Last we talked was back in July, and I mentioned it would be tough for me to keep updates flowing during the football season. By that point, half the sports had finalized, with others like tennis already underway with a couple majors decided. That’s one of the perks of Omnifantasy for me, is that we get a lot of fun events in the football offseason, since I personally am busiest in the fall.
But there are still several events that wrap up in the fall, and there’s a lot to cover in a recap sense. Before I do an upcoming post looking at some draft strategy stuff for 2022, let’s look at how the rest of the 2021 Omnifantasy season played out, with some discussion about what types of picks wound up being good ones in Omnifantasy drafts last winter.
As a reminder, I’ll refer back to ADP from last winter’s Omnifantasy drafts by sport, so MLB1 would refer to the top-drafted MLB team on average, while MLB5 would refer to the fifth. You can find my recap of all the other sports that finalized earlier last year at omnifantasy.substack.com, in one of these three posts.
MLB
The Braves were the MLB5 in drafts last year, looking like a good bet to win the NL East and lock in a spot in the final eight ahead of the playoffs. By the time the playoffs rolled around, they were viewed as underdogs, and they overcame to the two biggest favorites back-to-back en route to their World Series title. First, they dispatched the Dodgers four games to two in the NLCS, and looking back to drafting season, the Dodgers were a regular first-round pick and the MLB1 in drafts. Next, they beat the Astros, the MLB12 from draft season but a team that looked like a powerhouse by the time the playoffs rolled around.
In my big strategy writeup from last draft season, I noted “as a general rule, I tend to wait on MLB until the middle rounds and then maybe target two good-but-not-great teams that have reasonable odds to win their divisions and reach the postseason.” In that post, I looked at past winners, and where they came from in winter Omnifantasy drafts. That information is directly applicable to the futures market as well, and I mention that quote because the Braves and Astros were two teams with roughly the fifth- and 12th-best World Series futures odds (going off Omni ADP) who fit this description well. They both looked like solid favorites to win their divisions and reach the postseason without needing the Wild Card play-in game which adds some volatility. From there, the MLB playoffs can be a bit of a crapshoot, as we know, and just having a good shot at punching a ticket to an LDS is a good way to target potential World Series futures values.
It’s not going to be that cut and dry every season, and it wasn’t even that cut and dry this year — the Braves, for example, had the Mets right with them having similar odds to win the NL East, so they weren’t clear divisional favorites. But the other three teams in that division were not viewed favorably, so it was one of those things where the Braves seemingly only had one major roadblock. At any rate, both Atlanta and Houston won their divisions, and then went on to have strong postseason runs, which are sort of two separate bets that both paid off. Atlanta nabbed the 80 as the MLB champion, and the Astros proved to be a great mid-round pick, nabbing 50 Omni points as the runners-up.
Boston, the fourth semifinalist along with ATL, HOU, and LAD, was the MLB18 in drafts, and another strong late-round value. The Yankees were the MLB2 in drafts, and lost in the Wild Card play-in game, earning no Omni points, while the Padres were the MLB3 and failed to make the postseason altogether. The remaining Omni post-scorers were the White Sox (MLB4), the Rays (MLB10), the Brewers (MLB16), and the biggest surprise, the Giants, who went undrafted on average. That made five of eight point-scoring teams who were drafted as MLB10 or later (Rays, Astros, Brewers, Red Sox, and Giants).
WNBA
The WNBA only has 12 teams, so it was only available for Omnifantasy leagues with 12 or fewer drafters. Also, with only 12 teams, two-thirds of the league finishes in the top eight and earns points.
The WNBA regular season went somewhat close to expected, but playoffs featured a couple major upsets, and the WNBA Finals saw the fifth-seeded Phoenix Mercury (WNBA5 in Omni drafts) and sixth-seeded Chicago Sky (WNBA4) face off, with Chicago taking home the crown.
One major surprise was Washington, who were the third-drafted WNBA team on average but finished in the bottom third of the regular season standings and failed to make the playoffs. The top-drafted Seattle Storm were also a disappointment, finishing fourth in the regular season and failing to make the semifinals after an overtime loss to the Mercury, leaving Seattle with 20 Omnifantasy points.
Going forward, the WNBA will move to a more standard eight-team playoff bracket and each round will have series, whereas in the past the early rounds of the WNBA playoffs have featured one-game matchups like the Mercury’s win over Seattle. That will presumably reduce playoff variance.
MLS
Onto another sport that not every league used, so I’ll try to be brief. The MLS has traditionally been a bit of a crapshoot, and that was again the case in 2021. None of the top-four highest-drafted MLS teams on average reached the final eight this season, and none earned points. The Seattle Sounders got the closest, finishing second in their conference but being upset in the first round of the playoffs on penalty kicks.
