How to Keep Track of Records and Information for Dynasty Leagues
Redraft leagues usually involve a draft board and rankings cheat sheet that helps you maneuver through the draft and try to create the best team possible. Once you leave the draft room, a pretty significant part of your strategy is already completed. Sure, there can be the occasional trade (or a few if you are lucky) and you still need to set lineups and hunt the waiver wire, but the team who drafted the best usually ends up making a deep playoff run barring major injuries.
Dynasty, on the other hand, is a completely different story. There is so much more strategy that goes into creating a dynasty roster which not only helps you win a championship, but also turns your team into a powerhouse to dominate your opponents for years to come. Whatever your team-building strategy is, keeping track of information for your dynasty leagues is vital to your success. It comes easier for some than others but can offer the same advantages for everyone.
Let’s take a look at each of the items I like to track across my dynasty leagues.
1. Track Your Finances
Whether you play to win money, for charity, or for bragging rights, keeping track of your finances is an important first step. This is especially true if you play in multiple leagues, like me. I like to create a balance sheet to track all money spent versus all money earned. At the end of the year, the goal is to always win money but to at least cover all my year-long fantasy football expenses. These can include league fees, site memberships, books, and rookie guides. The key is to lay everything out and organize it so you can easily track how much you spend.
2. The Sticky Board
Now that we have our money situation tracked, it is time to dive into tracking our actual leagues and players. About a year ago, I stumbled across an awesome league-tracking tool called The Sticky Board developed by fellow DLF writer Adam Tzikas. You log-in with your MFL credentials and it displays a bunch of valuable information across your leagues, including:
- Pending trades
- Roster
- Draft picks
- When your draft day is
- When waivers run
- Links to submit lineups
On top of all this, my favorite feature is the link at the top to track your player share counts across all your MFL leagues. Not only does it list overall shares, but it filters it down to just rookies too. It is a quick way to see which players you are overweight or underweight on. Adam hit it out of the ballpark with this tool.
3. League Records
We now have a way to track our expenses, player counts, and pending trades, but we also need a way to track our records across each league. This is a good way to figure out which leagues might need an extra veteran to make a playoff push or those that might need to enter a rebuild. Nobody wants a mediocre team that squeaks into the playoffs and loses in the first round. Being aware of your records across all of your leagues is a good way to stay on top of this. I just create a simple spreadsheet where I input a win or loss for each league every Tuesday or Wednesday and post total records at the bottom.
4. “The Notebook”
So we have taken care of most of the bookkeeping items and how to track them. Let’s now dive into the strategy side of things. Another fellow DLF writer, Leo Paciga, coined the term Dynasty Notebook for quite possibly one of the greatest competitive advantages in all of dynasty fantasy football. The idea is to jot down as much information as you can on your league mates to gain leverage in trade negotiations.
It’s a simple way to get to know them without them even knowing you are tracking their tendencies. Maybe a certain owner likes to sell his picks a few weeks into the regular season. Maybe another owner targets boom-or-bust wide receivers with elite speed. Almost every owner has a favorite team and a lot are biased towards their players. Jot these all down!
Anything you jot down can potentially help you close a trade negotiation, often in your favor. It’s my favorite way to gain an advantage on my league mates and probably the most valuable as well.
5. Grade Your Trades
So now you have tracked your finances, pending trades, player share counts, and even your league mates’ tendencies. What is left? The final item I like to track is my trades. First, I jot down the assets I gave up as well as the ones I received. I also add a small note as to why I executed the trade and who initiated the trade talks. These could range from added depth at running back, selling high on a player I did not believe in, or buying a player I see breaking out. Finally, I leave a column blank so I can return and give myself a grade (A, B, C, D or F). This could be one year down the road or even three.
By doing this, I have come across many strengths and weaknesses in my trading game. For instance, many times I have been far too impatient when selling a player I do not believe in. I have the tendency to lock in on one owner and work to get a deal done when there are often better deals to be had with other owners. Comments come in from other owners saying they would have paid more. This exercise of tracking my trades has helped me begin to take advantage of these lost opportunities.
On the flip side, I do much better when trading a single player for multiple assets. For instance, last year I came across an owner who valued David Njoku higher than George Kittle (before Kittle’s big breakout season). I held Njoku at the time but felt confident Kittle would either outperform him or at least post similar numbers. In my mind, trading Njoku for Kittle plus a draft pick gave me multiple chances to win the trade. If Kittle outperformed Njoku the pick would be a bonus. If the players performed similarly, the pick could help push my side to win the deal. Even if Njoku outperformed Kittle I still had a chance to make up some ground if my pick hit. A lot would have to go wrong for me to lose the trade.
Tracking all of this information laid out above can give you a big advantage over your league mates. Not only are you tracking your teams and tendencies but those of other owners as well. Any information you can add to your disposal can serve as an advantage either now or in the future. The entire dynasty landscape, whether it be player values or owner tendencies, is constantly changing and tracking these items allows you to remain one step ahead of your league mates.
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