Dynasty Rankings (9 Viewers)

[Adam Harstad]

You're kidding, right? You don't see the difference between "hey guys, you know that RB that a lot of people think is an RB6? Well, I think he's actually a pretty good RB5!" and "hey guys, you know that WR that consensus seems to consider a WR6 or WR7? Well, I think he's a solid WR3"? RB51 is your backup's backup's backup. WR29 is a starter.

I admire the Foster call much more because it relies on talent evaluation rather than blind faith in medical science. When we were discussing your ranking of Thomas back in 2010/2011 I said he belonged around WR50 because maybe there was a 10% chance he would become what he is now but a better than even money chance he'd be constantly injured, similar to the fate Ryan Williams and Danario Alexander have suffered. Yours was the bolder call but both allowed us to move on the player and acquire him at what turned out to be a steep discount.

The same applies to Foster. I wouldn't pay to look at anyone's rankings, but a guy you promoted this offseason is currently at ADP RB64 - Knile Davis. Even if you have him ranked at RB50 that's significant information. It's enough to tell people to go move and trade Andre Ellington or Bilal Powell for him. And if the player hits (not saying he will) that was good advice and useful rankings. You've been publicizing your rankings for 3 or 4 years now so you have to realize it's not fair to expect CW to have ranked AF in the top 20 or even top 40 or 50 all throughout his demotion to practice squad and eventual use in games. It is enough to say this is a player you should look at; a player you have ranked significantly above others.

You're outright saying you don't care about your backup's backup's backup because you're not even paying attention to Kenny Stills having 2 long bombs in W1 and almost a 3rd. But that's where a lot of people get their kicks from, and if it only allows you to get one stud player every 2-3 years then is it really a bad strategy. Even if it is part luck and for every Foster you roster there are 2 or 5 James Davises or Rashad Jenningses. Otherwise what are you devoting those spots to, extra defenses? Nick Foles? It seems this is your strategy when you tell people to trade 2nds or 3rds for defenses and to roster teams' second best QBs.

I happen to agree with you that Chris Wesseling was probably the first guy to really recognize what Foster was. He recognized it during preseason, when he moved Foster into his top 30.

You're saying 2010 preseason. He made the call in 2009. When he had him in the top 60 as a UDFA rookie he made the call. When he had him above numerous guys that were drafted, as high as the 3rd (Coffee), he made the call. When he has a UDFA as the 7th best rookie RB and that guy becomes All Pro he gets credit. A lot more credit than saying "that guy we all think is a top 30 WR pre-injury, we should bet on him healing well."

In Dec 2009, when Bloom calls him a plodder and promotes Travis Henry instead, you have to give him credit for "Foster has drawn more compliments from the head coach, and he was promoted from the practice squad before Henry. Foster is also a perfect fit for the one-cut scheme and a terrific pass-catcher." If you were playing dynasty in competitive leagues back then you had to guess from at least 4 names on who to use the spot on if anyone at all. Plenty of people picked Moats or Henry or Brown instead. Others maybe traded for the Ravens D.

I'd hardly say I rely on blind faith in medical science. I'd say I rely on a pretty well-justified faith in medical science, as well as an understanding of the basic psychology behind hyperbolic discounting. You might find the raw talent evaluation side of it more impressive, and that's fine. I think Wesseling's eye for talent is extremely impressive, as well. That's what he does- he scouts talent and tells you who is undervalued, while I study historical trends and human nature and tell you who is undervalued. He might say "wow, Darren McFadden is really good, go buy him" while I say "hey, people give up on 1st round picks way too early, which means the market is woefully underpricing Darren McFadden and presenting us with a unique opportunity to arbitrage that". His method relies on a much rarer skill, while mine is something that seemingly anyone could do (despite the fact that seemingly no one does). Regardless of how impressive the process behind the call is, though, at the end of the day where you had a guy ranked matters a lot more than why you had him ranked there. Wesseling essentially called Arian Foster droppable during his rookie year (RB87 = droppable), and had him ranked 58th just two months before he broke out. I'm not going to praise Wesseling's foresight for having Foster ranked 58th instead of 70th. I'm going to praise his foresight for having Foster in his top 30 before he ever won the starting job, and for having him in the top 5 after his first start of the year. Sure, maybe that 58th ranking makes you more likely to acquire Foster off of waivers, provided Foster was on waivers in the first place, but it's not like it's the most forceful of cases. And if you didn't get him off of waivers, none of Wesseling's early recommendations would have resulted in you winding up with Foster, because nobody is going to go out and target the 58th ranked RB in a trade. When Foster is ranked in the top 30 while everyone else has him at 58? Yeah, that's a clear "TRADE FOR ME!" ranking. But ranking Foster at 58 when everyone else has him at 70? That ranking says "pick me up if I'm available, and if not, then no big".

You can make fun of me for saying that in some systems it's worth trading draft picks for a defense. That's fine. If there's ever an opening in my league, I'll send you an invite and you can enjoy starting the Jacksonville Jaguars at defense every week because that's the only option on the waiver wire and you're too proud to part with a 2nd or 3rd rounder. You can stick with your one-size-fits-all, "defenses are never worth trading anything of value for ever under any circumstances" philosophy rather than acknowledging that different scoring systems and roster setups lead to defenses sometimes having different values. Also, feel free to keep making fun of me for rostering backup quarterbacks. I got made fun of for my Michael Vick ranking before the 2010 season. I wasn't publishing rankings last year, but from the way you're talking now, you'd probably have given me heat for Colin Kaepernick ranking, too. I've had my share of Max Halls and Josh Johnsons over the years, but I'd say to this point the EV of burning my last roster spot on an NFL backup QB has been astronomically higher than the EV of burning my last roster spot on my 75th ranked WR.

 

[Adam Harstad]

Adam, I'm generally a fan, but I couldn't disagree with you more on this one.

The problem with trying to trade for proven studs is that you have to pay for them 100% of the time, and if you miss or make a mistake you might gut your team. There's no margin for error. It's high risk/high reward. And trading for potential studs after everyone has bought the hype? Crazy. Lamar Miller, I'm looking at you.

But if you have a Colston, Garcon, Shorts, Steve Johnson, Victor Cruz, Arian Foster, Priest Holmes or Antonio Gates rostered in every league when they hit you've suddenly gained an advantage over your leaguemates with no risk. The 90% of the time you're wrong doesn't hurt you at all.

Ditto that for draft picks. Who cares if you miss a lot? You get more picks every year -- simply by virtue of being in the league. Swing for the fences. You're team won't be worse when you miss -- you'll still own all the starters you had rostered.

So it's absolutely worth spending tons of times at the margins. That's where the risk/value proposition is the best and it's the best way to minimize the damage your misses inflict. Everyone misses a lot!

I hate to keep bringing up Wesseling, but his rankings demonstrate my point here, too. Take a look at his value scores. The difference between WR3 and WR4 is seven points, which is greater than the difference between WR72 and WR126. If spending an extra hour of research caused him to move his 89th WR up ten spots to 79th, then that hour resulted in a shift of just one value point. If an extra hour of research caused him to drop his WR3 down to WR4, that hour resulted in a shift of seven value points. Obviously the latter was a more productive hour- it resulted in the maximum movement of value per unit of time spent.

Go back and read this post by ZWK again. As usual, he absolutely nailed it. The higher you are in the rankings, the more consequential each decision is. The EV of guys in the 15th+ rounds of startups is miniscule. If you hustle your butt off and just really kill the end of your rankings, if the back of your rankings is TWICE AS GOOD as anyone else's and you can therefore expect TWICE AS MUCH +EV out of your 18th round pick, doubling a tiny number only results in a tiny improvement. I would rather be 10% better at the top of my rankings than twice as good at the bottom of my rankings, because 10% of a huge number is a lot bigger than 100% of a tiny number.

This isn't to say that grinding the end of your rankings won't improve them. It will. I'm just saying, if you're allocating your time to get the maximum benefit per unit of time spent, you better be allocating a lot more time to the top of your rankings than the bottom. The margins are gaping at the top, and razor-thin at the bottom. The top is both higher risk AND higher reward. I do agree with EBF that the very tippy top of the rankings is child's play- it doesn't take a MENSA member to rank Calvin and AJ as the top two dynasty WRs, or to put Dez, Demaryius, and Julio in their top 5 or 6. I stand 100% behind my claim that the most important part of any set of rankings is nailing the area between where the no-brainers end and the longshots begin. Ultimately, my rankings will be judged by the guys I have in the 12-48 range, not by the guys who I have 72nd instead of 94th.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Go back and read this post by ZWK again. As usual, he absolutely nailed it. The higher you are in the rankings, the more consequential each decision is.

But for the most part you only make those decisions once. At least I only make them once -- during the startup draft. I'm not making the 2010 choice between Larry Fitzgerald and, say, Ray Rice every year. So I'm not even disagreeing with that in my post.

I'm suggesting that most of the time you're better off looking for players like Rob Gronkowsk pre-2012 than you are risking a stud to get a stud (again, I'm assuming there are no idiots in your league interested in doing a four-for-one deal to sell Calvin). It's just not a decision that should come up very often and when it does the market values are usually close to right in a good league since most of the information is known.

Also, I agree ranking players after a certain point is silly. It's a sniper's game -- players either have possible value or they don't.

 

[Ernol]

I do agree with EBF that the very tippy top of the rankings is child's play- it doesn't take a MENSA member to rank Calvin and AJ as the top two dynasty WRs, or to put Dez, Demaryius, and Julio in their top 5 or 6. I stand 100% behind my claim that the most important part of any set of rankings is nailing the area between where the no-brainers end and the longshots begin. Ultimately, my rankings will be judged by the guys I have in the 12-48 range, not by the guys who I have 72nd instead of 94th.

Hold on, I thought you had Brandon Marshall ahead of Demaryius. If thats the case, I think thats a significant distinction that will yield a big difference in value in the coming years. Making the choices at the top end is not child's play imo.

 

[thriftyrocker]

I disagree that the top only matters in the way ZWK describes (whether you get a great player or an elite player). There's often players with 0 remaining career VBD taken in the first round. I looked at my 2006 startup and picks 1.4, 1.6, and 1.9 all had 0 remaining career VBD. 3 others had very limited value. Maybe we're getting smarter, but McFadden was a top 5 pick in 2011, last year Mathews was close to that. There's been landmines and it's no guarantee it will continue to be a small number. At some point groupthink on players will be wrong in bunches.

 

[Adam Harstad]

Go back and read this post by ZWK again. As usual, he absolutely nailed it. The higher you are in the rankings, the more consequential each decision is.

But for the most part you only make those decisions once. At least I only make them once -- during the startup draft. I'm not making the 2010 choice between Larry Fitzgerald and, say, Ray Rice every year. So I'm not even disagreeing with that in my post.

I'm suggesting that most of the time you're better off looking for players like Rob Gronkowsk pre-2012 than you are risking a stud to get a stud (again, I'm assuming there are no idiots in your league interested in doing a four-for-one deal to sell Calvin). It's just not a decision that should come up very often and when it does the market values are usually close to right in a good league since most of the information is known.

Also, I agree ranking players after a certain point is silly. It's a sniper's game -- players either have possible value or they don't.

Get past the studs, though. I'm agreeing that the very top of the rankings are going to be highly susceptible to consensus and will see very little player movement over the years. I'm saying it's that next group, the WR12-48 range, where rankings make their bones. That group usually sees a lot of movement. All of those guys are available for trade. Making a few bold calls in that area and nailing them can set you up for years. EBF being so high on Demaryius when most people had him in the high teens or low 20s comes to mind.

