Senior Editor and Founder John T. Georgopoulos is a 15-year veteran of the fantasy sports industry. He has written for several national fantasy magazines and has appeared on sports talk stations around the country.
John has also been a six-time finalist for various Fantasy Sports Writer Association (FSWA) awards; his Fantasy Forecast column was awarded the 2006 Best Fantasy Football In-Season Series by the FSWA.
If
you're in a keeper league, you realize the value of identifying undervalued
players as quickly as possible -- it's easier to acquire these hidden gems if
you're the only one in your league with the inside track on their 2009
performance. Even if you’re not in a keeper league, getting the biggest
return on your draft picks usually involves snagging a good player late in the
draft—allowing you to use your earlier picks to select known producers.
I took a few minutes to see if the Sports Grumblings® supercomputer, Mighty Max, could be tweaked to
unearth some of those hidden gems. As is usually the case, the results were eye
opening and provided some excellent insight.
I decided to use the following criteria for my search parameters:
A three-year
view of the stats (for stability)
Players whose
performance had improved each year (for quality)
Fantasy scores
which exceeded the positional average in 2008 (for significance)
Mighty
Max was able to highlight several players likely to continue their upward
trends. A few may be familiar, others not; according to Max, all of them will
likely improve their performances in 2009.
As
with all statistical analysis applied to human actions, it is not enough to
just look at the numbers. You need to have an understanding of the situation of
each player.
Here's
the resulting set of players Max believes will continue to post improved fantasy
numbers in 2009:
Defensive Linemen
Player
Pos
TM
2006 Pts
2007 Pts
2008 Pts
2008 Pct
Increase
Montgomery, Mike
DL
GB
18.00
19.50
57.00
192.31%
Ratliff, Jay
DL
Dal
22.50
31.50
58.00
84.13%
Lewis, Damione
DL
Car
24.00
30.50
46.00
50.82%
Bernard, Rocky
DL
NYG
37.00
38.00
57.00
50.00%
Rogers, Shaun
DL
Cle
25.50
56.50
78.50
38.94%
Abraham, John
DL
Atl
24.50
51.50
71.00
37.86%
Parker, Juqua
DL
Phi
34.00
44.00
59.00
34.09%
Haynesworth, Albert
DL
Wsh
30.50
48.00
64.00
33.33%
Roth, Matt
DL
Mia
37.50
45.50
59.50
30.77%
Suggs, Terrell
DL
Bal
75.00
76.00
96.50
26.97%
Edwards, Ray
DL
Min
14.50
44.00
54.50
23.86%
Tuck, Justin
DL
NYG
8.00
76.50
93.50
22.22%
Williams, Kevin
DL
Min
48.00
60.00
70.50
17.50%
Brown, Tony
DL
Ten
38.00
50.00
53.00
6.00%
Peko, Domata
DL
Cin
38.00
48.00
50.00
4.17%
Hall, James
DL
StL
30.50
52.00
54.00
3.85%
Cole, Trent
DL
Phi
78.50
85.50
86.00
0.58%
Think that top-line veterans can't be considered up-and-comers? Think again. Look at players like Shaun Rogers, John Abraham, Albert Haynesworth, Terrell Suggs and Kevin Williams, veterans that are still improving their game.
The top two point scorers on the list, Suggs and Justin Tuck, were still upping their production in 2008 at a 20+ percent clip; good bets to continue their outstanding production.