That said, outside the top four picks, most of the next highest-drafted teams did well. The eventual champion NYCFC were MLS6, while the fifth-highest-drafted team, the Philadelphia Union, were a semifinalist that earned 30 Omni points. MLS8 New England earned a first-round bye but lost in their first playoff matchup, settling for 20 points, while the Portland Timbers (MLS9) were the runners-up and earned 50. The other quarterfinalists who earned 20 points were Sporting KC (MLS11), Nashville SC (MLS17), and the Colorado Rapids (undrafted), while the undrafted Real Salt Lake finished as a semifinalist and earned 30.
NASCAR
One more less-popular sport before breaking into the football results. For the second-straight year, the top eight was fairly predictable in NASCAR, but the winner was not one of the top favorites. Kyle Larson took home the 80 as the eighth-highest drafted driver, while the runner-up, Martin Truex, Jr., was the seventh-highest drafted driver.
That said, all eight point scorers were among the top nine drafted NASCAR drivers on average, with only NASCAR2 Kevin Harvick failing to record any points from among the earlier picks. NASCAR continues to look like a sport worth targeting in the early rounds, but their playoff structure creates some volatility in terms of final finishing position from among a final eight that is typically loaded with big names.
NCAAF
College football had two clear favorites at draft time, Alabama and Clemson, with a trio of schools bunched up behind them (Ohio St., Oklahoma, Georgia) and then no other options were taken on average in the top-100 picks as things looked very flat from there on out. As it played out, Clemson had a down year, as did Oklahoma, and neither finished in the top eight of the final AP rankings, which meant they recorded zero points. Ohio State also failed to reach the College Football Playoff which prevented them from scoring more than 20 points, but they did finish in the top eight in the final AP rankings, so they earned 20.
Georgia (NCAAF5) and Alabama (NCAAF1) of course played for the title, with Georgia coming out on top. But the other CFP participants, Michigan and Cincinnati, were very sparsely drafted, and each earned 30 points. Oklahoma State and Baylor were similarly undrafted, and both finished in the top eight of the final AP rankings, earning 20 apiece. The only widely-drafted school to finish in the top eight was Notre Dame, who earned 20 points as the 10th-highest-drafted NCAAF option.
In other words, NCAAF sort of followed the preseason odds, which is to say that the real championship contenders did seem to come from that pool of five teams with solid odds, while the sport looked very open behind that, and there were paths for a number of schools to potentially earn 20 points.
NFL
We have not yet declared a winner in the NFL, but the final two teams are the NFL5, the Rams, and the undrafted Bengals. The Rams came in behind only the Chiefs, Buccaneers, Bills, and Packers in ADP last winter, and all four of those teams finished with either 20 or 30 points. Los Angeles entered the postseason as the four seed in the NFC, but they backed up that early offseason hype by playing above their seed in the playoffs. San Francisco, who they beat in the NFC Championship game, was similar — the 49ers were the NFL7 in drafts, and won two playoff games despite a weaker regular season than their odds from last winter would have suggested.
The top-drafted NFL team that didn’t earn points was the Ravens (NFL6), and six of the top seven options from last winter were in the final eight, which is an irregularity for the NFL where there is frequently quite a bit of turnover from Omnifantasy draft season until the playoffs the next January. The two upstart teams this year who earned points were the Bengals and the Titans (NFL13).
ATP
The only other sport that wasn’t yet finalized when we last talked was tennis, but ATP1 Novak Djokovic was already on his way to locking up the 80 after he’d won each of the year’s first two majors. Here’s how the tennis standings finished up:
Djokovic missed the 2022 Australian Open in much-publicized fashion, but he’d already locked up the 80 on the strength of his 2021 results after he finished as the runner up in 2021’s final major, the U.S. Open.
Behind Djokovic, ATP4 Daniil Medvedev had a great season, beating Djokovic in the U.S. Open final and also making the final at the recently-finished Australian. He lost that final to Rafael Nadal, the second-drafted tennis player on average, who had started slow with a loss in the French Open semis and no points at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. With his Australian Open win, Nadal able to salvage 30 Omni points for his drafters, who took him as high as seventh overall and as low as 23rd in standard leagues, so he was either a first- or second-round pick.
Tennis is a really fun sport for 2022, as Djokovic’s vaccine status is a huge unknown, and Nadal is seemingly teetering on completely aging out. Beyond those two, there are a ton of young upstarts, including 2021 point-scorers Matteo Berrettini (ATP11), Stefanos Tsitsipas (ATP5), Alexander Zverev (ATP6), and a young Canadian duo, Felix Auger-Aliassime (ATP16) and Denis Shapovalov (ATP9).
The biggest 2021 disappointment in tennis was ATP3 Dominic Thiem, who battled a wrist injury.
And that’s more or less it for how 2021 Omnifantasy drafts were won. I’ll be back with a little more information later this week or early next to look at what these results mean for draft strategy in 2022!
Hey Ben! How do I get into these leagues you guys were discussing on Ship Chasing? I'm doing a 4-man with my friends, but would love to join a 12-person.