You mention Rob Gronkowski, and again, I don't think it's analogous to the situation I'm talking about. I initially had Gronkowski ranked 20th after the NFL draft. I had him at 12th prior to his breakout 2011 season. Rob Gronkowski fell perfectly into that group I'm saying you should focus on- the starters or top backups. And Rob Gronkowski is a perfect example of why it pays to focus so heavily on that area of the rankings.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

I think both sides make good points here, but there are a couple things I disagree with.

1) Players at the top rank themselves. This has been touched on in the last few posts so I won't really get into it, but as has been pointed out the decision between Player X and Player Y at the top can net an enormous difference. People get caught into thinking that players in the same tier are all going to end up similar. That's not the case. Players in the same tier will often head down completely opposite career paths. EBF's hatred for former top dynasty running back Darren McFadden probably saved him more points than he'll ever save in the late rounds, and his love for Stewart in that same range probably cost him as many.

I still remember Kevin Jones and Domanick Davis going in the 1st round of my dynasty start-up draft, just ahead of Steven Jackson.

As Adam has pointed out, that gap widens even more in the mid rounds. Pick a subset of 6 guys in the middle rounds and you'll probably have 3 guys that end up being very good players and 3 guys that are total flops. It's important to be on the right side of that. Meanwhile, pick a subset of 6 guys at the end of the draft and the chances are high that all 6 will end up useless and it won't have mattered what order you had them in.

2) Spending a lot of time on the guys at the bottom is going to produce the same net return. I think you're far less likely to get anything meaningful out of spending an extra hour on guys way down at the bottom than guys at the top or middle. A lot of guys are down there because they haven't played much, and we don't have much data on them. If you're debating between Chris Ivory and Ahmad Bradshaw you can go back and watch each one run the ball 300 times in the NFL. Not so much when you're debating between Spencer Ware and Kenjon Barner. Sure, there's college and the combine to look at, but we're getting to a far more inexact science than watching guys run in the NFL and there's only so much we can learn from it. Obviously that doesn't mean we should discard it as it's still valuable data, but I think you hit a point of diminishing returns much more quickly.

Let's be realistic here. When talking about people benefiting from really late round guys we've been talking about one guy one time kind of ranking a RB that ended up being great higher. This offseason FBG's best and brightest spent the summer months debating between Aaron Dobson and Josh Boyce and who ends up with the starting gig? Kenbrell Thompkins. It's not like there was someone back in June saying to take Thompkins in the 8th round of a dynasty start-up. Even when people do peg a late rounder in word of mouth, they rarely have the confidence to follow through and take the guy significantly higher than where the consensus puts him because they know that in the end, all of these late round guys amount mostly to guessing.

 

[Adam Harstad]

I disagree that the top only matters in the way ZWK describes (whether you get a great player or an elite player). There's often players with 0 remaining career VBD taken in the first round. I looked at my 2006 startup and picks 1.4, 1.6, and 1.9 all had 0 remaining career VBD. 3 others had very limited value. Maybe we're getting smarter, but McFadden was a top 5 pick in 2011, last year Mathews was close to that. There's been landmines and it's no guarantee it will continue to be a small number. At some point groupthink on players will be wrong in bunches.

All the more reason to worry a little less about the guys going in the 18th and a little more about the guys going in the first and second.

 

[Adam Harstad]

I think both sides make good points here, but there are a couple things I disagree with.

1) Players at the top rank themselves. This has been touched on in the last few posts so I won't really get into it, but as has been pointed out the decision between Player X and Player Y at the top can net an enormous difference. People get caught into thinking that players in the same tier are all going to end up similar. That's not the case. Players in the same tier will often head down completely opposite career paths. EBF's hatred for former top dynasty running back Darren McFadden probably saved him more points than he'll ever save in the late rounds, and his love for Stewart in that same range probably cost him as many.

I still remember Kevin Jones and Domanick Davis going in the 1st round of my dynasty start-up draft, just ahead of Steven Jackson.

As Adam has pointed out, that gap widens even more in the mid rounds. Pick a subset of 6 guys in the middle rounds and you'll probably have 3 guys that end up being very good players and 3 guys that are total flops. It's important to be on the right side of that. Meanwhile, pick a subset of 6 guys at the end of the draft and the chances are high that all 6 will end up useless and it won't have mattered what order you had them in.

2) Spending a lot of time on the guys at the bottom is going to produce the same net return. I think you're far less likely to get anything meaningful out of spending an extra hour on guys way down at the bottom than guys at the top or middle. A lot of guys are down there because they haven't played much, and we don't have much data on them. If you're debating between Chris Ivory and Ahmad Bradshaw you can go back and watch each one run the ball 300 times in the NFL. Not so much when you're debating between Spencer Ware and Kenjon Barner. Sure, there's college and the combine to look at, but we're getting to a far more inexact science than watching guys run in the NFL and there's only so much we can learn from it. Obviously that doesn't mean we should discard it as it's still valuable data, but I think you hit a point of diminishing returns much more quickly.

Let's be realistic here. When talking about people benefiting from really late round guys we've been talking about one guy one time kind of ranking a RB that ended up being great higher. This offseason FBG's best and brightest spent the summer months debating between Aaron Dobson and Josh Boyce and who ends up with the starting gig? Kenbrell Thompkins. It's not like there was someone back in June saying to take Thompkins in the 8th round of a dynasty start-up. Even when people do peg a late rounder in word of mouth, they rarely have the confidence to follow through and take the guy significantly higher than where the consensus puts him because they know that in the end, all of these late round guys amount mostly to guessing.

Awesome post. Absolutely killed it.

 

[Adam Harstad]

I do agree with EBF that the very tippy top of the rankings is child's play- it doesn't take a MENSA member to rank Calvin and AJ as the top two dynasty WRs, or to put Dez, Demaryius, and Julio in their top 5 or 6. I stand 100% behind my claim that the most important part of any set of rankings is nailing the area between where the no-brainers end and the longshots begin. Ultimately, my rankings will be judged by the guys I have in the 12-48 range, not by the guys who I have 72nd instead of 94th.

Hold on, I thought you had Brandon Marshall ahead of Demaryius. If thats the case, I think thats a significant distinction that will yield a big difference in value in the coming years. Making the choices at the top end is not child's play imo.

I'm not trying to say that there aren't going to be choices to make and differences of opinion, or that those decisions will only have a small impact. I'm saying that ranking the guys at the top is easier, because there's a much smaller range of choices. IIRC, every single staffer has Calvin, Green, and Julio in their top 5. The only decision with those guys is do you put him 3rd or 1st. If one of those guys flames out, every single person who doesn't own him will be saying "There but for the grace of God go I". Compare that with Torrey Smith or Mike Wallace, where there is huge and very meaningful disagreement in the community. Those latter guys are much, much harder to rank than the former.

 

[thriftyrocker]

All the more reason to worry a little less about the guys going in the 18th and a little more about the guys going in the first and second.

Not really. I started DF in 2006 and adapted my strategy to the results I saw. Each year I did another startup, I'd refine a little and eventually get more and more dogmatic about my approach. Strategy becomes equally important to player evaluation and can save you from making tough player choices at the top, like Chad Johnson vs. Hakeem Nicks or Ray Rice vs. David Wilson. Not to bleed back into the "oh noes Kap and Russ in the top 30" discussion.

To be real though, I'm not going to go back and watch All 22 of 300 plays to decide if I still like Arian Foster or Ray Rice or Matt Forte or Chris Ivory or Ahmad Bradshaw. I've seen them enough. I know what they are, and the risk involved. My decision to draft is simple: don't. Unless they just present some extreme value. My decision to buy or sell is entirely strategic.

On the flip, it's not like I'm watching Mount Union games to get a good handle on Cecil Shorts. Catch a few NCAA games, youtube some highlights, watch the combine, follow twitter or SP to get a read on who flashes, watch NFL games, and read boxscores. All that stuff I'd do even if I stopped DF.

Oh the burden of having to actually participate in the hobby I chose. My kid is in his first wk of kindergarten and he's already complaining "it's so much work." The teacher made me draw a picture with crayons and write my name on it. I'm like kid, just wait until you have to care how the WR3 on the best pass offense in the NFL does just to have some friendly competition.

 

[EBF]

2) Spending a lot of time on the guys at the bottom is going to produce the same net return. I think you're far less likely to get anything meaningful out of spending an extra hour on guys way down at the bottom than guys at the top or middle.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm more interested in the high potential/high uncertainty guys, not necessarily the guys who are at the very bottom of the draft. That group includes players like Gio Bernard, Michael Floyd, Bryce Brown, Christine Michael, Tyler Eifert, and Josh Gordon. These players would be taken fairly high in a new dynasty startup, but not as high as they'll go if and when they fulfill their potential. The main thing that interests me is the fact that we don't really know who they are, which creates the opportunity to buy them without breaking the bank (compared to what you'd pay for a McCoy/Julio/Graham).

There are players like this with ADP in the 5th-7th round. There are others like Marlon Brown, David Ausberry, and Ryan Mallett who will fall pretty far. I guess the more highly-regarded ones are worth prioritizing, but I always have a few favorites lined up for the late rounds as well. That doesn't mean I'm spending a lot of time weighing the merits of Chris Hogan vs. Laron Byrd. I agree that there's a point beyond which players are such longshots that their value is basically nil until proven otherwise. With those guys I'm more reactive than proactive. I actually had some knowledge of Marlon Brown months ago, but I totally forgot about him after his injury and didn't add him to any of my teams until he showed up in the box score a couple weeks ago. That was no special feat of anticipation. I was just paying attention and reacting to what was happening.

I think that's going to be your path to success with a lot of the late round/UDFA types who won't even be selected in your rookie draft. With those guys it's mainly about having their name in the back of your mind and pouncing immediately if and when they show any real signs of life. With the higher profile guys like Michael Floyd and Quinton Patton, they aren't ever going to hit your waiver wire. You can't just treat them as a freebie with a value to be determined later. You have to roll up your sleeves and try to figure out what you're looking at. If you can spot one or two gems per offseason from that generic cluster of high potential/high uncertainty players, it will be a nice boost to your team.

 

[Catbird]

Regarding Wesseling and Arian Foster, F&L had Foster ranked 87th in his early 2009 RB rankings. Wesseling was pretty much the king of being ahead of the curve and one of the most famous Foster supporters around, and even he thought Foster was complete and total garbage early in his rookie year. This is what I'm getting at- yes, someone currently buried in the rankings is going to prove to have surprising value. No, I don't think you can tell who it is ahead of time, no matter how much time and effort you spend on it.

You have a self-fulfilling prophesy here, SSOG. Assuming similar evaluating skills, if you don't spend much time on the previously undifferentiated youngsters, you almost certainly aren't going to have as much ability to spot the first rosterable glimmerings as early as those who do.

I think that different FF players have different skills, perhaps honed by different interests. If your interest is in differentiating RBs 24-36 and WRs 36-48, you are likely to get a lot better at that than guys who like to spend their time differentiating the lower level rookies. That, with time, will almost certainly make you better than most at moving at the right time and price on those players. With the success you have there, compared to your relative inability to differentiate youngsters at the earliest moments, your experience will be that it is easier and more effective to focus on RB2 24-36 and WRs 36-48. The guy having a belief in, and thus focusing over time on, spotting the youngsters will do far better with that and conclude that there is more value in that approach. Neither owner is going to favor the strategy that they aren't as good at and so likely haven't had much success at.

And I think its a strength of FFootball that you can build teams several ways and get competitive advantages by differing approaches. I think the important thing is to find what you are good at and have time for, and hone that skill - not to argue about which skill is the right one. I suppose that if there are players with the time and interest and ability to do both, they will have a decided edge on the rest of us.

 

[Catbird]

I think that we typically hit less often on roster-shaking upgrades by combing through the previously undifferentiated than you may in making a lot of small improvement trades to climb among the better known commodities, but I also think the roster change in being a week ahead and rostering Foster outweighs many, many Mike Williams to Ty Hilton upgrades(?). Mostly, though, I think its a question of what you think works, and accordingly, where one finds success and thus wants to spend their time.

