The waiver wire is one of the most important aspects of fantasy football. Every year around this time, we all have our grand plans for hitting on sleepers and late-round upside plays during drafts.
The reality is that by the end of September, we’ll have dropped nearly half of our roster. This article will help you understand how to manage your Free Agent Acquisition Budget, also known as your “FAAB,” and waiver wire capital during the season.
How Do You Manage the Fantasy Football Waiver Wire?
Effectively managing your FAAB is crucial to long-term success. Each week during the season, you can find dozens of waiver wire columns from all different websites and analysts. The purpose of each article is the same: what players should fantasy managers consider adding off of the following week’s waiver wire?
Accompanying each player is often a FAAB recommendation or some insight into waiver priority usage. When I first started writing waiver wire content, I would include a recommendation as to how many FAAB dollars fantasy managers should spend on a player.
I quickly realized such recommendations can be problematic. Most leagues use a waiver wire budget of $100. But not all of them. Therefore, dollar amounts don’t necessarily translate across leagues. As a result, I — and many other waiver columns — have adopted a percentage recommendation.
The percentage recommendation translates better across leagues. If a player is worth 15% of your FAAB, then you can easily apply that regardless of your budget size. Two years ago, I gave out FAAB percentage recommendations in my waiver wire column. Unfortunately, those are equally problematic and don’t necessarily provide actionable advice.
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Early in the season, things are easy. Everyone has a ton of FAAB dollars and is going after the hot commodities. A dollar or percentage recommendation gives a pretty clear indication of who fantasy managers should be adding. However, I noticed a problem as the season progressed.
Once we get into the colder months and deeper into the season, it’s impossible to give advice that applies to everyone. Managers have all allocated their FAAB differently. Holes have emerged in our lineups. We have more specific goals regarding making the playoffs, chasing a bye, or planning for the postseason.
If I tell you a player is worth 15-20% of your FAAB in November, how do you know what that actually means? What if you only have $20 left of a $100 budget? 15-20% of a $100 budget would mean spending just about all of your remaining capital on that player. Should you do that? You don’t know.
This dilemma led me to make a change, beginning with my 2024 waiver wire columns. I replaced FAAB percentages with my “Aggressiveness Rating” scale. This scale provides a very straightforward and easily digestible way for fantasy managers to understand how desirable a waiver wire pickup might be.
What Is the Fantasy Football Aggressiveness Rating?
The purpose of implementing my Aggressiveness Rating scale was so fantasy managers of all different budgets and situations had a universal way of understanding how strongly they should go after a player on the waiver wire.
Here is a link to my Week 10 Waiver Wire column from last season. This is a good example to use because it was right after Cedric Tillman’s third consecutive WR1 performance. Here is what I wrote.
“I know Cedric Tillman is over the 50% rostership threshold, but it is truly shocking to see his number so low. That warrants discussion.
Tillman’s rookie season certainly suggested he would never amount to anything in the NFL. Perhaps what we’re seeing is just a blip, and he will fade into irrelevancy. That may happen. But right now, Tillman looks like a weekly WR2, and that needs to be on fantasy rosters.
Since the Amari Cooper trade, which coincided with Winston taking over at quarterback, Tillman’s worst fantasy outing has been 18.1 points. He’s legitimately been a WR1 over the past three weeks.
Even though the Browns are on bye this week, Tillman is absolutely worth holding. The rest-of-season schedule is tough, but Tillman already overcame a challenging matchup last week against the Chargers. The volume will be there as long as Winston is there. Add him if he’s still available in your league.”
Aggressiveness Rating: 9.0″
Now, the fact that Tillman had a down game following the bye and then suffered a season-ending concussion is not important here. What is important is that the aggressiveness rating was 9.0.
At this point in the season, there were only five weeks left in the fantasy regular season. There’s no way for me to know every fantasy manager’s exact situation. But regardless of how much FAAB you had remaining or what your waiver priority was, it’s easy to understand that a 9.0 aggressiveness rating means you should go all in on Tillman.
Essentially, the aggressiveness rating told managers that Tillman was worth… being very aggressive. That late in the season, it’s unlikely we’re going to get many players who have the potential to be weekly starters pop up on the waiver wire. Tillman was worth it.
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On the other hand, a player like Jalen Tolbert came with a 3.5 aggressiveness rating. That tells fantasy managers he’s worth adding, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get him.
The aggressiveness rating scale helps fantasy managers prioritize team needs. A player with a lower rating could be useful if you need someone at that position, but it isn’t a priority. A player with a high rating is someone everyone should go after, regardless of need.
As for how much FAAB you should actually spend, I don’t know your remaining budget, how much your league mates have left, your team’s position, or your roster needs.
Rather than try and give you a number or percentage that won’t translate, the aggressiveness rating tells you how aggressive you should be. It leaves the exact dollar amount or the decision to use your waiver priority to the individual manager.
