While the 2022 fantasy football season is in the rearview mirror, meaning it’s time to look ahead to the 2023 season. Unfortunately, redraft season isn’t for a few more months. However, dynasty season is year-round. Furthermore, there is no better time to have a dynasty startup draft than right now.

Startup dynasty drafts are a blast. First, however, you need a draft strategy. There are several strategies you can use during a startup dynasty draft. Yet, the only wrong way is not having one at all.

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Before starting your draft, make sure you know all the rules and how things work. It is better to check the league settings and ask the commissioner a few questions than look like a fool during the draft. Once you know all the rules and settings, you can focus on your draft strategy.

One lesser-known strategy is the Value-Based Draft (VBD) strategy. It’s one centered around research and mathematics. While it sounds complicated, the strategy works if executed correctly.

Value-Based Drafting Dynasty Startup Strategy (2023 Fantasy Football)

What is the Value-Based Draft Strategy?

The VBD draft strategy is built on having detailed statistical projections for every player and creating a numeric value for him. However, the value is not determined by the number of fantasy points he is projected to score. Instead, it is how much the player outscores or gets outscored by others at his position.

With this draft strategy, you don’t want a boom-or-bust team. Instead, your goal is not to score the most points every week but consistently outscore your opponent. In short, you don’t want a team that can score 220 fantasy points one week but only 90 points another week.

If you think about it oddly, the highest-scoring team would consist of quarterbacks with a few elite running backs and wide receivers, plus Travis Kelce. However, you are bound to the starting lineup your league requires you to put together.

Rather than worrying about outscoring your opponent, you want to focus on winning as many of the individual matchups for the week. While you want to win every matchup, losing the WR2 matchup isn’t as critical as losing the tight end matchup.

Gather Your Projections

To have the most success with this strategy, you need to do your own research and create statistical projections for all 32 teams. However, you might not have the time to do your own research. In that case, find a couple of fantasy analysts you trust and use their research and rankings.

You then convert those stats into fantasy points based on your league’s scoring. Remember, small scoring changes do matter. One example is lost fumbles. If they cost you negative one point instead negative two points, it makes a difference.

For example, Davis Mills had 15 interceptions in 15 games last season. At negative two points per interception, he cost you two points per game over average. However, at negative four points per interception, he cost you four points per game on average.

In a six-point per passing touchdown league, the negative two points per interception are less impactful than the negative four points per interception in a four points per passing touchdown league. So if you are going to do the research, make sure you account for all the scoring details.

How Does the Value-Based Draft Strategy Work?

Let’s look at this strategy in another light. Your fantasy league’s starting lineup is one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, and one tight end. Of course, most dynasty leagues have a deeper starting lineup but let’s keep it simple for this example.

In a matchup against your league mate, your quarterback outscores his 17-12, putting you up by five points. Your RB1 is Christian McCaffrey, while theirs is Kenneth Walker. McCaffrey outscores Walker 21-17, putting you up nine points in the matchup. In the RB2 matchup, yours gets outscored 16-9. You are now only up by two points.

Your WR1 and your opponent’s WR1 each score 20 points, so you are still up two points. Unfortunately, your WR2 scores six fewer points than your opponent’s, so you’re now down by four points in the matchup. Thankfully, you have Kelce as your TE1, while your opponent has David Njoku. You win the tight end matchup 18-10, giving you the four-point victory for the week.

If all of that is confusing, take a look at this table.

Another way to look at this is by hypothetically redrafting these 10 players. You and your opponent throw all 10 players into a draft pool. After a coin toss, you have won the first overall pick.

Who should you take? While McCaffrey was the highest-scoring player, he is NOT the guy you want to draft the first overall. Instead, you want to pick Kelce.

Because McCaffrey only outscored Walker by four points, he is not the player with the biggest advantage. Rather, Kelce outscored Njoku by eight points, making him the most valuable player in this 10-player pool. Remember, the goal is the win the matchups, not score the most points possible.

Another way to look at this strategy is to value positions where the depth is limited or where there is a massive drop-off in talent. The top two areas are quarterback and tight end. However, depending on your league’s scoring system, individual defensive players (IDP), team defenses (DEF), and even kickers could be difference-makers each week.

Also, account for your starting lineup in your pre-draft work. For example, if you have a Superflex spot in your lineup, you need to prioritize grabbing quarterbacks over other positions early in your draft. The same logic applies in tight end premium leagues or leagues where you start two tight ends.

Final Thoughts

Like every startup dynasty strategy, there are a few things you want to make sure you address when drafting. One is covering bye weeks. The 2023 NFL season schedule won’t be made public for a few months. Therefore preparing for bye week is difficult.

However, the way to avoid the problem of not having a starting tight end every week is to have depth at each position. Another thing to make sure you address is handcuffs.

You don’t want to invest an early pick in Najee Harris and watch your league mate steal Jaylen Warren. While you don’t want to burn two prime draft picks on one player, you should start targeting handcuffs once you’ve made it 60% of the way through your draft. In the end, grabbing the best value over your league mates matter the most with this strategy.

Potential Draft Targets

Here are six of my favorite players to target when using the Value-Based startup draft strategy this year.

• Patrick Mahomes
• David Montgomery
• J.K. Dobbins
• Cooper Kupp
• Keenan Allen
• Travis Kelce

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Mike Fanelli is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @Mike_NFL2.