Best fantasy sports books according to redditors
We found 53 Reddit comments discussing the best fantasy sports books. We ranked the 20 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 53 Reddit comments discussing the best fantasy sports books. We ranked the 20 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
For those stuck behind the paywall, here are a few key sections
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>There is a theory, most notably explored in the book “The Numbers Game” by Chris Anderson and David Sally, that some sports are strong-link games and others are weak-link games. The point of the book, and a subsequent podcast on the subject by Malcolm Gladwell, was to demonstrate how soccer is a weak-link game in that a team would be better served making sure its worst players are better than the other team’s worst players in order to win more games. Basketball is on the opposite end of that spectrum, quite clearly a strong-link game in which the team that has the best player on the court is most likely to win that game.
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>Where hockey sits on that spectrum is not quite clear. Arguments have been made it is clearly a strong-link game, but it’s not quite as obvious as it is in the cases of soccer and basketball. But on that weak-link/strong-link spectrum, the Canadiens are undoubtedly closer to the weak link end of it and the Maple Leafs are at the strong link end of it. It is not possible to see it any other way.
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>They are a study in contrasts. Contrasts that are born out of necessity. Contrasts that manifested themselves Saturday at Scotiabank Arena.
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>The question of strong-link versus weak-link sports was posed to Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock on Saturday morning. He coaches the three highest-paid players in the NHL this season; Tavares, Marner and Matthews, Babcock’s three shooters in the shootout, will make $47.8 million among them this season. All the Canadiens forwards combined will make $35 million.
>Having a team’s best player in goal is a debatable strategy, but it is one the Canadiens have embraced and it is their reality, debatable or not.
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>When the Maple Leafs wind up with breakaways from Marner and Tavares in overtime and Price turns them aside, when Tavares makes an incredible move with five seconds left in overtime and Price gets across to stop it, when Price stops Matthews, Marner and Tavares in the shootout, the Canadiens’ strong link essentially wins it for them.
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>But what gave Price that opportunity to shine is the Canadiens’ weak-link offence, the one that allows them to roll four lines and stay fresh and forecheck and force mistakes. They find themselves in a division with three of the strongest-link teams in the NHL in the Maple Leafs, the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Boston Bruins. For the Canadiens to survive, they will need to make the argument hockey is a weak-link game.
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>For one night at least, they made that argument quite convincingly.
Inverting the Pyramid - Jonathan Wilson
A pioneering book that chronicles the evolution of soccer tactics and the lives of the itinerant coaching geniuses who have spread their distinctive styles across the globe.
Teambuilding: the road to success - Rinus Michels
The late Rinus Michels, FIFA's Coach of the Century, offers his unique insight into the process of "teambuilding".
The Coaching Philosophies of Louis Van Gaal and the Ajax Coaches - Henny Kormelink and Tjeu Seeverens
Louis van Gaal, Frans Hoek, Co Adriaanse and fitness coach Bobby Haarms discuss their training methods and philosophies in this book full of creative ideas for soccer coaches at any level.
Dutch Soccer Secrets - Peter Hyballa & Hans-Dieter te Poel
This book is a first attempt to present expert knowledge of internationally proven useful and effective Dutch soccer coaching in theory and practice, based on qualitative data collection.
Attacking Soccer: a tactical analysis - Massimo Lucchesi
This book examines match strategies for creating goal scoring opportunities out of various systems of play.
Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong - Chris Anderson, David Sally
Innovation is coming to soccer, and at the centre of it all are the numbers—a way of thinking about the game that ignores the obvious in favour of how things actually are.
Football Against the Enemy - Simon Kuper
Kuper travelled to 22 countries from South Africa to Italy, from Russia to the USA, to examine the way football has shaped them.
In your book description it says "Insane draft day locations. Shake-your-head-in-disbelief punishments. Ingenious attempts at cheating."
Can you give your favorite example of each?
http://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Life-Outrageous-Uplifting-Heartbreaking/dp/1594632715/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417539194&sr=8-1&keywords=matthew+berry
I know his advice is lacking sometimes but its a fun read.
In the Berry's book Fantasy Life there's a story about MJD not being able to draft himself in a NFL fantasy league.
MJD ends up having a great year. So he's trying to get himself back from Matt Forte.
The quote is something like "When you going to trade me to me?" and Forte's response is "Never. I'm going to beat you with you."
