The Numbers

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The transaction king

Every add, drop and waiver claim, 2020 to 2025. One name owns this chart, and he has never once finished second in it.

Career roster moves. Nima has made 432. That is 24.8% of every transaction since 2020, from one of ten managers. He averages 72 a year. The next-busiest guy averages 33.

Who got robbed by the schedule

You don't pick your opponent. So here's the honest scoreboard: if everyone played everyone every week, how many games would you have won? Line that up against your actual record and you get your luck. Amber means your record flatters you. Teal means the schedule robbed you.

Austin's record is nearly six wins better than his scoring earned it; Shane and Jimmy each got robbed of almost four. Same league, same random schedule, wildly different luck. This is the whole wins-versus-points fight in one chart.

Where does that luck come from? You don't pick who you play, so the tell is how many points get dropped on you every week. Here's the objective scoreboard, points allowed per game since 2020. Teal is the robbed end, amber the soft slate.

The five who got scored on the most are the exact five the luck chart called robbed: Jack, Pige, Jimmy, Shane and Kirby. Jack and Pige eat 114 a game, and only Nima and Jimmy even average that much for their own team. At the soft end, Miles and Millan barely give up 108, nearly seven points a week lighter than Jack, which is most of why their records outrun their rosters.

The same story as a picture. Both axes are on one scale, so the dotted diagonal is break-even: above it you outscore your schedule, below it your schedule outscores you. Amber dots sit above the line, teal below.

Six of the ten live below that line, and Jack has it worst, outscored by almost six a game. Pige is the sick joke: 3rd-most points in the league and still underwater, because his opponents averaged about 114 against him. Full breakdown in Wins vs Points.

The standings, minus the luck

Your record is a product of who the schedule handed you. So here's the honest version, every week since 2020: rank everyone by how they do against the whole league every week, all-play, nobody to hide behind. The order below is the all-play order. The gap to where your record actually finished is the fraud coefficient. Teal scored better than they finished, amber finished better than they scored.

Nima is the only man the two agree on, sitting first either way. Austin's record says third best since 2020. His scoring says seventh. Shane and Jimmy are the opposite crime: top-five scorers buried at eighth and fourth by a schedule that hated them. A win is a win, sure. This is what the wins were actually worth.

Does your draft pick matter?

Short version: no. The order is set by random little games and typed in as "custom," so the slot is pure luck to begin with. And that luck is worth nothing. Win rate by draft slot, all 60 team-seasons. If where you picked mattered, this chart would slope.

Correlation between where you pick and how you finish: +0.05, a rounding error. Pick 1 is 39-44 since 2020 with zero titles in that whole run. Champions came from slots 5, 10, 5, 4, 6 and 2, scattered all over the board. Stop blaming the draft.

The old debate

For years this league argued one thing above all: is a win a win, or is the scoreboard the only honest judge? The schedule-luck chart up top did most of the settling. But the full case, both camps in their own words and a referee who refuses to pick a side, is still the best long read on the site.