 

[Adam Harstad]

Regarding Wesseling and Arian Foster, F&L had Foster ranked 87th in his early 2009 RB rankings. Wesseling was pretty much the king of being ahead of the curve and one of the most famous Foster supporters around, and even he thought Foster was complete and total garbage early in his rookie year. This is what I'm getting at- yes, someone currently buried in the rankings is going to prove to have surprising value. No, I don't think you can tell who it is ahead of time, no matter how much time and effort you spend on it.

You have a self-fulfilling prophesy here, SSOG. Assuming similar evaluating skills, if you don't spend much time on the previously undifferentiated youngsters, you almost certainly aren't going to have as much ability to spot the first rosterable glimmerings as early as those who do.

We aren't talking about "rosterable glimmerings". I've already said that I think all of these guys are rosterable, I just don't think they're differentiable.

I think that different FF players have different skills, perhaps honed by different interests. If your interest is in differentiating RBs 24-36 and WRs 36-48, you are likely to get a lot better at that than guys who like to spend their time differentiating the lower level rookies. That, with time, will almost certainly make you better than most at moving at the right time and price on those players. With the success you have there, compared to your relative inability to differentiate youngsters at the earliest moments, your experience will be that it is easier and more effective to focus on RB2 24-36 and WRs 36-48. The guy having a belief in, and thus focusing over time on, spotting the youngsters will do far better with that and conclude that there is more value in that approach. Neither owner is going to favor the strategy that they aren't as good at and so likely haven't had much success at.

And I think its a strength of FFootball that you can build teams several ways and get competitive advantages by differing approaches. I think the important thing is to find what you are good at and have time for, and hone that skill - not to argue about which skill is the right one. I suppose that if there are players with the time and interest and ability to do both, they will have a decided edge on the rest of us.

I don't think it's preference, or that I'm just no good at differentiating the youngsters. Honestly, I think I do a fair enough job of sorting players into "rosterable" and "unrosterable" buckets. Few in my leagues have been responsible for plucking more quality players off the wire. In my oldest league, I was the first person to add Mike Wallace, Miles Austin, Pierre Garcon, Austin Collie, Danny Woodhead, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Colin Kaepernick, Mike Vick, Dennis Pitta, and now Julius Thomas. I spotted enough in these guys to grab each of them before their respective breakouts. I think I do a decent job at spotting flashes of talent and hearing signal in the noise of camp buzz. I'm no Chris Wesseling, but I manage.

I just honestly believe that the top of the draft is more valuable. As I've said, what is the EV of an 18th round pick in startup? Maybe 20 career VBD, heavily skewed by the long tail of the distribution? And what's the EV of guys closer to the top? ZWK posted a while back that top rookie picks are usually good for 200-250 career VBD, and in my experience top rookie picks usually equate to a 2nd or 3rd round pick in startups, so say that 2nd round startup picks will net you, conservatively, 200 VBD on average? Does anyone find either of these estimates particularly controversial?

So let's use those estimates. Let's say you're the bestest-best late round pick drafter your league has ever seen. You're actually TWICE as good as everyone else, and your 18th round picks are typically as good as everyone else's 12th round picks, so you can expect DOUBLE the career EV out of your 18th rounder, which is an extra 20 VBD. That's a huge talent edge over the rest of your league, and you're only getting 20 extra VBD out of it. Meanwhile, if I'm just 10% better than average in the second round- just ten measly percent- I've already wiped out your VBD advantage from your massive skill at picking 18th rounders.

Now let's say that scouting offers diminishing marginal returns. If I spend an hour scouting late rounders, I'll improve a lot. If I spend a second hour, I'll improve a good bit more. A third hour will make me a bit better, and a fourth hour will provide barely any increase in ranking quality. Same thing for the early rounders. Initially, it seems like the optimal scenario might be to distribute my time evenly to avoid as much of the diminishing returns as possible... but I'd rather gain an extra advantage at the top instead of at the bottom, just because of the size of the margins involved. I'm not saying I would spend no time scouting the guys at the end of my rankings- after all, that first hour provides such huge returns that there's little reason not to invest it. But maybe I'd divide my time to spend 4 hours scouting at the top for every 1 hour spent scouting at the bottom. I don't know what the optimal time distribution is, but I do know that whatever it is, it involves spending more time thinking about the guys at the top of the list than the guys at the bottom. Again, I don't think this is personal preference or a reflection on my specific skills, I think this is a result of the nature of the distribution, with huge gaps at the top and small gaps at the bottom.

 

[Concept Coop]

I'm really surprised this is a conversation. I'll spend most of my time separating Tavon, Blackmon, and Gordon, and will keep my eyes and ears open for the next Thompkins, Brown, and Sudfeld, and will pounce when I can.

 

[Biabreakable]

I think it is a useful conversation to have. This is a thread about dynasty rankings incidentally.

I think criticism of rankings is useful. That causes a steel on steel situation when one has to explain why they rank a player where they do. That discussion should lead to better rankings.

I have come around to the idea of doing rankings perhaps how I like to do projections. Do a few of them like 3 or 4 each using slightly different methodology. Then look at the lists and identify the major differences. Find out why. Then after that analysis process make a ranking that is balanced between them.

Examples of different methods-

3 year window (projection)

Quality years remaining (looking at this history of players and valuing them based off of age landmarks)

Ranking based on dynasty start up ( Personally age is a larger factor for me in start up draft than postdraft)

Ranking based on winning now (never really a bad idea as long as you have time to stay on top of things)

Going back to the Arian Foster example.

I think it was very important to identify Foster as a potential starter 1st of all.

Then once he got the opportunity to start it was important to value him properly so that you would not sell too low or give up too early.

In 2010 Foster got the starting job but the Texans also drafted Ben Tate later 2nd round. Foster had not locked the job up at this point. Tate had an injury which cleared the way for that. Valuing Foster (ranking him) after this was also very important. Knowing Tates potential (and Slaton who was not quite fully out of it yet) was important to this calculation as well. So really to rank Foster correctly, you need to know all of the pieces in play. Not just Foster.

In 2011 is was important to consider Tate in your ranking of him as well. Just as it was in 2012 and this season. We will never know if there might have been more of a time share if Tate was not injured.

 

[renesauz]

Adam, I'm generally a fan, but I couldn't disagree with you more on this one.

The problem with trying to trade for proven studs is that you have to pay for them 100% of the time, and if you miss or make a mistake you might gut your team. There's no margin for error. It's high risk/high reward. And trading for potential studs after everyone has bought the hype? Crazy. Lamar Miller, I'm looking at you.

But if you have a Colston, Garcon, Shorts, Steve Johnson, Victor Cruz, Arian Foster, Priest Holmes or Antonio Gates rostered in every league when they hit you've suddenly gained an advantage over your leaguemates with no risk. The 90% of the time you're wrong doesn't hurt you at all.

Ditto that for draft picks. Who cares if you miss a lot? You get more picks every year -- simply by virtue of being in the league. Swing for the fences. You're team won't be worse when you miss -- you'll still own all the starters you had rostered.

So it's absolutely worth spending tons of times at the margins. That's where the risk/value proposition is the best and it's the best way to minimize the damage your misses inflict. Everyone misses a lot!

I hate to keep bringing up Wesseling, but his rankings demonstrate my point here, too. Take a look at his value scores. The difference between WR3 and WR4 is seven points, which is greater than the difference between WR72 and WR126. If spending an extra hour of research caused him to move his 89th WR up ten spots to 79th, then that hour resulted in a shift of just one value point. If an extra hour of research caused him to drop his WR3 down to WR4, that hour resulted in a shift of seven value points. Obviously the latter was a more productive hour- it resulted in the maximum movement of value per unit of time spent.

Go back and read this post by ZWK again. As usual, he absolutely nailed it. The higher you are in the rankings, the more consequential each decision is. The EV of guys in the 15th+ rounds of startups is miniscule. If you hustle your butt off and just really kill the end of your rankings, if the back of your rankings is TWICE AS GOOD as anyone else's and you can therefore expect TWICE AS MUCH +EV out of your 18th round pick, doubling a tiny number only results in a tiny improvement. I would rather be 10% better at the top of my rankings than twice as good at the bottom of my rankings, because 10% of a huge number is a lot bigger than 100% of a tiny number.

This isn't to say that grinding the end of your rankings won't improve them. It will. I'm just saying, if you're allocating your time to get the maximum benefit per unit of time spent, you better be allocating a lot more time to the top of your rankings than the bottom. The margins are gaping at the top, and razor-thin at the bottom. The top is both higher risk AND higher reward. I do agree with EBF that the very tippy top of the rankings is child's play- it doesn't take a MENSA member to rank Calvin and AJ as the top two dynasty WRs, or to put Dez, Demaryius, and Julio in their top 5 or 6. I stand 100% behind my claim that the most important part of any set of rankings is nailing the area between where the no-brainers end and the longshots begin. Ultimately, my rankings will be judged by the guys I have in the 12-48 range, not by the guys who I have 72nd instead of 94th.

Something's really bothering me with this analogy, and I think it has something to do with the fact that hitting big on a late pick will more than double the value of that pick. I'm talking about guys ranked 50+ that end up starters, ranked higher than #30. Finding that gem is absolutely a bigger PLUS for your team then correctly nailing WR5 instead of accidently taking WR8.

In the end, I'm not convinced that it's best to spend the majority of your time at either end of your rankings...the consequences of a mistake at the top are bigger, but the information available is also much better. The advantages of a hit at the bottom are bigger, but the info smaller, the player list longer, and the odds poor.....but the risk is low also. IN the end, I don't think it matters a lot where you spend your time, as long as you spend it....but you should spend SOME at all levels. If you're a data cruncher who is super-familiar with coaching schemes and NFL trends, then maybe you should concentrate towards the top 30 or so. If you're instead a great talent evaluator and huge college fan who knows more than most about the rookies, then maybe you're better off concentrating on the lower parts of the rankings. You can do well either way.

 

[ZWK]

Regarding Wesseling and Arian Foster, F&L had Foster ranked 87th in his early 2009 RB rankings. Wesseling was pretty much the king of being ahead of the curve and one of the most famous Foster supporters around, and even he thought Foster was complete and total garbage early in his rookie year. This is what I'm getting at- yes, someone currently buried in the rankings is going to prove to have surprising value. No, I don't think you can tell who it is ahead of time, no matter how much time and effort you spend on it.

You have a self-fulfilling prophesy here, SSOG. Assuming similar evaluating skills, if you don't spend much time on the previously undifferentiated youngsters, you almost certainly aren't going to have as much ability to spot the first rosterable glimmerings as early as those who do.

We aren't talking about "rosterable glimmerings". I've already said that I think all of these guys are rosterable, I just don't think they're differentiable.

I think that different FF players have different skills, perhaps honed by different interests. If your interest is in differentiating RBs 24-36 and WRs 36-48, you are likely to get a lot better at that than guys who like to spend their time differentiating the lower level rookies. That, with time, will almost certainly make you better than most at moving at the right time and price on those players. With the success you have there, compared to your relative inability to differentiate youngsters at the earliest moments, your experience will be that it is easier and more effective to focus on RB2 24-36 and WRs 36-48. The guy having a belief in, and thus focusing over time on, spotting the youngsters will do far better with that and conclude that there is more value in that approach. Neither owner is going to favor the strategy that they aren't as good at and so likely haven't had much success at.

And I think its a strength of FFootball that you can build teams several ways and get competitive advantages by differing approaches. I think the important thing is to find what you are good at and have time for, and hone that skill - not to argue about which skill is the right one. I suppose that if there are players with the time and interest and ability to do both, they will have a decided edge on the rest of us.