They talk about this in "The Numbers Game." I actually think they mention Jose Mourinho and how he parrots or says a similar line about the English applauding corners when they're such lowly propositions. The chance to score from a corner is like <1% and yet people genuinely believe them to be good chances.
This is not exactly correct, either.
Here is an excerpt from Sharper: A Guide to Modern Sports Betting discussing this very subject:
>In truth, bookies rarely bait players. They rarely put their opinions into play. They aren’t in the business of gambling. They aren’t as good at sports betting as the best sharps. They don’t need to be. Their job is not to pick winners but to manage the book’s risk and maximize its profits. They move their lines to do that, not to reflect their own opinion. Book owners do not want their linemakers gambling; you don’t either. Bookies who gamble go bust and stiff customers. Aces Gold was an offshore sports book that went broke making offers too good to be true and at the end tried to recoup its money by taking a position on the Super Bowl. They offered a line a key half-point better than anyone else on that game so they got lop-sided action. When the wrong team, from their point of view, won, they went under and their playersplayers got stiffed. If most shops offer a football game at -7 but you see one offering it at -6.5, it most likely isn’t because they think the underdog will cover and want to bet on it themselves by attracting action on the favorite. It’s much, much more likely that they themselves got whacked by oversized betting on the dog and need action on the favorite to reduce their risk on the game. And if all the shops are offering -6.5, it isn’t the shops making the favorite more attractive, it’s the market seeking an equilibrium point spread and finding it there.
>Except you can play your 3 max contract guys 40/48 minutes in the NBA. Not so much in Hockey.
&#x200B;
Good point. There have been books written about this: Strong link vs weak link sports. But it appears hockey is a strong link sport. So you're better off upgrading you're high end talent. Good article on it here.
Basketball is a Strong Link sport. One player can cover up the ills of subpar players. One Michael Jordan or one LeBron James makes you a contender.
Football is more of a Weak Link sport. One weak corner can submarine a defense. A leaky left tackle can be a huge problem for an offense. Obviously, an elite, all-world QB (Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, etc.) can be a different story, but in general, a football team just needs a higher percentage of good players to make a great team.
That's why basketball has less "Mortgaging everything for the #1 pick". No team will give up a shot at the next Michael Jordan or LeBron James for anything. It is not sound strategy like it is in football.
Welcome to the OG of fantasy sports. The original and still the best, but by far the most difficult.
First off, pick your league style. The two you mentioned are very different, but there is a third option you may accidentally choose.
League Types:
1a - Head to Head category: you and your opponent total up all the statistical categories then assign a winner for each one. The winner gets 1 point, for each category at the end of the week. The most common format is 5x5. 5 categories for hitters, and 5 for pitchers. For beginners this is a fine option.
1b - Head to head points. Instead of categories, each play by players earn points. I.e. a single is 1 point, and a double is 2 points. Pitchers also contribute similarly with wins, Ks, innings, etc.
All the different types have their benefit. Considering where you're coming from, my recommendation is for head to head categories.
As for resources, this sub is one of the best. I also recommend the CBS Fantasy Baseball Today podcast for an entertaining update. Some sites to read are
https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/
http://www.rotoworld.com/
yahoo, cbs, espn, etc...
If you want a book, this one is a good beginners guide with overall and season wide strategy and advice. You may want to pick up the kindle version.
https://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Baseball-Black-Book-2018/dp/1976890519/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1519764840&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=black+book+fantasy+baseball
Reminds me of the miniature book of miniature golf. The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0761154132/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_cHtRCb47R5J7Y
There was a great study recently comparing the competitive advantage of spending money on superstars vs using that money building up a solidly above average rest of the team.
They did this with football/soccer and basketball. Basically what they found is spending money on superstars is pretty wasteful in soccer and doesn't really improve your team as much as investing in the whole team. Whereas in basketball the opposite is true. It actually is worth spending a lot of money on a Lebron James or Steph Curry.
So all in all he might be right. In the big picture Ronaldo is probably overpaid while Lebron is probably not...
Source: this book https://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Game-Everything-About-Soccer/dp/0143124560
I don't disagree with your point. And im making the broader claim that working to improve your worst, rather than your best is a more effective strategy in soccer, and perhaps many aspects of life/society at large:
https://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Game-Everything-About-Soccer/dp/0143124560?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0
Not OP, but I've also been self- and traditionally published. It's always worth sending it to agents, but not for feedback. You're more likely to get struck by lightning than get feedback from an agent who doesn't want to represent you — it'll be polite rejection email or nothing — but it's always worth taking that chance that they do want to represent you.
