Many of you have probably heard of the Pareto principle, better known as the 80-20 rule. Simply put, the principle suggests that many natural phenomena follow a power law distribution that results in 20 percent of causes producing around 80 percent of effects.
Most companies see that a small percentage of their products (and customers) produce the majority of their revenue. I actually see that with my books and products; the top 20 percent of them result in roughly 80 percent of my profit. Actually, the top fifth of you guys produce four-fifths of my revenue.
We see the 80-20 principle in lots of aspects of everyday life; 20 percent of pea pods contain 80 percent of peas, 20 percent of the world holds 80 percent of the wealth, and so on.
The 80-20 rule can have a potentially drastic effect on daily fantasy sports profits. There are all kinds of strategies DFS players employ that result in almost no benefit, while a few key techniques produce the majority of success. By focusing on the few actions that produce the most beneficial results, we can become far more efficient as players.
With that said, I want to take a look at both “the 80” and “the 20.”
The 80
By “the 80,” I mean the tasks in which DFS players typically partake that produce a small percentage of what helps them win. This category could also be called “the inefficient.” They’re time-suckers; it’s not that everything in “the 80” is useless, but we just don’t see a very good return on our time.
Re-watching Games
I’m not saying that watching games is useless (it might be for MLB, but certainly not NFL or NBA). It’s also fun, so there’s entertainment value here that extends far beyond “what the return on my game-watching time?”
In my opinion, though, re-watching games is an inefficient way to gain long-term knowledge. First, it’s time-consuming as hell. Even if you watch games on Game Rewind or something where you can fast-forward, you’re still taking hours to do something that might tell you a few things you couldn’t find out by just looking at the box score and some advanced metrics. There are benefits to watching games as a way to “study,” yes, but the return on your time is minimal.
Second, it’s not like we’re trained in the art of film study. What real insights can we gain? Oh wow, he looks fast, I should draft him. We basically have no idea what we’re viewing, for the most part.
Finally, when we spend a ton of time watching sports for the sole purpose of winning daily fantasy, we just increase the odds that we get fooled by randomness. No matter how good your memory, you aren’t going to be able to recall the red zone efficiency rates of every wide receiver just from watching games or know if Mike Trout is hitting .300 or .330 over his past 10 games. You open yourself up to believing what you can recall—usually recent events or specific “big plays” that stand out in your mind. So maybe you’ll watch DeSean Jackson catch five touchdowns on five red zone targets over the course of a month, including a couple ridiculous one-handed grabs, and conclude he’s the shit in small areas (not to be confused with taking shits in small areas, i.e. my worst in-flight nightmare). Except Jackson has converted barely more than 1-in-10 of his career red zone targets into scores—he sucks in the red zone—but it’s really difficult to know that just by watching games.
On the show Shark Tank, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban reiterates that he’s looking for an optimal “return on his time.” That’s what we want, too, and watching games (or, I should say, re-watching games as a way to become a better daily fantasy player) doesn’t provide it. Note that I don’t think watching in general is useless or that you should ignore the games; you should definitely watch as much as you realistically can, but if you’re trying to improve in DFS, re-watching games as a form of “film study” is horribly inefficient.
Reading Almost All Analysis
I’m not trying to make enemies here so I won’t name any names, but (and I think you’d agree with this) almost all DFS analysis available is garbage. You’re probably going to become a worse player by reading the majority of content out there because it’s often either misleading or just wrong.
It’s always good to take in other opinions and decide for yourself what’s smart and what’s not. But that doesn’t mean all content should be given the same amount of attention.
NOTE: This is an edit to the original post and I just want to be clear that I do think there’s also a lot of really great DFS content and advice available (even for free), too.
Reacting to “News”
“News” is in quotes here because the non-stop flow of information emanating from today’s sports world has created a situation where we know way, way too much about players, and almost all of it is worthless. I don’t think we’re that far away from getting an e-mail update alerting us that Brandon Marshall just masturbated.
“Brandon Marshall Jacks Off in Shower – How It Will Affect His Week 7 Performance”
That’s not a world I want to live in. Obviously we need to pay attention to important news—injuries, coaching changes, scheme alterations, etc. But if you’re going to update your projections every time a coach says “we want to get this guy more involved,” you’re going to be wasting a whole lot of time. Most “news” is twisted from a single comment a coach might make without thinking much about it. It usually means nothing to the team.
The 20
Now let’s take a look at “the 20”—the 20 percent of your actions that produce the majority of the real-world value for your fantasy football team.
Reading Informed Analysis
For every 1,000 pieces of shitty fantasy sports content available, there’s one piece of awesome, useful, detailed analysis. Read as much of that as you can; there’s no reason to diversify the advice you seek if the majority of it sucks.
Performing Structured Research/Analytics
In my opinion, you should spend as much time as you can performing research on things that actually matter in DFS. Even if it’s as simple as using the Pro Football Reference Game Play Finder to see how certain running backs perform when their teams are leading or using FanGraphs to study advanced baseball analytics (or, better yet, using our Trends tool to uncover DFS value), the process of conducting research will help shape you into a superior owner.
The broader picture is that analytics/stat analysis is efficient and scalable. It’s efficient in that you can “solve” complex problems in the blink of an eye, giving you an amazing return on your time. As mentioned, researching DeSean Jackson’s career red zone touchdown rate will give you greater insights into his scoring potential than watching every game he’s ever played in search of the same information—and it will take about one-millionth of the time.
Stat analysis is scalable because we can build upon each other’s work. If someone does an analysis on a particular pitcher’s performance with his slider, I can check their research, question their methods, and so on. But how can we build upon someone else’s film study? Just say “nuh-uh”?
The 20 of the 20
The reason I’m a proponent of intense focus in a limited number of areas—and how that aids in grasping the big picture—is related to the 80-20 rule. Basically, we want to focus on the 20 percent of actions that create the best ROI. But we can basically do that ad infinitum, i.e. focus on “the 20 of the 20”—the top 20 percent of the most productive 20 percent of actions—and then “the 20 of the 20 of the 20,” and so on.
It follows that the greatest potential returns are going to come from exhausting value from the most specific of sources. If we’re logically breaking down this argument, it might look something like this:
- If 20 percent of our actions lead to 80 percent of benefits, we should focus on that 20 percent.
- If focusing on the most beneficial 20 percent of actions can be extended to more specific actions, i.e. “the 20 of the 20,” we should do that.
- The 80-20 rule applies to daily fantasy sports and, in most cases, can indeed be extended indefinitely in that realm.
- Therefore, we should continue to identify and exploit the most valuable actions we take in DFS, and the most valuable aspects of those actions, and the most valuable aspects of those actions, and so on, until we extract the maximum value and optimal return on our time. In short, start with the very specific—the big-time ROI actions—and move to the broad as all possible advantages are garnered.
In this argument, we have a sort of “Russian doll” situation; think of the smallest doll as possessing the most value. We want to work our way to that doll, generate the most possible value from it, then move outward to the next-largest doll, followed by the next-largest, and so on.
In regards to daily fantasy sports, it means identifying how your time can be most wisely spent. Perhaps you decide that it’s reading informed analysis at Fantasy Labs. Maybe you use our Trends tool to gain an edge. But if you personally find more actionable analysis and data elsewhere, focus on that first.
The goal is to make you think about where the value lies—how you can best spend your valuable time. No matter where that is, focus on aspects of daily fantasy sports that are falsifiable, repeatable, efficient, and scalable.