I don't think it's preference, or that I'm just no good at differentiating the youngsters. Honestly, I think I do a fair enough job of sorting players into "rosterable" and "unrosterable" buckets. Few in my leagues have been responsible for plucking more quality players off the wire. In my oldest league, I was the first person to add Mike Wallace, Miles Austin, Pierre Garcon, Austin Collie, Danny Woodhead, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Colin Kaepernick, Mike Vick, Dennis Pitta, and now Julius Thomas. I spotted enough in these guys to grab each of them before their respective breakouts. I think I do a decent job at spotting flashes of talent and hearing signal in the noise of camp buzz. I'm no Chris Wesseling, but I manage.

I just honestly believe that the top of the draft is more valuable. As I've said, what is the EV of an 18th round pick in startup? Maybe 20 career VBD, heavily skewed by the long tail of the distribution? And what's the EV of guys closer to the top? ZWK posted a while back that top rookie picks are usually good for 200-250 career VBD, and in my experience top rookie picks usually equate to a 2nd or 3rd round pick in startups, so say that 2nd round startup picks will net you, conservatively, 200 VBD on average? Does anyone find either of these estimates particularly controversial?

So let's use those estimates. Let's say you're the bestest-best late round pick drafter your league has ever seen. You're actually TWICE as good as everyone else, and your 18th round picks are typically as good as everyone else's 12th round picks, so you can expect DOUBLE the career EV out of your 18th rounder, which is an extra 20 VBD. That's a huge talent edge over the rest of your league, and you're only getting 20 extra VBD out of it. Meanwhile, if I'm just 10% better than average in the second round- just ten measly percent- I've already wiped out your VBD advantage from your massive skill at picking 18th rounders.

Now let's say that scouting offers diminishing marginal returns. If I spend an hour scouting late rounders, I'll improve a lot. If I spend a second hour, I'll improve a good bit more. A third hour will make me a bit better, and a fourth hour will provide barely any increase in ranking quality. Same thing for the early rounders. Initially, it seems like the optimal scenario might be to distribute my time evenly to avoid as much of the diminishing returns as possible... but I'd rather gain an extra advantage at the top instead of at the bottom, just because of the size of the margins involved. I'm not saying I would spend no time scouting the guys at the end of my rankings- after all, that first hour provides such huge returns that there's little reason not to invest it. But maybe I'd divide my time to spend 4 hours scouting at the top for every 1 hour spent scouting at the bottom. I don't know what the optimal time distribution is, but I do know that whatever it is, it involves spending more time thinking about the guys at the top of the list than the guys at the bottom. Again, I don't think this is personal preference or a reflection on my specific skills, I think this is a result of the nature of the distribution, with huge gaps at the top and small gaps at the bottom.

This is all basically correct, but one thing that is missing from this analysis is volume.

Let's say that, if you're really good at evaluating waiver wire fodder, then each player that you pick up has a 2% higher chance of being a hit than a player that's picked up by the average owner. Or, alternatively, maybe each player that you pick up is worth 5 VBD more in expected value. (Those numbers could also apply to your 18th round pick in a startup.)

That's a pretty tiny benefit for your talents & efforts, which pales in comparison to what you can gain (in expectation) with your 2nd round startup pick, or your first round pick in the rookie draft, or one trade that you make involving a top 20 WR.

But you're not just picking one guy up off the waiver wire; over the course of a season you might add 10 as you churn away. 10 guys adding 5 VBD each (in expected value) is worth 50 VBD; if you do that each year that's like having a bonus Steven Jackson on your team. (Similarly, in the draft a late round guru would not just be taking a rd12 caliber player in round 18; he'd also be taking a rd13 caliber player in round 19, and a rd14-type-guy in round 20, then a kicker in round 21, and then back to underrated prospects in round 22, etc.)

These numbers are all made up to be vaguely plausible rather than precisely pinned down, but it does suggest that there is a fair amount of value to be gained by being good at evaluating bottom-of-the-roster prospects and playing the wire well. Not as much value as there is in evaluating, drafting, and trading the top 100 fantasy players, but if you're looking to add value wherever you can then it's worth some time and attention.

 

[Adam Harstad]

Regarding Wesseling and Arian Foster, F&L had Foster ranked 87th in his early 2009 RB rankings. Wesseling was pretty much the king of being ahead of the curve and one of the most famous Foster supporters around, and even he thought Foster was complete and total garbage early in his rookie year. This is what I'm getting at- yes, someone currently buried in the rankings is going to prove to have surprising value. No, I don't think you can tell who it is ahead of time, no matter how much time and effort you spend on it.

You have a self-fulfilling prophesy here, SSOG. Assuming similar evaluating skills, if you don't spend much time on the previously undifferentiated youngsters, you almost certainly aren't going to have as much ability to spot the first rosterable glimmerings as early as those who do.

We aren't talking about "rosterable glimmerings". I've already said that I think all of these guys are rosterable, I just don't think they're differentiable.

I think that different FF players have different skills, perhaps honed by different interests. If your interest is in differentiating RBs 24-36 and WRs 36-48, you are likely to get a lot better at that than guys who like to spend their time differentiating the lower level rookies. That, with time, will almost certainly make you better than most at moving at the right time and price on those players. With the success you have there, compared to your relative inability to differentiate youngsters at the earliest moments, your experience will be that it is easier and more effective to focus on RB2 24-36 and WRs 36-48. The guy having a belief in, and thus focusing over time on, spotting the youngsters will do far better with that and conclude that there is more value in that approach. Neither owner is going to favor the strategy that they aren't as good at and so likely haven't had much success at.

And I think its a strength of FFootball that you can build teams several ways and get competitive advantages by differing approaches. I think the important thing is to find what you are good at and have time for, and hone that skill - not to argue about which skill is the right one. I suppose that if there are players with the time and interest and ability to do both, they will have a decided edge on the rest of us.

I don't think it's preference, or that I'm just no good at differentiating the youngsters. Honestly, I think I do a fair enough job of sorting players into "rosterable" and "unrosterable" buckets. Few in my leagues have been responsible for plucking more quality players off the wire. In my oldest league, I was the first person to add Mike Wallace, Miles Austin, Pierre Garcon, Austin Collie, Danny Woodhead, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Colin Kaepernick, Mike Vick, Dennis Pitta, and now Julius Thomas. I spotted enough in these guys to grab each of them before their respective breakouts. I think I do a decent job at spotting flashes of talent and hearing signal in the noise of camp buzz. I'm no Chris Wesseling, but I manage.

I just honestly believe that the top of the draft is more valuable. As I've said, what is the EV of an 18th round pick in startup? Maybe 20 career VBD, heavily skewed by the long tail of the distribution? And what's the EV of guys closer to the top? ZWK posted a while back that top rookie picks are usually good for 200-250 career VBD, and in my experience top rookie picks usually equate to a 2nd or 3rd round pick in startups, so say that 2nd round startup picks will net you, conservatively, 200 VBD on average? Does anyone find either of these estimates particularly controversial?

So let's use those estimates. Let's say you're the bestest-best late round pick drafter your league has ever seen. You're actually TWICE as good as everyone else, and your 18th round picks are typically as good as everyone else's 12th round picks, so you can expect DOUBLE the career EV out of your 18th rounder, which is an extra 20 VBD. That's a huge talent edge over the rest of your league, and you're only getting 20 extra VBD out of it. Meanwhile, if I'm just 10% better than average in the second round- just ten measly percent- I've already wiped out your VBD advantage from your massive skill at picking 18th rounders.

Now let's say that scouting offers diminishing marginal returns. If I spend an hour scouting late rounders, I'll improve a lot. If I spend a second hour, I'll improve a good bit more. A third hour will make me a bit better, and a fourth hour will provide barely any increase in ranking quality. Same thing for the early rounders. Initially, it seems like the optimal scenario might be to distribute my time evenly to avoid as much of the diminishing returns as possible... but I'd rather gain an extra advantage at the top instead of at the bottom, just because of the size of the margins involved. I'm not saying I would spend no time scouting the guys at the end of my rankings- after all, that first hour provides such huge returns that there's little reason not to invest it. But maybe I'd divide my time to spend 4 hours scouting at the top for every 1 hour spent scouting at the bottom. I don't know what the optimal time distribution is, but I do know that whatever it is, it involves spending more time thinking about the guys at the top of the list than the guys at the bottom. Again, I don't think this is personal preference or a reflection on my specific skills, I think this is a result of the nature of the distribution, with huge gaps at the top and small gaps at the bottom.

This is all basically correct, but one thing that is missing from this analysis is volume.

Let's say that, if you're really good at evaluating waiver wire fodder, then each player that you pick up has a 2% higher chance of being a hit than a player that's picked up by the average owner. Or, alternatively, maybe each player that you pick up is worth 5 VBD more in expected value. (Those numbers could also apply to your 18th round pick in a startup.)

That's a pretty tiny benefit for your talents & efforts, which pales in comparison to what you can gain (in expectation) with your 2nd round startup pick, or your first round pick in the rookie draft, or one trade that you make involving a top 20 WR.

But you're not just picking one guy up off the waiver wire; over the course of a season you might add 10 as you churn away. 10 guys adding 5 VBD each (in expected value) is worth 50 VBD; if you do that each year that's like having a bonus Steven Jackson on your team. (Similarly, in the draft a late round guru would not just be taking a rd12 caliber player in round 18; he'd also be taking a rd13 caliber player in round 19, and a rd14-type-guy in round 20, then a kicker in round 21, and then back to underrated prospects in round 22, etc.)

These numbers are all made up to be vaguely plausible rather than precisely pinned down, but it does suggest that there is a fair amount of value to be gained by being good at evaluating bottom-of-the-roster prospects and playing the wire well. Not as much value as there is in evaluating, drafting, and trading the top 100 fantasy players, but if you're looking to add value wherever you can then it's worth some time and attention.

I don't think you can measure waiver claims in terms of "total VBD". I think you have to measure them in terms of "VBD per unit of time" (which is why urgency is so valuable- they don't have a higher expected VBD payoff, but they do have a lower time requirement before making a decision, and by decreasing the denominator you wind up increasing the total value in terms of VBD/Time).

Still, there's volume at the top, too. You aren't just making a pick in the 2nd round, you're making one in the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth. Plus, in my experience, trades are all about the players in my "money range". For the most part, the guys above it are too hard to get anyone to part with, and the guys below it are too worthless for anyone to bother targeting them. Focusing more on the "money range" will dramatically improve your effectiveness as a trader, and there's a lot of volume in that, too. Looking back at my longest-standing league, I've made 24 trades, 25 waiver claims (6 of which were for a defense), and 75 adds (13 for a defense). So my ratio of total adds to trades is about 4:1, or about 3.4:1 if you don't count defenses (which, for this exercise, you shouldn't). Is the EV of a waiver claim or free agent add 3.4 times higher than the EV of a trade? I wouldn't think so, given the relative value of players involved in each transaction. Moreover, the risk inherent in trades (you're much more likely to wind up losing large quantities of VBD than you are with a drop) also makes it pretty important that you work extra hard to get that one right. Maybe if I played in a no-trade league, the end of my rankings would become more important.

Note that I agree that the end of the rankings is "worth some time and attention", and suggesting otherwise is a red herring. I'm just arguing about how MUCH time and attention it's worth. The first unit of time spent there is typically very productive, but once diminishing marginal returns starts kicking in, I find it more productive to focus attention elsewhere.

 

[valhallan]

The amount of time spent debating how much time to spend on the lowest tier has exceeded the amount of time needed to examine such up and down and twice on Sundays.

 

[EBF]

Quite a few of my rosters are mired in mediocrity at the moment, so I've been doing some analysis to find some of my leaks and fix some of my sloppy habits.