Because while it's great that we live in a golden age of self-publishing, it's a tough row to hoe. You don't just have to be a good writer, you have to be (or hire) a good copy-editor, graphic designer, publicist, sales force, marketing department, etc., all of which someone else will do for you if you do land a publisher. And it's very tough to convince bookstores to stock your book if you're self-published, so that's a vast part of the market you're not going to reach.
I'm really happy I self-published my first novel, because after working on it for six years on and off, it's finally a real book that people have read and enjoyed. But I'm still waiting to hit three figures in sales. My traditionally published books are all in the five figures, one of them six. Granted, those books aren't fiction; they're novelty-format books that sell perennially, and do well in stores that aren't bookstores. But they're in those stores because I have a publisher with a sales force who has relationships with those stores.
Whereas with self-publishing, you're really starting from nothing unless you have an established audience from some other arena.
tl;dr — you should try and get an agent/publisher, but self-pub is a great fallback plan.
Exactly. For the price of 53 oz's of gumballs, Fantasy Soccer: The Ultimate How-To Guide for Fantasy Soccer Players or for one hour's of work at $15/hour, you can easily see that for that price, even a few hours of fun a week makes it worth it.
> Here’s a general rule: If you’re picking the favorite take the ML, if you’re picking the underdog take the spread.
Be careful with this; there is no such rule. You might be inclined to pick up a book or two about basic sports betting principles if you really are serious about deep-diving into it. There are, predictably, more bad ones than good ones. I think "Sharper" is a good enough starting point and well-received.
https://www.amazon.com/Sharper-Guide-Modern-Sports-Betting-ebook/dp/B01K5SDAKS
It is free on Kindle Unlimited. It is not perfect and there are others, but it will get you started.
Check out his book if you can. It's very well written and has some great laughs in it.
I know most of you don't like to purchase anything, I know I don't.
However this book is fantastic. I read it in 6 days. The guy who wrote it won Tout Wars 3 years in a row.
Also:
https://www.smartfantasybaseball.com/ is a great resource.
They will show you how to make your own cheatsheets.
If you think fantasy baseball is fun now. Make your own cheatsheets. You'll feel more invested than you do now. More responsible. Oh and you'll be better.
Have you ever considered you might be wrong?
Snark aside, Fantasy Life is a GREAT book and a hilarious insight into Fantasy Football, it's not just for jocks.
Pokerjoe (the author of the FAQ in the r/sportsbook sidebar) wrote a good, cheap ebook on the subject that will save you a lot of headache. Recommended if you've passed Sports Betting 101A but aren't ready for 201 or an internship.
If you're new to gambling math, Don Peszynski's Lose More, Win Less is a great place to start (and is very well done, despite the hokey title).
For stuff on how to actually build a model, check this old post of mine.
Check out Joe Pisapia -- he writes almost exclusively about RPV
https://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Baseball-Black-Book-2019/dp/1793144125
I'm working my way through "The Numbers Game". It looks at soccer analytically and delves into different tactics, managers and clubs. Also challenges a lot of conventional wisdom the same way Moneyball did for baseball. Really helped me get an understanding of what to look for and get a better appreciation for what's really going on during the game
http://www.amazon.com/The-Numbers-Game-Everything-Soccer/dp/0143124560
If may. This is a complete set of plots and setups for adventures that were run at my local larp club. 99p on Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B007493110/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1473108392&amp;sr=8-5&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=portly+pixie&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51burSyuR5L&amp;ref=plSrch
The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761154132/.
A book to mini golf in. I loved it
Have you read The Numbers Game, and if so, what did you think?
Do you have any other recommendations for soccer statistics reading?
If you have a kindle or have the kindle app you can pick this one up for free. Also written by Bales.
Amazon
I read the book The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong by Chris Anderson. Its not specifically about betting but it covers alot of great analysis about football that can totally apply to betting. It was a great read, definitely changed the way I understand the game and what kind of bets I was making.
