There's a lot of strong dynasty analysis out there, especially when compared to five or ten years ago. But most of it is so dang practical-- Player X is undervalued, Player Y's workload is troubling, the market at this position is irrational, and take this specific action to win your league. Dynasty, in Theory is meant as a corrective, offering insights and takeaways into the strategic and structural nature of the game that might not lead to an immediate benefit but which should help us become better players over time.

Irrationally Exuberant

But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?
-Alan Greenspan, "The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society"

If you asked all twelve managers in a league to estimate the chances of each team winning a championship, you would get twelve very different sets of estimates. Assuming each manager has decent numeracy, though, all twelve sets of estimates will share a common feature: each will sum to 100%.

This is basic probability. Each league awards one championship every year. There is a 100% chance that an individual team walks away with it; therefore, the individual odds of each particular team should add up to 100%. Each set of estimates will be internally consistent-- all of the estimates will make sense in relation to the others.

What if, however, you took those twelve sets of estimates and added up each manager’s estimate of his or her own chances of winning a title? Since these estimates were produced by different managers, they would not be internally consistent. Instead, you would likely find they sum to a number substantially higher than 100%.

This, too, makes sense; it stands to reason that every manager in the league is among the highest on the players he or she rosters; if not, he or she would trade that player away to another manager who valued him more. Therefore, everyone tends to believe their teams are better than consensus would have them.

Even though this outcome is expected and easily explainable, it is nonetheless a perfect example of irrational exuberance. The owners, collectively, are more excited about their individual prospects than they should be.

I wrote two weeks ago about whether and when managers should make win-now trades. I also noted that regardless of what the numbers said, I preferred a "build the best team you can and let the chips fall where they may" approach. Irrational exuberance is part of the reason why.

All of the calculations and considerations in that piece hinge on our ability to accurately estimate our chances of winning. If managers collectively overestimate these chances, then knowing the numbers could well do more harm than good.

Unnecessarily Pessimistic

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
-A.E. Housman, "A Shropshire Lad"

Knowing about the threat of irrational exuberance, it is tempting to guard against it. Indeed, when I wrote about this observation more than a decade ago, I ended with an admonishment that "the cure for irrational exuberance is a little bit of calculated pessimism." Whatever we judge our true odds to be, perhaps we can merely adjust them downward. What could be the harm?

Much, in fact.

In 2017, a team in my home league started 0-4. It finished with a 6-7 record, which was enough to make the playoffs... where it won three straight and took home the title. The 2016 champion started 4-5 and also snuck into the playoffs at 6-7. The 2011 champion ranked 2nd-to-last in total points and 3rd-to-last in all-play win percentage, made the playoffs on the back of extreme schedule luck, then set a still-standing record for postseason production. (The 2017 team that started 0-4 ranks second.)

These stories are not unusual. Doubtless, most of you have encountered your own examples of teams rallying from a hopeless-seeming position to an improbable championship. Had any of these teams underestimated their odds, they might have made moves with an eye to the future and cost themselves a championship in the process.

I am a different writer than I was ten years ago; my thoughts on this have changed. (I dread the day I read my old work and find I no longer disagree with it, for that is the day I die to the idea of growth.) 

Too much pessimism can cause as much damage as too much optimism, if not more. Mithridates may well have died old, but I will not so cavalierly advocate poison as prophylaxis for poison. 

Recovering Our Senses

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
-Charles Mackay, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”

Perhaps, then, the solution is neither exuberance nor pessimism. We should merely be perfectly clear-eyed and accurate in our assessment of our own team (knowing full well that structural forces are working against us in our attempt).

We are certainly better equipped for the endeavor than ever before. Managers today have access to free third-party player valuation measures like FantasyCalc and KeepTradeCut, team management tools like Dynasty Daddy (with its handy playoff and title odds calculator), and Footballguys' exclusive subscriber tools such as Dan Hindery's dynasty trade value chart (which, uniquely, can be customized to your league's specific settings) and the League Dominator (for my money, the most powerful in-season management tool, complete with tailored team strength estimates fed by the best projections in the industry).

Where once the task of objective evaluation bordered on impossible, today it verges on trivial. Should anyone wish to walk this path, I would not dissuade them.

Still, I think I shall hew to my old path. Rather than risking either optimism or pessimism (and their associated pitfalls), I prefer to divorce decisions (to whatever extent is reasonable) from estimates of my team's quality. Good team or bad, the steps before me remain the same: work to ensure my team is better tomorrow than it is today and trust that wins will be a natural consequence of my efforts.