As part of that, I went back and looked at all the rookie drafts between 2007-2011 for one of my older dynasty leagues. I wrote down all of the "hits" and where they were selected. I didn't use any strict objective criteria to separate the hits from the missies, so some borderline guys made it (James Jones) while others didn't (S Rice, Mendenhall, DMC). Including or excluding a couple of those guys would change the results a little bit, but the overall picture would mostly remain the same.

Here's the list. And by the way this is a 12 team league with a 4 round rookie draft.

1.01 - Adrian Peterson
1.01 - Michael Crabtree
1.01 - Julio Jones
1.02 - Calvin Johnson
1.02 - Dez Bryant
1.02 - AJ Green
1.03 - Marshawn Lynch
1.03 - CJ Spiller
1.05 - LeSean McCoy
1.05 - Demaryius Thomas
1.07 - Chris Johnson
1.07 - Hakeem Nicks
1.08 - Ray Rice
1.08 - Randall Cobb
1.10 - Jamaal Charles
1.10 - Percy Harvin
1.11 - Dwayne Bowe
=========================
2.02 - Torrey Smith
2.04 - Eric Decker
2.05 - Cam Newton
2.08 - DeSean Jackson
2.08 - Mike Williams
3.01 - Jordy Nelson
3.04 - Aaron Hernandez
3.05 - Colin Kaepernick
3.07 - Jimmy Graham
4.01 - Stevan Ridley
4.04 - Jordan Cameron
4.06 - Jermichael Finley
4.06 - Rob Gronkowski
4.07 - Cecil Shorts
4.09 - James Jones

A few things stood out to me about these results:

- Not surprisingly, the 1st round is where most of the value is. It accounts for over half of the hits. Perhaps more importantly, it accounts for most of the BIG hits like Peterson, Calvin, and Julio. The first 12 picks will produce as many hits as rounds 2-4 combined.

- Within the first round, the top 3 spots are gold, accounting for almost half of the first round hits even though picks 1.01-1.03 represent only 25% of the total first round picks in a given year. I'm no mathematician, but it looks like a top 3 pick is worth roughly two 1st rounders between picks 4-12.

- The NFL does an excellent job of identifying true WR1 talents and making sure they don't slip out of the first round. Most of the elite frontline #1 guys were first round NFL draft picks. The 2nd-4th round NFL draft pick WR hits are not as exceptional from a talent perspective and are more of your #1B/#2 kind of players like Decker, Nelson, and DeSean. These players are useful for FF, but they're not really the perennial top 10 type of guys that you want. I would also file Cobb into this group.

- 2nd-3rd round NFL draft pick RBs seem a little more likely to become genuine stars than 2nd-3rd round receivers. McCoy and Rice were big hits. Going back a couple years earlier, MJD has also been a smash hit as a 2nd round RB. So while I'd say a future top 10 overall type of WR will almost never fall out of the first round of the NFL draft, it's possible for an elite RB talent to slip into the 2nd-3rd. It's probably worth pointing out that those three guys (MJD, McCoy, Rice) all had something a little "off" that didn't fit the prototype. Rice and MJD were short, with MJD being VERY short. McCoy was pretty putrid in his pro day workouts.

- A lot of the 2nd-4th round rookie draft hits were QB/TE who slipped a lot further in the rookie draft than they probably should have based on their NFL draft position. Graham, Gronk, Hernandez, and Finley were all drafted behind numerous vastly inferior talents at RB/WR.

The CliffsNotes takeaways for me:

- 1st rounders are very valuable, but most of that value is concentrated in the top few picks.

- Your odds of hitting on your 2nd-4th rounders combined are about the same as your odds of hitting on your 1st rounder, but you're less likely to get a big hit.

- If a WR slips out of the first round of the NFL draft, he's almost certainly not going to become a true WR1 in the NFL. The only exceptions I can think of right away are small school guys (VJax, Cruz, Colston). I tend to believe that if you stuck one of those guys on a USC/Georgia/Ohio State he probably would've been a high pick.

- In the 1st round of your rookie draft, focus on 1st round NFL draft pick WR/RB and explosive 2nd/3rd round RBs.

- In the 2nd-4th round of your rookie draft, focus on high pick TE/QB. 2nd-4th round WRs are also a fair gamble, but you have minimal chance at a genuine star. Your hit is far more likely to be a Mike Williams/Eric Decker level player than a Julio/Calvin.

- Don't bother with 5th+ round NFL draft picks. They will hit once in a blue moon, but you're probably better off passing in the draft and saving those flyers for waivers.

- There are approximately, 6-7 hits per draft. In a twelve team league where every team has the same number of draft picks and the same generic ability to select the right players, your expectation for your rookie draft is .5 hits per year. In other words, the average team is going to get 1 good player every 2 years. If you have stockpiled extra picks, the math is different and you'd obviously have a higher expectation.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but it really drives home the value of the top 3 picks, the scarcity of truly elite players, and the fact that you shouldn't try to outsmart the NFL draft process. You would probably do pretty well in your rookie draft just always selecting the highest NFL draft pick on the board regardless of his position or what you thought of him. You would have had a good shot at ugly ducklings like Kaepernick, Gronkowski, Graham, and Ridley with that strategy.

 

[Adam Harstad]

Quite a few of my rosters are mired in mediocrity at the moment, so I've been doing some analysis to find some of my leaks and fix some of my sloppy habits.

As part of that, I went back and looked at all the rookie drafts between 2007-2011 for one of my older dynasty leagues. I wrote down all of the "hits" and where they were selected. I didn't use any strict objective criteria to separate the hits from the missies, so some borderline guys made it (James Jones) while others didn't (S Rice, Mendenhall, DMC). Including or excluding a couple of those guys would change the results a little bit, but the overall picture would mostly remain the same.

Here's the list. And by the way this is a 12 team league with a 4 round rookie draft.

1.01 - Adrian Peterson

1.01 - Michael Crabtree

1.01 - Julio Jones

1.02 - Calvin Johnson

1.02 - Dez Bryant

1.02 - AJ Green

1.03 - Marshawn Lynch

1.03 - CJ Spiller

1.05 - LeSean McCoy

1.05 - Demaryius Thomas

1.07 - Chris Johnson

1.07 - Hakeem Nicks

1.08 - Ray Rice

1.08 - Randall Cobb

1.10 - Jamaal Charles

1.10 - Percy Harvin

1.11 - Dwayne Bowe

=========================

2.02 - Torrey Smith

2.04 - Eric Decker

2.05 - Cam Newton

2.08 - DeSean Jackson

2.08 - Mike Williams

3.01 - Jordy Nelson

3.04 - Aaron Hernandez

3.05 - Colin Kaepernick

3.07 - Jimmy Graham

4.01 - Stevan Ridley

4.04 - Jordan Cameron

4.06 - Jermichael Finley

4.06 - Rob Gronkowski

4.07 - Cecil Shorts

4.09 - James Jones

A few things stood out to me about these results:

- Not surprisingly, the 1st round is where most of the value is. It accounts for over half of the hits. Perhaps more importantly, it accounts for most of the BIG hits like Peterson, Calvin, and Julio. The first 12 picks will produce as many hits as rounds 2-4 combined.

- Within the first round, the top 3 spots are gold, accounting for almost half of the first round hits even though picks 1.01-1.03 represent only 25% of the total first round picks in a given year. I'm no mathematician, but it looks like a top 3 pick is worth roughly two 1st rounders between picks 4-12.

- The NFL does an excellent job of identifying true WR1 talents and making sure they don't slip out of the first round. Most of the elite frontline #1 guys were first round NFL draft picks. The 2nd-4th round NFL draft pick WR hits are not as exceptional from a talent perspective and are more of your #1B/#2 kind of players like Decker, Nelson, and DeSean. These players are useful for FF, but they're not really the perennial top 10 type of guys that you want. I would also file Cobb into this group.

- 2nd-3rd round NFL draft pick RBs seem a little more likely to become genuine stars than 2nd-3rd round receivers. McCoy and Rice were big hits. Going back a couple years earlier, MJD has also been a smash hit as a 2nd round RB. So while I'd say a future top 10 overall type of WR will almost never fall out of the first round of the NFL draft, it's possible for an elite RB talent to slip into the 2nd-3rd. It's probably worth pointing out that those three guys (MJD, McCoy, Rice) all had something a little "off" that didn't fit the prototype. Rice and MJD were short, with MJD being VERY short. McCoy was pretty putrid in his pro day workouts.

- A lot of the 2nd-4th round rookie draft hits were QB/TE who slipped a lot further in the rookie draft than they probably should have based on their NFL draft position. Graham, Gronk, Hernandez, and Finley were all drafted behind numerous vastly inferior talents at RB/WR.

The CliffsNotes takeaways for me:

- 1st rounders are very valuable, but most of that value is concentrated in the top few picks.

- Your odds of hitting on your 2nd-4th rounders combined are about the same as your odds of hitting on your 1st rounder, but you're less likely to get a big hit.

- If a WR slips out of the first round of the NFL draft, he's almost certainly not going to become a true WR1 in the NFL. The only exceptions I can think of right away are small school guys (VJax, Cruz, Colston). I tend to believe that if you stuck one of those guys on a USC/Georgia/Ohio State he probably would've been a high pick.

- In the 1st round of your rookie draft, focus on 1st round NFL draft pick WR/RB and explosive 2nd/3rd round RBs.

- In the 2nd-4th round of your rookie draft, focus on high pick TE/QB. 2nd-4th round WRs are also a fair gamble, but you have minimal chance at a genuine star. Your hit is far more likely to be a Mike Williams/Eric Decker level player than a Julio/Calvin.

- Don't bother with 5th+ round NFL draft picks. They will hit once in a blue moon, but you're probably better off passing in the draft and saving those flyers for waivers.

- There are approximately, 6-7 hits per draft. In a twelve team league where every team has the same number of draft picks and the same generic ability to select the right players, your expectation for your rookie draft is .5 hits per year. In other words, the average team is going to get 1 good player every 2 years. If you have stockpiled extra picks, the math is different and you'd obviously have a higher expectation.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but it really drives home the value of the top 3 picks, the scarcity of truly elite players, and the fact that you shouldn't try to outsmart the NFL draft process. You would probably do pretty well in your rookie draft just always selecting the highest NFL draft pick on the board regardless of his position or what you thought of him. You would have had a good shot at ugly ducklings like Kaepernick, Gronkowski, Graham, and Ridley with that strategy.

This conforms 100% to my experiences, too. Not to get too self-promotional, but I wrote a trio of articles this offseason about why I think most dynasty owners would be better off anchoring more strongly to draft position, and going through the process of adjusting the data to make it more applicable to fantasy. For instance, the RB position is very devalued in the NFL, so you would anticipate that the average RB would be more talented than his draft position would indicate. At the same time, RB is the most valuable fantasy position, so an RB's value in fantasy outstrips even his true talent level. Combine those two effects, and you get a phenomenon where RBs should be valued well above their NFL draft position. That helps explain your observation that 2nd-3rd round RBs tend to dramatically outperform 2nd-3rd round WRs. Subscriber content, but here's part 1, part 2, and part 3.

I think a lot of dynasty owners get too self-assured thinking they can somehow beat actual NFL scouting departments when it comes to measuring player talent, which causes them to reach on players with lower pedigree over players with higher pedigree. We saw that this offseason with Zac Stacy and Jonathan Franklin, who were both going in the 1st round at one point, as well as with Da'Rick Rogers, who some said they preferred over Robert Woods straight up. If you anchor heavily to NFL draft position, you'll be in a great position to swoop in and scoop up the Newtons and Demaryiuses who fall farther than they should while everyone else is busy reaching on a Greg Little or Daniel Thomas.

 

[DoubleG]

I think a lot of dynasty owners get too self-assured thinking they can somehow beat actual NFL scouting departments when it comes to measuring player talent, which causes them to reach on players with lower pedigree over players with higher pedigree.

