Economists & Egalitarians

DM: Roll for inflation!

(Players roll dice)

Player 1: I got 3.1%.

Player 2: 2.7% for me.

Player 3: (sadly) 0.9%.

Everyone (in unison): Stagnation!

DM: Looks like The Fed is going first. The Chairman stands before you in an imposing manner and says “By the power of Friedman, I invoke a tightening of the money supply!”

Player 2 (to Player 3): Looks like he’s got the Monetarist feat.

Player 3 (to Player 2): It’s all good. I’ve got +5 to Keynesianism. I’ll just cast Expansionary Fiscal Policy on my turn.

Player 1 (ignoring discussion): I attack with Socialism!

Player 3: WTF!

Player 2: Dude, weren’t you listening? He’s going to cast Expansionary Fiscal Policy! Also, I told you not to play a Neo-Marxist. It’s underpowered.

Player 1: But it looks so good on paper!

Player 2: Yeah, but all its powers are situational and never work in game. You might as well play a Mercantilist.

DM: Pffff. Please. We are NOT going back to E&E First Edition. Also, you can’t attack with Socialism unless you use Organized Labor as a bonus action.

Player 1: Oh, right. Then I’ll just make a Structural Unemployment check.

DM (rolls dice): 6.9%

Player 2: Not good. I delay.

Player 3: Sweet! I cast Expansionary Fiscal Policy!

DM: (rolls dice) There seems to be no effect.

Player 3: That can’t be! Unless… I make a regression check on aggregate demand. (rolls dice) I succeed!

DM: The Fed Chair’s countenance wavers for an instant before dissolving. The illusion dissipates and reveals the face of… Joseph Schumpeter! He smiles evilly and says “You are now in the throes of an 8-year business cycle! MUAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

Player 2: Ah, crap! The chief demon from the Austrian School!

Player 3: We’re so screwed!

Player 1: NOW can I cast Socialism?

Everyone: (rolls eyes)

Thoughts on Shakespeare

I've read some interesting things about the Bard recently.  In the pros column is Virginia Woolf, who writes in her diary:

I read Shakespeare directly I have finished writing.  When my mind is agape and red-hot.  Then it is astonishing.  I never yet knew how amazing his stretch and speed and word coining power is, until I felt it utterly outpace and outrace my own, seeming to start equal and then I see him draw ahead and do things I could not in my wildest tumult and utmost press of mind imagine.  Even the less known plays are written at a speed that is quicker than anybody else’s quickest; and the words drop so fast one can’t pick them up.  Look at this.  “Upon a gather’d lily almost wither’d.”  (That is a pure accident.  I happen to light on it.)  Evidently the pliancy of his mind was so complete that he could furbish out any train of thought; and, relaxing, let fall a shower of such unregarded flowers.  Why then should anyone else attempt to write?  This is not “writing” at all.  Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.

Heady praise coming from one of the 20th century's greatest writers.

Surprisingly, the cons column has a few adherents, as evidenced by this article.  Of note is Voltaire's commentary:

France has not insults, fool’s-caps, and pillories enough for such a scoundrel. My blood boils in my own veins while I speak to you about him … And the terrible thing is that … it is I myself who was the first to speak about this Shakespeare [in France]. I was the first who showed to the French a few pearls which I had found in his enormous dunghill.

Strong words from the man who purportedly introduced Shakespeare to the Continent.

Sometimes I find myself agreeing with Voltaire, but I'm the type of person to read Shakespeare for the sake of reading Shakespeare since it's such a critical part of literature.  His writings are constantly alluded to in other works such that there's no way to avoid reading Shakespeare even if you never actually read Shakespeare.  I remember reading somewhere once that after the Bible, the works of Shakespeare are the most referenced works of literature in writing (I think 3rd was Paradise Lost).  Not sure if this is true, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were.

A lot of people have an aversion to Shakespeare after high school English, but I would recommend you give him another try in your adulthood.  Hamlet is really long and tough to get through, but represents the Bard at his best.  No one really likes A Midsummer Night's Dream, but I think Henry V is probably the most underrated when gauged by the general public.  The histories in general are great.

Your own thoughts and experiences are appreciated.

Lines of Code

Here is a list of products:

• Facebook
• New luxury car
• Large Hadron Collider
• Google

Can you rank order this list in terms of number of lines of code needed to create the product?  I'll give you a minute to think about it.

Ok, time's up.  Here is the rank-ordered list:

1. Google (2 billion)
2. New luxury car (100+ million)
3. Facebook (60 million)
4. Large Hadron Collider (50 million)

This is pretty remarkable (or mind blasting if you're Indian).  There is something disconcerting about the device we use to peer into the subatomic nature of reality requiring fewer lines of code than a Mercedes C-class or the means by which we find cat videos on the Interwebz.

QB Consistency

Wow, a second blog post in as many weeks!  (For yet another reason) I am impressed with myself.

