150 Half PPR points for the season. If the replacement player at RB (i.e. RB #45) scored 60 points, then the the expert would earn a score of 90 for their Point Gap on that sleeper pick. This calculation is performed for all of the expert’s picks.
Multipliers
We also grade the experts’ ability to rank their sleeper picks. For instance, if the best WR sleeper was D.J. Chark, the experts are rewarded not only for picking Chark as 1 of their 4 sleeper WRs, but also for how high they valued him as a sleeper. An expert that ranked Chark as their #1 WR sleeper will earn more points than an expert that slotted Chark as their #4 WR sleeper. We account for this by applying Multipliers to the Point Gaps the experts earned for each pick. The size of the Multipliers correspond to each rank slot the experts used. For example, the #1 WR rank slot has a higher multiplier than the #2 WR rank slot, and so forth down the line. Therefore, an expert that ranked DJ Chark at #1 will earn more points than an expert that had him at #2. And an expert that ranked Chark at #2 will receive more points than any experts that had Chark at #3 or #4. Furthermore, if an expert made a poor pick and earned negative points for any of their sleepers, the Multipliers ensure the negative impact will increase based upon how high the player was ranked.
Expert Point Total
After the Multipliers are applied to all of an expert’s picks (Point Gaps), the new values are added together to generate a Point Total. This represents the expert’s final score. Our Overall Sleeper Accuracy leaderboard is sorted from high to low based on the Point Totals. The higher an expert’s score, the better they performed with their sleeper selections and sleeper rankings.
Starting with the 2022 season, each expert’s final score will only be based on the point gaps of successful sleepers – players who finished above replacement level. For players who finished below replacement level, how far below they finished will only matter as tiebreaker.
