“Greed, for lack of a better word is good.” - Gordon Gekko
Come on, admit it, we’re all greedy when it comes to the waiver wire. After all, who doesn’t want to monopolize their leagues waiver wire…picking up all the best players, dropping them too close to games for anyone else to pick them up, squatting on certain player hoping they are good trade bait down the road and most of all picking up that player that puts you over the top. Ask any experienced fantasy football player and he/she will tell you that intelligently managing the waiver wire is one of the single most important aspects to winning in fantasy football.
With the upcoming release of the new movie Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps I just couldn’t resist taking a look back at the 1987 classic and thinking about how the words of wisdom from one Gordon Gekko can help those of us looking for riches on the waiver wire. While Mr. Gekko certainly isn’t a character you would want your children growing up to emulate, he does provide some keen insight into how information, and more importantly LITTLE KNOWN information can help you succeed.
“The most valuable commodity I know of is information, wouldn’t you agree!” – Gordon Gekko
Dominating the waiver wire isn’t about luck (okay, sometimes you do just get plain get lucky), but the majority of the time it’s about having the BEST INFORMATION as QUICKLY as you can possibly get it. Here are the 3 keys to successfully managing the waiver wire:
1) Get the best possible information as quickly as possible
2) Be bold – think differently
3) Act fast
Who Provides the Best Information?
“I don’t throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought.” – Gordon Gekko
The waiver wire is a difficult place to operate. For every successful pickup, you may have given up a player that subsequently plays well and makes you second guess what the heck you’re doing. You won’t hit a home run with all your pickups but what you CAN do is stack the deck so odds are in your favor that you’ll get the next breakout player.
After analyzing more than 30 sources for waiver wire pickup advice this year, FantasyXPERT.com has found that the quality of advice from the best to the worst sources varies by 60%! And the least accurate source to date for waiver wire pick-up advice just happens to be a Tier 1 and one of the most popular sources.
The first “skill” you need to cultivate is actually not a skill at all…it’s having the best possible information from which to make decisions. Based on our analysis, here are the Top 5 performing waiver wire sources for the first half of the 2009 season:
2) FFtoday.com
5) FFJungle.com
* To learn how we analyze the sources for accuracy please see the details at the bottom of the post.
Knowing who is providing the best waiver wire advice is a simple first step to improving your waiver wire skills.
Be Bold, Think Differently
“It’s not always the most popular person who gets the job done.” – Gordon Gekko
As we’ve mentioned in prior posts, our research shows that 80% of fantasy players use 3 to 4 “most popular” sources for advice (Yahoo, ESPN, CBSsports and Rotoworld). If you are among the 80% then you’re getting the same ideas at the same time as most of your competitors. That’s not a recipe for fantasy football success.
To catch the next rising start you need to get new ideas. Take a look at the top 5 list again…notice that only 1 is a source that most of us would consider a household name. Embrace new sources (and particularly those that have been proven to be more accurate) to complement the ones you already use and you’ll gain a perspective that many of your competitors don’t have.
Act Fast
“If you’re not on the inside you’re on the outside.” – Gordon Gekko
The single most important aspect of dominating the waiver wire is acting quickly. If you’re one of the lucky few who has absolutely nothing to do on Sundays but sit around the house with your fantasy football league open so you can pounce on the guy having a big day then good for you! But, if you’re like most of us who have commitments or other things to do, you need to be more skillful at identifying and picking up players from the wire.
To be on the “inside” as Gordon Gekko puts it, you first need to know WHEN sources release their waiver wire advice so you can get a jump on your competitors.
Here are the Top 3 EARLIEST average release times of the Most Accurate waiver wire sources:
Lesterslegends.com – Mondays at 6:25 AM ET
FFtoday.com – Tuesdays at 2:05 PM ET
Foxsports.com – Tuesdays at 7:30 PM ET
* FantasyXPERT tracks the date & time each source releases waiver wire advice on a weekly basis. When the source doesn’t provide the exact time we estimate based on when we find the information available.
Please keep in mind that there are many sources that release their waiver wire advice prior to the 3 above, but those sources are not included in the Top 5 most accurate for the season to date.
And here’s a daily breakdown of when all sources tend to release their waiver wire advice:
Key Takeaways to Help You This Weekend
1) Know who the most accurate sources are for waiver wire advice by creating an account at www.FantasyXPERT.com. As with all of our accuracy findings, waiver wire acccuracy results are dynamically updated after all stats from the previous week’s games have been released.
2) Look for advice from multiple sources – don’t just stick with the same one all your competitors do. FantasyXPERT provides XPERT Smart Rankings for Player Rankings, Start & Sit, and Waiver Wire. These rankings are a consensus of the Most Accurate sources that exist on the Web and the rankings are updated dynamically as source’s post their weekly advice.
3) Most importantly, know when advice is available so you can get first dibs on the players you want. FantasyXPERT tracks the date & time that sources release their Waiver Wire pick-up advice. As soon as a source’s projections are available, FantasyXPERT updates the “Weekly Snaphshot” page with the direct link to that source’s predictions.
If you would like more information on the more than 30 waiver wire sources that FantasyXPERT tracks, a direct link to these sources’ predictions as soon as the information becomes available as well as our XPERT Smart Wire Pickups, then open a FREE account at www.FantasyXPERT.com. If you would like the extra edge and the ability to see up to date accuracy information for all advice categories, open a PREMIUM account.
Good luck this week!
Methodology for Analyzing Waiver Wire Advice:
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We first identify each sources pre-game waiver wire predictions.
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Secondly, we analyze each sources picks vs. the actual performance of the players for that week and the subsequent 2 weeks.
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Important to note is we only include those players not widely held in leagues like ESPN and Yahoo (i.e. we don’t include when a source says to pick up Ray Rice – which believe it or not actually happens).