I've been thinking about how to approach my upcoming fantasy football drafts from the quarterback perspective.  Usually, I look for three characteristics in my QB:

• Score - obviously I'm looking for the highest scoring QB available
• Consistency - perhaps not so obviously, I'm looking for someone who will guarantee me a certain number of points per week 
• Value - since I'd rather spend my first few picks on RBs and WRs, I'm looking for someone I can get in later rounds for a good price

So which QBs am I targeting in 2015?  Let's look at some data to help inform my decision.  In the chart below, I plotted each QB's 2014 total fantasy points (FP) against their variance, a statistical measure of how each QB's weekly point total deviated from the mean.  The variance is all about consistency: the lower the variance, the more consistent the QB is in terms of scoring.  Finally, the color scale of each point represents that player's current (as of August 21, 2015) average draft pick (ADP) as determined by FantasyPros.  Green means low ADP (generally selected early in the draft), while red means high ADP (selected later).  Let's see what we get:

Pardon the labeling, I know it's difficult to read.  I didn't feel like messing around too much in R to make the text legible.  In any case, our best QBs should fall to the bottom right (highest fantasy points, lowest variance).  Indeed, we see names down there like Andrew Luck and Drew Brees.  Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning are high on the points scale, but show a bit more inconsistency.  Both players had relatively poor stretches (Rodgers in the first few games, Manning in the last few) in 2014, which raises their variance.  But look at how dark green (low ADP) these guys are.  I don't want to spend a high pick on one of them.

What I'm looking for are QBs who are kind of lighter green to yellow (ADP roughly 60-120), someone you can get between rounds 5 and 10 in a 12-team draft.  I also want someone with low variance (say < 100) and high points (say 300 FP for the season).  Drawing an imaginary vertical line at the 300 FP mark, and a horizontal one at 100 for variance, I see a few interesting names pop up in lighter shades of green:

• Matt Ryan
• Ryan Tannehill
• Philip Rivers
• Tony Romo

All of these guys are excellent prospects who can deliver points consistently for a cheap price.  Tannehill in particular intrigues me.  Here's a guy who's had solid improvement over his last two years in the NFL and seems to be trending upwards.  He's finally got some great weapons at his disposal and is improving his deep ball.  On top of it all, you can get him 40-50 picks after Luck and Rodgers!  I'm probably going to target him in every draft, but I don't think you can go wrong with any of the aforementioned prospects.

Some close outliers with respect to our criteria:

• Tom Brady
• Jay Cutler
• Eli Manning
• Joe Flacco

I'm not gung-ho on any of these fellows, but I would maybe take Eli in a pinch given the fact that he'll have Beckham and Cruz at his disposal this year.  Brady is clearly the best of the bunch but I'm turned off by his four-game suspension.  I'd rather not have to wrestle with QB backups as that takes up valuable roster spots.

This, of course, should not be construed as proof that you should wait a few rounds before taking a QB.  Rather, this data tells us who to pick assuming this premise is true.  Maybe that's another blog post for another day.

Points For First Downs

Here is my attempt at resuscitating this blog.  I don't know why I bother.  I'm bound to quit again after a short, fervent period of writing.

We conducted an experiment in one of my fantasy football leagues last year.  We added one point for every first down for RBs and WRs.  I wanted to know what effect, if any, this would have on scoring.

Points for first downs (PFFD) was negligible for WRs and somewhat impactful for RBs.  In the charts below, I plotted the point differential (% increase in total fantasy points due to PFFD) for the top 100 rushers and receivers in 2014.  I added a loess-smoothed line to each plot to highlight the overall trend.

You can see the trend for WRs remains largely unchanged as you go from high- to low-ranked players, i.e. the percent change is roughly equal across the board.  The hump in the middle indicates that mid-tier WRs were helped slightly more than high- or low-tier WRs in terms of scoring capacity.

For RBs, there is an appreciable difference.  The bottom-end RBs show an overall 15% increase in value if we add PFFD.  The rich stay rich, but the poor get much richer (relative to their non-PFFD-adjusted value).  This creates slightly less of a dichotomy between top- and bottom-tier RBs, and widens the pool of potentially draftable players.  The RBs at the bottom end are backups and 3rd down backs who get rotated into lineups more frequently than backup and special package WRs.

What I don't have is league game data from last season to show that this had a material difference in any of our matchups.  I recall there being some pretty close games, so it would be interesting to see if the change manifested in the overall standings.

So what does this mean overall?  Based on the RB data, I'd suggest we get rid of PFFD (at least at the RB position).  Having a wider pool of draftable players diminishes the Knowledge Advantage, and the game is random enough as it is without introducing more variables.  However, given the extremely casual nature of this particular league (and, I imagine, most fantasy football leagues), I think the difference will be immaterial, so I won't cry if people want to keep it (though I will question their values and reasoning ability).