This 10000 times. I see this in our dynasty draft sometimes and I just smile to myself as a player that was drafted high in the NFL floats into my lap while many fantasy owners think they are smarter because they watched a handful of college games or a collection of youtube highlights. If a legit NFL scouting department thought my highly of WRx than WRy, I'm good with that (unless it's the Raiders, then screw it, I'll go off the board)

 

[EBF]

I think a lot of dynasty owners get too self-assured thinking they can somehow beat actual NFL scouting departments when it comes to measuring player talent, which causes them to reach on players with lower pedigree over players with higher pedigree. We saw that this offseason with Zac Stacy and Jonathan Franklin, who were both going in the 1st round at one point, as well as with Da'Rick Rogers, who some said they preferred over Robert Woods straight up. If you anchor heavily to NFL draft position, you'll be in a great position to swoop in and scoop up the Newtons and Demaryiuses who fall farther than they should while everyone else is busy reaching on a Greg Little or Daniel Thomas.

Yea, I think the smart thing to do is to lump players into tiers based on draft position and then use whatever scouting ability you might have to differentiate within those tiers. For me, it would look something like this:

Tier 1: top 10 NFL draft picks

Tier 2: first round NFL draft picks

Tier 3: 2nd-3rd round NFL draft picks

Tier 4: 4th round NFL draft picks

Tier 5: everyone else

The nice thing about this approach is that if you really like a player relative to his draft level, you're probably still going to get him in a lot of leagues. If you had Christine Michael rated as the best prospect within the tier of 2nd-3rd round RBs, you would've gotten him in many leagues. On the other hand, this approach is going to prevent you from making those gruesome across-tier reaches where you take Da'Rick Rogers ahead of Markus Wheaton or Johnathan Franklin ahead of Christine Michael.

The hardest part is figuring out how much you should adjust to account for positional value. Do you take Sam Bradford and Jermaine Gresham (1st round picks) ahead of Ben Tate (2nd round pick)? With QBs and TEs being so interchangeable in many FF formats, I would be inclined to discount those players by a tier except for cases where I felt the player was clearly exceptional (Luck, Winslow). I might even discount QBs by two tiers in some cases, as it's just so rare to find one who's a real difference-maker in a typical 12-14 team league. The main problem with QB/TE in most formats is that there are only 12-14 starting for FF teams in a given week, compared to 20-40 players apiece at RB/WR. Hence "hits" like Cutler, Flacco, Palmer, Marcedes Lewis, and Heath Miller are virtually untradeable and unstartable even though they might be better NFL players relative to their position than the likes of Hilton, Stevie Johnson, and Mike Williams. Putting that in plain English, a "hit" at TE/QB is not enough in most leagues. You need a big hit at those positions to have a player with any real value.

I'd still be inclined to take an EJ Manuel, Vance McDonald or Travis Kelce ahead of a Zac Stacy or Da'Rick Rogers because the odds with the latter types are so poor as to be almost negligible. Many times you're going to be faced with a tougher decision, like Bradford vs. Hardesty/Tate/Benn or Newton vs. Cobb/Torrey/Little. There are going to be times where I'm going to take the 1st round QB ahead of the 2nd-3rd round RB/WR and times where I do the reverse.

 

[Donsmith753]

You could also end up with Jon Baldwin and AJ Jenkins...

 

[EBF]

You could also end up with Jon Baldwin and AJ Jenkins...

There are busts at every level of the draft. I'd still rather have a generic late 1st round WR than even a 2nd-3rd round RB.

Baldwin, Jenkins, Meachem, Gonzalez....

Roddy, Wayne, Dez, Demaryius...

I'll take that coin flip.

 

[Ernol]

I think a lot of dynasty owners get too self-assured thinking they can somehow beat actual NFL scouting departments when it comes to measuring player talent, which causes them to reach on players with lower pedigree over players with higher pedigree. We saw that this offseason with Zac Stacy and Jonathan Franklin, who were both going in the 1st round at one point, as well as with Da'Rick Rogers, who some said they preferred over Robert Woods straight up. If you anchor heavily to NFL draft position, you'll be in a great position to swoop in and scoop up the Newtons and Demaryiuses who fall farther than they should while everyone else is busy reaching on a Greg Little or Daniel Thomas.

Newton fell farther because of the age-old adage of foregoing QBs in dynasty rookie drafts, a different topic altogether and a misconception that Cam has corrected going forward (one of several that he has changed in both fantasy and in the NFL).

Demaryius Thomas was already a top 5 dynasty rookie pick in 2010. Were players drafted ahead of him reaches? We commonly had Dez Bryant (also a 1st rounder), CJ Spiller (highest pedigree of them all), Ryan Mathews (drafted ahead of Thomas) and Jahvid Best (1st rounder at a scarce position and was seemingly on the road to super stardom himself before the concussions) drafted over Thomas. Basically, Demaryius was regularly drafted about where he should have been drafted given your criteria and would hardly have been "scooped up" by anyone.

Greg Little, a mid-1st dynasty rookie pick, was a late 2nd rounder in the NFL draft. Outside of Cam Newton, what players with better pedigree should have been taken before Little? Jon Baldwin? I’d say Little was taken about where he would have been taken following your recommendations.

Daniel Thomas, another mid-1st dynasty rookie pick and another 2nd rounder in the NFL draft (falling in a good fantasy situation). Were better choices with better pedigrees clear at the time?

Zac Stacy and Jonathan Franklin are more valid examples, but I wouldn’t think many were calling them better “talents” than higher pedigreed players drafted later in dynasty rookie drafts. They simply had a more visible road to fantasy relevance at a premium position, which was enough to take a shot at them late in the 1st or early 2nd over lets say a WR with higher pedigree but perhaps equally long odds of ever having fantasy relevance. The common mistake I saw was the taking of Franklin and sometimes even Stacy over Christine Michael, but even that can be explained by Michael’s 3rd string depth chart position. Overall, I am not seeing either as having been a huge reach over another rookie with a higher pedigree.

Your best example was Da’Rick Rogers, but in the 2nd round of rookie drafts, is it better to take the perceived-to-be less dynamic Robert Woods who has much higher odds of being better in the NFL than Rogers, but who may have very little odds of becoming fantasy relevant (as most 2nd rounders do), or, do you take a shot at a potentially more dynamic player that the NFL may have passed up for other reasons (such as attitude, lack of smarts, lack of refinement, etc.)? Its easy to point to Rogers because his fate is already largely known. However, where Woods was clearly the better choice for the NFL as a contributor (and drafted as such), the choice may not have been so clear for fantasy (where NFL contributors are not necessarily and are often not fantasy contributors).

Fantasy GMs DO have certain advantages over NFL GMs in the context of drafting for fantasy purposes and I believe the better fantasy GMs can in fact be better than NFL GMs in drafting…for fantasy football.

For one, we are drafting for potential fantasy contribution, where NFL GMs are drafting for contribution to an NFL team. A player more likely to make an NFL contribution can be less likely to make a fantasy one.

Two, while the NFL GMs have a lot more information on any particular player and have studied such players far more extensively than fantasy GMs, fantasy GMs have one very important data point that NFL GMs do not have. That is, where the player is actually drafted in the NFL and by whom. In a sense, that takes the mounds of information and all of the advantages that the NFL GMs have over fantasy GMs and gift wraps it to fantasy GMs in a nice, uncluttered piece of information. At that point, NFL GMs and Fantasy GMs are on equal footing.

Three, fantasy GMs have the advantage of knowing the situation in which a player is drafted and can adjust their rankings for that situation. NFL GMs only care about which player is the best player to fill the role that they need filled for their particular team. They didn’t care (nor did they have the info, nor would it cross their mind) that Dez Bryant would have advantages catching passes from Tony Romo over Demaryius Thomas catching passes from Tim Tebow!

 

[EBF]

For one, we are drafting for potential fantasy contribution, where NFL GMs are drafting for contribution to an NFL team. A player more likely to make an NFL contribution can be less likely to make a fantasy one.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I can think of quite a few times when the FF community has outsmarted itself about a given player. Off the top of my head, Maurice Drew, Bernard Pierce, and TY Hilton come to mind as three recent examples of players whose rookie draft value was out of wack because the FF community had decided that they were not as valuable as their NFL draft slot indicated. The logic was that Maurice Drew was too small to be more than a committee back (he was likely a 2nd round rookie pick in almost all 12 team leagues in 2006). Bernard Pierce was stuck in a hopeless situation. Hilton was merely a slot WR and thus didn't have any upside.

I can think of times where the FF community correctly discounted a player with a high draft position. Given how high they were selected, there was very little optimism for Buster Davis and AJ Jenkins. We like to think we can always spot these guys and value them accordingly, but in reality the community has a mixed ability to make those calls and that's why there are players like Hilton, Pierce, Graham, Gronk, Wilson, and Kaepernick slipping through the cracks every year.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

There are also arbitrage opportunities fantasy vs NFL in that the NFL salary cap, immediacy of on-field NFL contribution and non-talent related risks matter a lot in the NFL, but not nearly as much in fantasy.

 

[Biabreakable]

While it is true that the NFL draft should be a large part of ones consideration when comparing draft prospects it is not everything. The examples given have only had 2 weeks of opportunity as well. I think that is too early to be judging them as success/failure.

If you go back and look at all drafts (which I presume is the main content of Adam's articles) you will see plenty of FF relevant players coming from all parts of the draft as well as UDFA.

So while I agree a FF owner does not have as much information as a NFL teams scouting staff that does not mean a FF owner should follow the NFL draft order by rote, or have that be the primary factor in ranking rookie prospects.

This has already been discussed plenty. If you just go by the NFL draft then guys like Alfred Morris and so many others never get drafted in FF and become free agent pick ups instead.

Great method?

I disagree. I think this is a facile argument to make an excuse for why FF owners are no good at identifying talent + opportunity.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

- In the 1st round of your rookie draft, focus on 1st round NFL draft pick WR/RB and explosive 2nd/3rd round RBs.

- In the 2nd-4th round of your rookie draft, focus on high pick TE/QB. 2nd-4th round WRs are also a fair gamble, but you have minimal chance at a genuine star. Your hit is far more likely to be a Mike Williams/Eric Decker level player than a Julio/Calvin.

This is kind of what I figured, and it's good to see some real data on it after going on that rant in the "re-do your rookie rankings" thread about people picking guys like Woods/Wheaton over guys like Bell/Eifert.

 

[EBF]

So while I agree a FF owner does not have as much information as a NFL teams scouting staff that does not mean a FF owner should follow the NFL draft order by rote, or have that be the primary factor in ranking rookie prospects.
This has already been discussed plenty. If you just go by the NFL draft then guys like Alfred Morris and so many others never get drafted in FF and become free agent pick ups instead.

Great method?

I disagree.

In discussions about draft position people will almost inevitably throw out names like Brady, Colston, and Morris. The thing is, it's not about the exceptions. It's about the odds. We know that there are going to be surprises from the late rounds almost every year. This does not change the fact that the odds are tilted against any given late pick becoming a major success. Think of it in gambling terms. If you're playing roulette and you pick a number, there are times when the number will hit and your bet will pay off. However, the EV is always negative and if you play roulette over an extended sample size you're going to go broke.

People lose sight of the odds when they focus on anomalies like Brady and Colston. You remember them well, but you don't remember all the countless 6th-7th round NFL draft picks who have washed out of the league in the past several years.

Here is a post I made earlier this offseason with a list of all the RBs picked in the 6th round in the past ten drafts:

Alfred Morris

Cyrus Gray

Dan Herron

Terrance Ganaway

Evan Royster

Jordan Todman

Allen Bradford

Anthony Dixon

Deji Karim

Jonathan Dwyer

James Starks

Charles Scott

Cedric Peerman

Aaron Brown

James Davis

Bernard Scott

Thomas Brown

Jalen Parmele

Xavier Omon

Mike Hart

Thomas Clayton

Justise Hairston

Wali Lundy

Cedric Houston

DeAndra Cobb

Brock Forsey

You're looking at one big hit and many, many failures. Are those the odds you want to bet on?

