What is VOR? Value over replacement, explained

A quarterback projected for 350 points and a running back projected for 250: who's the better pick? If you answered the quarterback, you've just drafted the way fantasy football punished for twenty years. The right answer needs one more number, and that number is the whole idea behind VOR.

The definition

Value over replacement is a player's projected points minus the projected points of the best player you could get for approximately nothing, at the same position. That freely available player is the "replacement level."

Run the opening example again with replacement levels attached. Suppose the QB you can draft in round 12 projects for 300, and the last startable RB projects for 150. Now the comparison is 50 points of value against 100. The running back who scores less is worth twice as much, because what you're buying in a draft was never points. It was points you can't get for free.

Where the replacement level comes from

This is the part most VOR explainers skip, and it's where your league settings enter the math. The replacement level at a position is set by how many players at that position get started league-wide:

• Take your league's starting slots per team, including a share of each flex. In our model a standard flex counts roughly half toward WR, a bit less toward RB, and a sliver toward TE, because that's how managers actually fill it.
• Multiply by the number of teams. A 12-team league starting 2 RBs and a flex needs roughly 30 startable running backs, so RB30's projection is the RB replacement level. The same league starts 12 QBs, so the baseline is QB13.

Change the settings and the baselines move, sometimes violently. Add a superflex slot and QB demand jumps by about half a slot per team, dragging the QB baseline from QB13 toward QB18 and turning a modest positional edge into a first-round one. This is why rankings without your league settings attached are closer to trivia than advice.

What VOR gets you at the draft table

Mostly, it inoculates you against raw points. The biggest scores in fantasy football belong to quarterbacks every single year, and every year the correct early picks are mostly running backs and receivers, because their replacement levels are so much lower. VOR is the number that resolves that paradox without hand-waving.

It also explains scarcity honestly. "RB is scarce" is folklore; "the RB baseline in your league is 150 points while the WR baseline is 190" is a fact you can act on.

Two honest caveats. VOR runs on projections, and projections are estimates with real error bars, which is why our engine layers timing and roster context on top rather than treating the number as gospel. And we exclude kickers and defenses from VOR entirely, since streaming keeps their replacement level close to their starters.

FAQ

Is VOR the same as VORP or VBD? Same family. VORP is the baseball term, VBD (value-based drafting) is the older fantasy label for drafting by the gap instead of the total. The mechanics are the point, not the acronym.

Does VOR work for dynasty drafts? Less directly. VOR is a this-season number, and dynasty assets carry years of value a single season's replacement math can't see. Our engine uses VOR for redraft and guillotine, and switches to market value for dynasty and rookie drafts.

Why is my league's VOR different from a ranking site's? Different settings, different baselines. PPR moves receiver baselines, superflex moves QB baselines, TE-premium moves TE baselines. If a ranking doesn't know your starting lineup, it computed someone else's replacement level.