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Numbers-Game-Everything-About-Soccer/dp/0143124560/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1465081904&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+numbers+game
http://www.amazon.com/The-Being-Commish-Mark-Blount-ebook/dp/B005IA69ZM
It's pretty short and has some good ideas
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Basketball-Ben-Taylor/dp/1532968175
https://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Analytics-Objective-Strategies-Understanding/dp/1492923176
https://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Analytics-Tracking-Stephen-Shea/dp/1503236277
https://www.amazon.com/dp/013419330X/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
https://www.amazon.com/Mathletics-Gamblers-Enthusiasts-Mathematics-Basketball/dp/0691154589
https://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Baseball-Smart-People-Profit-ebook/dp/B00TP5O16K/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=dfs+mlb&amp;qid=1554563098&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1
Excuse me, it's called Quidditch through the ages:
https://www.amazon.com/Quidditch-Through-Ages-Hogwarts-Library-ebook/dp/B01F3ET2QU/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=history+of+quidditch&amp;qid=1566489868&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-3
Quidditch is actually horrifying when you learn about it. A golden snitch used to be a bird.
Until wizards hunted it to extinction with their insatiable Quittitch-lust. That's right, the reason catching the snitch ends the game, is because the point of Quidditch was to find a small golden bird, and crush it to death. Once the seeker hoisted it's bloody body aloft, the hunt was over.
Meanwhile Keepers, beaters, etc, were all just people hanging out with the seekers playing their own game while seekers conducted their bloody hunt.
It's like if soccer was played with a live armadillo or something.
It's also why I think Quidditch has like 500 rules, and refs can just make them up (probably 'brooms must be commercially available is one that would exist about 5 seconds after the 10x faster broom.
I love this stuff. For anyone interested in surprising statistical analysis of a sport check out The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong by Chris Anderson. https://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Game-Everything-About-Soccer/dp/0143124560
There's no book to read to understand the game, but if you want a really interesting and cool look at the most obsessive fantasy baseball players around, take a gander at FantasyLand
My list would have to include
The Ball is Round this is an amazing history of the sport. It is a very big book but very good.
The Numbers Game This has been one of my favorite soccer reads and I am surprised at how little people talk about it.
This love is not for cowards Truly an amazing story.
Amung the Thugs a fun and alarming tale of holgainism. Something I am very glad has not developed around the sport in the USA.
also if your not already receiving them you should subscribe to
Howler Magazine and
Eight by Eight
I hope this list gets you started. I have more on my list but have not got around to them.
He has some sound advice on College Fantasy which is a must read. http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Fantasy-Strategies-College-Football-ebook/dp/B00NKVA4PW/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1411893007&amp;sr=8-9&amp;keywords=daily+fantasy
Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:
Amazon Smile Link: The Numbers Game
|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
To help add charity links, please have a look at this thread.
This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.
OK so my first really interesting read has been Mathletics by Wayne Winston and Basketball on Paper by Dean Oliver.
What I have learnt so far is that it really comes down to knowing your statistics, knowing how to apply them and building a spreadsheet from there, identifying patterns along the way.
Check out the Fantasy Black Book by Joe Pisapia. I adopted his RPV system (Relative Postion Value) by creating a formula to see what the average player would be per position and then how much each player per position is more or less valuable to the avg. I have had excellent drafts using this method as I weigh players totally different than the other owners. the important thing is to factor how many of those positions are needed for rosters so you can weigh them out right i.e. Need at least two catchers for ten league team so you'd have to rank at least 20 to provide the bare minimum avg value.
For projections, I use an average of ZiPS and Steamer together.
Yup. Books have literally been written on this shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball
http://www.amazon.com/Mathletics-Gamblers-Enthusiasts-Mathematics-Basketball/dp/0691154589/
There's a reason people get paid a shitload of money to do the Brad Pitt thing, and figure out which players should play against which other players. Expecting PGI to put this much effort in (or any company) is slightly far fetched.
This undergrad book contains a lot of basic analytics which can be used to understand games and sports, and is likely a good place to start.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mathletics-Gamblers-Enthusiasts-Mathematics-Basketball/dp/0691154589
The Numbers Game, sometimes he gets a little wrapped up in his own little stat world, but theres a lot of interesting stuff in there.
Fantasy Baseball for Beginners: The Ultimate "How-to" Guide
I think that makes the game better.
I know it sounds weird, but for me, this makes the game more like an actual sport, which is the biggest draw for me. It allows for more strategies and more emphasis on learning what went wrong the prior game besides just mechanical mistakes. Furthermore, I think the team based aspect allows for more comebacks.
I understand people have different opinions, but the quality of playing and watching League feels better when it is driven by having your worst player being better than the teams worst player. League is most similar to soccer in that respect. I respect all other opinions though, just my thoughts
Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Game-Everything-About-Soccer/dp/0143124560
Here is the book that I got the fact that in soccer it is more important for the worst player to be better than the best player.