NFL draft position is absolutely the best starting point for rookie rankings. There might be some other things you can do to tilt the odds in your favor a little bit, but deviating too far from the NFL's evaluation of these players is likely to end in ruin.

The beauty of it is that you can comfortably pass on the 5th round-UDFA rookies in your dynasty drafts and still stand a good chance of eventually scooping those players from waivers. Last year, Alfred Morris and Daryl Richardson went undrafted in all of my April-May rookie drafts. However, if you had been paying attention in training camp/preseason and had kept an ear to the ground, you likely could've scooped them in some of your leagues at no cost other than a roster spot. Same deal this year with Marlon Brown and Kenbrell Thompkins.

Use your rookie picks on players who were high picks in the NFL draft and then use waivers to take flyers on low-probability longshots who are flashing in camp.

 

[Biabreakable]

EBF I know what you are saying and of course one must consider the odds. But your example is not including players such as Ahmad Bradshaw and many others who have also come from late draft position.

The argument also only considers the 1st round NFL pick success stories, and forgets about all the failures and busts.

That is not an honest argument.

You can lay odds by draft position. That is a important factor for consideration. But what about opportunity? That is another factor as well which should have some bearing on your ranking in my honest opinion.

If you are having anyone pay you for your opinion on dynasty rankings (I think some of you here are) I think you should be able to do better than just re-listing rookie players based on the NFL draft.

It actually really irks me that you guys are basically saying, no it is too hard to figure out, so I wont try, the NFL draft knows best.

You are outsmarting yourselves by conceding this just as much as people are outsmarting themselves trying to find those diamonds in the rough before training camp.

 

[EBF]

EBF I know what you are saying and of course one must consider the odds. But your example is not including players such as Ahmad Bradshaw and many others who have also come from late draft position.

The argument also only considers the 1st round NFL pick success stories, and forgets about all the failures and busts.

That is not an honest argument.

It is completely honest and transparent. The higher a player is selected in the NFL draft, the more likely he is to become a relevant FF contributor.

Go to drafthistory.com and see for yourself.

Yes, there are lots of 1st round busts. There are also lots of 1st round successes.

Yes, there have been lots of late round gems. There are exponentially more late round flops.

The math is pretty simple.

First Round = ~40-50% success rate

Second Round = ~30-35% success rate

Third Round = ~30% success rate

Fourth Round = ~10% success rate

5th-7th round = ~5% success rate

UDFA = negligible success rate

There is nothing dishonest about this argument. It's actually very straightforward and one of the few reliable predictors that rookie drafters can latch onto.

You can lay odds by draft position. That is a important factor for consideration. But what about opportunity? That is another factor as well which should have some bearing on your ranking in my honest opinion.

I'm a believer that good talent creates opportunities and bad talent wastes opportunities. Ultimately, most players eventually get the career they deserve. Flukes who luck their way into a starting spot will wash out quickly (Steve Slaton, Julius Jones, Anthony Thomas, Tatum Bell). Great talents who are drafted into backup roles will eventually become starters (Darren Sproles, Ray Rice, Larry Johnson). Opportunity and talent are largely the same thing because talent creates opportunities. Look at Bernard Pierce vs. Isaiah Pead/Ronnie Hillman. Drafted into an undeniably worse spot, yet already has a more prominent role. How is that "great situation" working out for Pead and Hillman now?

If anything, I think opportunity is one of the things that's perennially overrated by dynasty drafters. The obsession with short term returns is how you get weird situations like Knile Davis going two rounds below Johnathan Franklin/Zac Stacy and Bernard Pierce going a full round below Ronnie Hillman/Isaiah Pead.

Where I think opportunity mostly comes into play is with fringe players. Players like Eric Decker and James Jones who probably aren't talented enough to have FF value on every team in the NFL, but who can be useful in a favorable situation. In the end, the player still has to be good enough to deliver. So the main consideration is talent. Situation is just a tiebreaker with two players that you rate evenly.

 

[Biabreakable]

I have looked at NFL draft history many times. Not going to waste several hours of my day going over it all again.

The NFL draft is one data point. Calculating success rate based off of the NFL is useful but it should not be the end result of your analysis.

Opportunity is knowing the team the player is drafted to and who the players competition is. If Roy Helu stays healthy last season maybe we would not have seen Morris play much at all. But he didn't and so you got a player who really helped you score a lot of points that the method you guys are arguing for would say is not worth consideration.

I think that is pretty lazy and worthless 'analysis' to say that all someone needs to do is look at NFL draft position as the be all end all of rookie player evaluation.

 

[EBF]

I think that is pretty lazy and worthless 'analysis' to say that all someone needs to do is look at NFL draft position as the be all end all of rookie player evaluation.

Which is not something I've ever said.

Draft position is the best starting point. From there you can consider other factors to help refine your list.

 

[Coeur de Lion]

I agree with EBF 100% on draft position being the main useful indicator in terms of a player's talent level, but feel that situation is far too strongly correlated with fantasy production to be relegated to mere "tiebreaker" status. I'm primarily a "short window" guy (3 years or so) so YMMV, but it really doesn't matter to me if players like Arian Foster or Jordy Nelson are less talented than Trent Richardson or Justin Blackmon -- they're still good enough that they're not going anywhere, and their (possibly largely situation based) production will probably dwarf the guys perceived as more talented but stuck in wasteland type situations.

 

[Coeur de Lion]

I have looked at NFL draft history many times. Not going to waste several hours of my day going over it all again.

The NFL draft is one data point. Calculating success rate based off of the NFL is useful but it should not be the end result of your analysis.

Opportunity is knowing the team the player is drafted to and who the players competition is. If Roy Helu stays healthy last season maybe we

would not have seen Morris play much at all. But he didn't and so you got a player who really helped you score a lot of points that the method you guys are arguing for would say is not worth consideration.

I think that is pretty lazy and worthless 'analysis' to say that all someone needs to do is look at NFL draft position as the be all end all of rookie player evaluation.

Pretty sure I've never seen anyone say the bolded. IMO, draft position is the strongest indicator of NFL talent, which is only one part of the equation for FF production (and oft-overrated IMO). Opportunity, surrounding talent, offensive scheme, etc are damn important also.

 

[Biabreakable]

I may be exaggerating because honestly this really makes me angry.

I do hear folks who are self proclaimed experts on the subject essentially saying to make your rankings based off of the NFL draft 1st and foremost.

Anyone can look at a NFL draft list and easily identify what the NFL teams at the time of the draft thought about the relative success rate of the players they drafted. Teams draft players with many other considerations in mind than I think people consider however. For example special teams potential may not help in FF (unless hopefully your league scores for returns) but it sure helps teams win games and teams will draft players because of this.

You have to look at each team and ask, why did the team draft this player at this position? How does that fit in with the rest of their roster right now. What role are they hoping this player grows into? How well suited is that player for that role? What other players are competing with that player for that role? What would happen if the starter ahead of that player gets injured? What are the salary cap considerations here ( as alluded to by wcrob above)? What about legal troubles possibly leading to suspension?

This list could go on and on.

I also do not think talent creates opportunity. If that were true then Da'Rick Rodgers would be starting right now. There is a lot of politics and marketing behind who gets opportunity or not. This is an argument for draft position leading to opportunity, you see that all the time, the front office does not want to admit they were wrong for drafting a player highly so they give that player more opportunity than their talent/performance deserves. Ultimately coaches want to win which should lead to them playing the players who give them the best opportunity to do so or be fired.

 

[Donsmith753]

You could also end up with Jon Baldwin and AJ Jenkins...

There are busts at every level of the draft. I'd still rather have a generic late 1st round WR than even a 2nd-3rd round RB.

Baldwin, Jenkins, Meachem, Gonzalez....

Roddy, Wayne, Dez, Demaryius...

I'll take that coin flip.

Oh I agree, I'm just bitter that I did end up with those two

 

[EBF]

I also do not think talent creates opportunity. If that were true then Da'Rick Rodgers would be starting right now. There is a lot of politics and marketing behind who gets opportunity or not. This is an argument for draft position leading to opportunity, you see that all the time, the front office does not want to admit they were wrong for drafting a player highly so they give that player more opportunity than their talent/performance deserves. Ultimately coaches want to win which should lead to them playing the players who give them the best opportunity to do so or be fired.

I can't think of many (any?) uber talented guys floating around the NFL who have never been given a chance to start. That's just not how the league works. There are 32 teams doing everything they can to win games. If there are players out there who can help them do that, they will find those players. So you might see a guy like Wes Welker or Darren Sproles be underutilized by one team, but sooner or later he will get a chance to show what he can do.

There are politics involved in playing time, but only to an extent. A high draft pick might have a longer leash than a low pick or UDFA, but there's still a leash. Fail enough times and you will get the axe. That's the reality of the league and that's why drafting mediocre players based on their short term opportunity is mostly a losing proposition in dynasty FF. Mediocrities are sniffed out and replaced really quickly in the NFL.

Da'Rick Rogers did get a chance to show what he can do. He didn't make Buffalo's roster, which could mean a few things. Either he's not that talented and/or he lacks the professionalism necessary to function as an NFL player. It's clear that a headcase like Chris Henry, Charles Rogers, or Antonio Bryant can negatively impact his career through bad behavior and low professionalism. Doesn't really change the fact that the most viable players are going to rise to the top in the long run.

 

[Biabreakable]

I think that is pretty lazy and worthless 'analysis' to say that all someone needs to do is look at NFL draft position as the be all end all of rookie player evaluation.

Which is not something I've ever said.

Draft position is the best starting point. From there you can consider other factors to help refine your list.

Well you did say that you would dismiss all players drafted after round 4.

The beauty of it is that you can comfortably pass on the 5th round-UDFA rookies in your dynasty drafts

X

This is what makes me angry that you would jump to this conclusion despite the MANY examples of player drafted after the 4th round who have gone on to very successful careers. Nothing wrong with your data, but there is something very wrong with how you are suggesting people apply it.

You and Adam and everyone who is a proponent of this are talking yourselves out of a job then. If you are going to comfortably ignore all players drafted after the 4th round then what does anyone need to listen to your opinion for? They can just look at the NFL draft history for themselves if that is the conclusion you will draw from it. They do not need you to tell them this. Common knowledge.

Personally I think anyone making rankings should be able to do a better job than that.

 

[EBF]

This is what makes me angry that you would jump to this conclusion despite the MANY examples of player drafted after the 4th round who have gone on to very successful careers. Nothing wrong with your data, but there is something very wrong with how you are suggesting people apply it.

You and Adam and everyone who is a proponent of this are talking yourselves out of a job then. If you are going to comfortably ignore all players drafted after the 4th round then what does anyone need to listen to your opinion for? They can just look at the NFL draft history for themselves if that is the conclusion you will draw from it. They do not need you to tell them this. Common knowledge.

Personally I think anyone making rankings should be able to do a better job than that.

It's about opportunity cost.

In a rookie draft that goes 12 rounds deep, you would end up drafting many 6th-7th round picks and UDFAs because there would be no better alternatives. However, most leagues aren't that deep. Most of my rookie drafts are 3-4 rounds long. With that being the case, you probably won't have to dip into the bargain bin because there will still be quality talent out there. Just this past year Vance McDonald (2nd rounder), Gavin Escobar (2nd rounder), and Mike Glennon (3rd rounder) were routinely available in the 4th round of my rookie drafts. A player like this is a much better statistical gamble than your favorite deep sleeper.

