Beasts of Bellevue, 2012–2017 Statistical Lookback

Well fellas, it’s the tail end of July. You know what that means. The most wonderful time of the year is right around the corner. This will be the seventh year in our keeper format. Just like we did last year, let’s take a look back and get a feel for how things have gone.

First things first, we’ll have a look at cumulative regular season wins over the course of the last six seasons. Lyons put a respectable 8–5 on the board last year before coming up short in the first round of the playoffs, and moved into first place all time in regular season wins.

In other news, with two seasons under his belt, Oster has already notched 17 regular season wins — only one fewer than what Sam was able to accomplish in four years.

But regular season is only half the story. So next we’re going to take a look at all-up success, including playoffs, in our keeper League’s storied six year history. The following plot visualizes the average final standings position for each owner. This is the best at-a-glance readout for overall success.

There’s something really interesting here. Draw your attention to the six “most successful” owners: me, Lyons, Dan, Nips, Shuds, and Joey. That list is also a comprehensive history of Beasts of Bellvue championship winners. Will we get our first ever repeat champion in 2018–2019? If so, expect that person to jump to the top of this list.

Moving away from individual performance and into League performance, 2017 was the lowest overall scoring output we’ve seen as a group. The range here isn’t super wide, but still interesting.

Drilling down into this might be too deep a cut for the casual stat-head, but I think this is interesting. In a box-and-whisker plot, statistical outliers are represented as single points. Last year, there were no statistical outliers — it was tooth-and-nail throughout the year, whereas in the previous year we had an owner really separate from the pack in a good way (Dan), and an owner separate in a bad way (Scott).

Another interesting observation from this is that the median scoring output by team (represented by the horizontal bar in the middle of the plot), was pretty similar to 2014 and 2015. It seems the culprit for our low scoring output was lack of teams that truly separated from the pack.

This next plot is one of my favorites from a data visualization standpoint. It captures the order (neatly stacked dots) and the chaos (year-to-year movement of dots) of our League. Find your color, and track how your standings position has changed over the last six years.

When I first created this plot, I was interested to see if any owner has finished in 12th (last) place, and also won a championship. The answer is no, that hasn’t happened, but Jake is threatening. He finished 12th in 2012, and has steadily climbed the standings since then. Sam also made a Herculean leap from 12th place to a championship appearance in 2014, but he was foisted by his own blood, Shuds.

Here’s a cleaner view, to help you track your performance history.

It’s been a serious fall from grace ever since Shuds’ championship in 2014, and Raffy has deteriorated from contender to cellar-dweller. Meanwhile, Oster’s rate of improvement is alarming, Scott has hoisted himself from the basement, and Jake’s looking for paydirt.

Alright, let’s get a bit deeper into it. As owners, our strategies differ (and we’re gonna dive deep on that topic in a bit). Some of us like to go big in the draft, and then sit on those laurels. Others think the game is won on the waiver wire. Others yet find a middle ground. Here’s a look at how active we all are in making trades, free agent acquisitions, and waiver snags.

It’s in stark evidence that there’s Jake, Oster, and Mills (and to some degree, Lyons), and then there’s everyone else. I’ll spare you guys the additional graphs, but I’ve researched the relationship between transaction activity and success. There’s no relationship with overall success (final standings position), but there is a modest relationship between transaction activity and regular season win output. Around 17–18 moves a year is the sweet spot for success.

Now, let’s look at how we like to allocate our overall budgets. First up, quarterbacks.

Interesting stuff. Joey, Scott, and Raffy all like to invest in the guys under center. Jake used to, but had a substantial change of heart. Shuds has been steadily warming to the idea.

How about running backs?

Check out Mills’ on-again-off-again pattern when it comes to investing in the guys who carry the rock. An observant analyst might predict an increase in RB-expenditure coming out of the Tunsilitis war-room in 2018.

Moving onto the wide receivers.

Shuds, Joey, and Scott have generally kept their WR costs down compared to the field, while Jake has of late aggressively set the market (and there’s more insight to be extracted from that nugget, so stay tuned).

How do we treat tight ends?

Say one thing for Steve Hudson, say he likes a tight end. Must be a Hudson thing. Dan overindexes on TE investment as well, and Sam, when he was still with us, just had a special level of fiduciary dedication to the position. Maybe the Hudsons should sit down with the Fratangelos, who have exhibited the opposite budgetary behavior, and have it out.

Kickers!

Jake and Lyons both have a habit of not thinking kickers are worth their financial salt on draft night. Rude. Everyone else generally spends a few bucks to get their guy — Scott and Shuds (and to an extend, myself and Joey) have demonstrated a tendency to throw a little extra cheddar in the direction of our kickers.

Defenses.

Shuds, what made you so hot for defenses last year? Highest defense investment in League history! Should we make another trophy for that?

Let’s move onto skill vs. luck plots. As a refresher, the idea behind these is that our wins/losses/general success in the season is informed not just by individual managerial acumen, but also by luck. To wit, we’re responsible for the points we put up on a weekly basis, but we can’t control the points that are put up against us. Our team point outputs are considered “skill”. Our opponents’ point outputs are considered “luck”. I’ll highlight one datapoint: in the top right, you can see one of my teams, right under the “Good and unlucky” label. That team had the second highest regular season scoring output in the six-year history of our League. That team also had more points scored against it than any team in the history of our League. Good and unlucky indeed.

Now let’s segment it by owner. League champions are called out with a bold red datapoint. Remember, left is bad, right is good, up is unlucky, down is lucky.

Pretty revealing stuff. Moving on now to something a little different. What makes our League so fun is the broader strategy laid over the week-to-week tactical decisions. I’m talking, of course, about the keeper/auction/contract-management component of the League. Two years ago marked the first time in League history that we entered the season with more total money locked up in keepers (both guys under 3 year deals, and guys who we accepted the +$5 increase on) than non-keepers. Last year, that trend really took off.

But what’s driving this change? Is it rookie running backs coming into the League, being overvalued and signed to big deals? While RBs have steadily seen the amount of keeper money thrown their way increase, the plot below indicates that wide receivers are actually driving the strategy shift.

Apart from position, it’s interesting to see which specific owners have shifted their strategy.

Observe the following: Dan has always maintained a keeper-heavy roster. Jake and I have both moved in that direction (seriously, our keeper strategy evolution is creepy similar). Mills’ strategy has also evolved similarly. Meanwhile, Raffy’s out here playing checkers while the rest of us are playing chess — something that Karp was also doing until an apparent change of heart. Scott has probably shown the most consistent balance of keeper/non-keeper distribution.

Alright, here’s the final (and most useful) plot. Thanks for sticking with me. This plot allows you to reference any owner’s keeper strategy by position. As a guide to read this, take a look at the panel second from the left on the bottom row. That’s Jake’s keeper strategy (label at the top) at the WR position (label to the right), which you can see is one of the more striking and obvious strategies in the League.

Until next July, Beasts of Bellvue.