That doesn't mean that 5th-7th rounders have no value. It's just that they have LESS value than your other options. So you can basically ignore those guys in all but the deepest drafts. A generic 5th-7th round NFL draft pick has roughly a 5% chance of being successful. That rate is far lower than the 1st-4th round guys. It's so low that it's difficult to justify a roster spot on one of those prospects in most cases.

The nice thing is that, in many cases, you don't need to use a pick on your favorite 5th-7th rounder or UDFA. You can let them go undrafted and then grab them off waivers. Last year when I was looking through the draft results I was intrigued by Daryl Richardson and his workout numbers. I never believed that Pead would become a viable starter, so I thought there might be a little more opportunity for Richardson than people anticipated. Richardson was on my mind when I was on the clock in the 4th round of my May rookie drafts. Did I draft him? No. I didn't have to. Nobody else was going to draft him, so there was no sense using a precious pick on him when I could just grab him off waivers later. And that's what I did. As soon as he got healthy in the preseason I grabbed him for free in every league.

In general, I think that's the best way to proceed with longshots and late round rookies. Don't waste a pick on them when you could be taking premium prospects who were picked in the top 100-120 of the NFL draft. Let them linger on waivers and then pounce preemptively or when they show signs of life. This approach probably would've netted you Marlon Brown, Arian Foster, Alfred Morris, Daryl Richardson, Marques Colston, Cecil Shorts, and Jordan Cameron in a lot of leagues, as they probably went undrafted in a large percentage of rookie drafts.

It's important to pay attention to these guys and act quickly if they show positive signs. That doesn't mean you spend a 2nd round rookie pick on them. You're just spewing EV every time you make a pick like that.

 

[Ernol]

For one, we are drafting for potential fantasy contribution, where NFL GMs are drafting for contribution to an NFL team. A player more likely to make an NFL contribution can be less likely to make a fantasy one.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I can think of quite a few times when the FF community has outsmarted itself about a given player. Off the top of my head, Maurice Drew, Bernard Pierce, and TY Hilton come to mind as three recent examples of players whose rookie draft value was out of wack because the FF community had decided that they were not as valuable as their NFL draft slot indicated. The logic was that Maurice Drew was too small to be more than a committee back (he was likely a 2nd round rookie pick in almost all 12 team leagues in 2006). Bernard Pierce was stuck in a hopeless situation. Hilton was merely a slot WR and thus didn't have any upside.

I can think of times where the FF community correctly discounted a player with a high draft position. Given how high they were selected, there was very little optimism for Buster Davis and AJ Jenkins. We like to think we can always spot these guys and value them accordingly, but in reality the community has a mixed ability to make those calls and that's why there are players like Hilton, Pierce, Graham, Gronk, Wilson, and Kaepernick slipping through the cracks every year.

Im not saying that the FF community as a whole perform better than the NFL GMs (again for fantasy football rookie ranking). They may not at all (or more likely come out even since the masses tend to draft straight off of the NFL draft anyway), but that the information and opportunity is there for fantasy GMs to beat the NFL GMs (again, mainly because the NFL GMs are not playing fantasy football).

I'll give you Hilton (although he was a late 3rd himself, which is crapshoot time anyway), but I would challenge your recollection of Pierce and MJD being underdrafted due to an overreaction by the fantasy community.

For Pierce, I'm using the Hyper/Active League (#4) as an example (one of your drafts). Pierce (taken in the late 3rd in the NFL) went in the late 2nd, almost precisely where his draft slot indicated he would be taken. The order of players taken before Pierce were as follows:

Richardson (1,4)

Martin (1,31)

Wilson (1,32)

Hillman (3,4)

Pead (2,18)

Miller (4,2)

James (2,29)

Pierce (3,21)

The only player drafted ahead of Pierce that had a lower pedigree was Lamar Miller, and in my opinion, Miller was the right call then and in hindsight the right call now. The fantasy GMs didn't stray from the NFL draft order much at all and when they did (Lamar Miller), they actually got it right. Im certain there are other drafts where another back may have been drafted ahead of Pierce with a lower pedigree (Turbin?), but I doubt the order was that out of whack.

MJD is going back a ways, but in my lone dynasty league in 2006, MJD was taken at 1.12 as the 6th RB taken. Interestingly, he had the 6th best RB pedigree in 2006. MJD wasn't taken until the end of the 2nd round. Ahead of him were Reggie Bush, Lawrence Maroney, Deangelo Williams, Joseph Addai and Lendale White. Situation did little to move MJD's draft stock one way or another. Fantasy GMs stuck to following the NFL Draft.

 

[EBF]

I can think of several flagrant examples in recent years, most obviously this year with Knile Davis going entire rounds lower than guys like Johnathan Franklin, Zac Stacy, and Marcus Lattimore who were picked far lower in the NFL draft. The FF community sometimes makes judgments where it views a player as better or worse than his NFL draft slot. For example, Johnathan Dwyer was a "good" 6th round RB who went way higher in rookie drafts than his NFL draft slot would have dictated. Stevan Ridley was a "bad" 3rd round pick who was routinely drafted far later in rookie drafts than his NFL draft slot would have dictated. I'll maintain that Pierce was much the same. Maybe in some leagues he was the next RB taken after Pead and Hillman, but his ADP was far lower. Probably by 10-15 spots. Maybe more. I got him at 3.01 in one league, and that wasn't very unusual. You weren't going to get a sniff of Pead or Hillman that late. Pierce was viewed as substantially less valuable almost across the board.

Da'Rick Rogers is another poster boy of when the FF community gets it wrong. The fact that he was a UDFA means he should not have been a consideration in the first 30 picks of a rookie draft. But since the FF community convinced itself that they knew more than the NFL teams and that he was a "good" UDFA, he was criminally overdrafted. I'm just not sold that the FF community as a whole is very good at picking the "right" players within given NFL draft tiers. So often the success stories are players who turn out to be pretty obvious in hindsight, but who nobody hyped up at all when they were entering the league. Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, Stevan Ridley, and TY Hilton were not low draft picks. Yet they were mostly disregarded in rookie drafts because the community had jumped to faulty conclusions about their value.

If someone like Knile Davis or Vance McDonald becomes a solid asset in the future, people will look back and wonder why they let him slide so far in their rookie drafts when the NFL put a pretty high value on him.

I think it's better to use subjective analysis within tiers than across tiers. For example, I don't think it would have been a major mistake to conclude that Marcus Lattimore was a better gamble than the other RBs selected in the 4th round of the draft. However, I don't think it would have been very wise to take Marcus Lattimore ahead of Christine Michael. That's jumping the tracks and saying you know more about value than NFL teams. You might get it right once or twice, but I think it's a losing strategy if you continually bet against the house. Again, I'm just not sold that people are as good as they think they are at outsmarting the system.

 

[Biabreakable]

This is what makes me angry that you would jump to this conclusion despite the MANY examples of player drafted after the 4th round who have gone on to very successful careers. Nothing wrong with your data, but there is something very wrong with how you are suggesting people apply it.

You and Adam and everyone who is a proponent of this are talking yourselves out of a job then. If you are going to comfortably ignore all players drafted after the 4th round then what does anyone need to listen to your opinion for? They can just look at the NFL draft history for themselves if that is the conclusion you will draw from it. They do not need you to tell them this. Common knowledge.

Personally I think anyone making rankings should be able to do a better job than that.

It's about opportunity cost.

In a rookie draft that goes 12 rounds deep, you would end up drafting many 6th-7th round picks and UDFAs because there would be no better alternatives. However, most leagues aren't that deep. Most of my rookie drafts are 3-4 rounds long. With that being the case, you probably won't have to dip into the bargain bin because there will still be quality talent out there. Just this past year Vance McDonald (2nd rounder), Gavin Escobar (2nd rounder), and Mike Glennon (3rd rounder) were routinely available in the 4th round of my rookie drafts. A player like this is a much better statistical gamble than your favorite deep sleeper.

That doesn't mean that 5th-7th rounders have no value. It's just that they have LESS value than your other options. So you can basically ignore those guys in all but the deepest drafts. A generic 5th-7th round NFL draft pick has roughly a 5% chance of being successful. That rate is far lower than the 1st-4th round guys. It's so low that it's difficult to justify a roster spot on one of those prospects in most cases.

The nice thing is that, in many cases, you don't need to use a pick on your favorite 5th-7th rounder or UDFA. You can let them go undrafted and then grab them off waivers. Last year when I was looking through the draft results I was intrigued by Daryl Richardson and his workout numbers. I never believed that Pead would become a viable starter, so I thought there might be a little more opportunity for Richardson than people anticipated. Richardson was on my mind when I was on the clock in the 4th round of my May rookie drafts. Did I draft him? No. I didn't have to. Nobody else was going to draft him, so there was no sense using a precious pick on him when I could just grab him off waivers later. And that's what I did. As soon as he got healthy in the preseason I grabbed him for free in every league.

In general, I think that's the best way to proceed with longshots and late round rookies. Don't waste a pick on them when you could be taking premium prospects who were picked in the top 100-120 of the NFL draft. Let them linger on waivers and then pounce preemptively or when they show signs of life. This approach probably would've netted you Marlon Brown, Arian Foster, Alfred Morris, Daryl Richardson, Marques Colston, Cecil Shorts, and Jordan Cameron in a lot of leagues, as they probably went undrafted in a large percentage of rookie drafts.

It's important to pay attention to these guys and act quickly if they show positive signs. That doesn't mean you spend a 2nd round rookie pick on them. You're just spewing EV every time you make a pick like that.

Depends on the league. Who you are drafting against and roster size.

If you recall about a year or so ago I was saying that it has been a mistake for me to make late rookie draft picks on somewhat under the radar players. Because what usually ends up happening is I end up cutting those players (when I need the roster spot) but because I used a pick on them, I already tipped my hand about who was pretty high on my watch list. My competitors would often pick these players up right after I cut them (this is particularly true in regards to IDPs).

But we are talking about ranking rookies here which is not the same thing as roster management.

Maybe I do not draft that player because I believe everyone will pass and the player will be safe on waivers. But again this is about knowing your league, not about how you should honestly rank the players.

If you are ranking the players then all of them should get consideration. Yes the odds may be in favor of a higher pick panning out than a later one, but the situation and opportunity for them to break out may be greater than the higher draft position odds of success rate. When you combine those factors together, the lower NFL draft pick may have a higher success rate because of these combined factors. I think that should be applied to your ranking. Not just thrown out with the bath water because the player did not meet the NFL draft cut off round.

You guys are pushing pedigree too far as the basis for your analysis.

 

[squistion]

I think that is pretty lazy and worthless 'analysis' to say that all someone needs to do is look at NFL draft position as the be all end all of rookie player evaluation.

Which is not something I've ever said.

Draft position is the best starting point. From there you can consider other factors to help refine your list.

Well you did say that you would dismiss all players drafted after round 4.

The beauty of it is that you can comfortably pass on the 5th round-UDFA rookies in your dynasty drafts

X

This is what makes me angry that you would jump to this conclusion despite the MANY examples of player drafted after the 4th round who have gone on to very successful careers. Nothing wrong with your data, but there is something very wrong with how you are suggesting people apply it.

You and Adam and everyone who is a proponent of this are talking yourselves out of a job then. If you are going to comfortably ignore all players drafted after the 4th round then what does anyone need to listen to your opinion for? They can just look at the NFL draft history for themselves if that is the conclusion you will draw from it. They do not need you to tell them this. Common knowledge.

Personally I think anyone making rankings should be able to do a better job than that.

Vintage EBF. It is all about draft pedigree, and it pretty much starts and ends there. As you mentioned, no point in looking any further as the mindset is that one will be right 95% of the time anyway (which gives you all kinds of free time to do other things besides taking a look or another look at what most people consider marginal players).

 

[Biabreakable]

Vintage EBF. It is all about draft pedigree - it pretty much starts and ends there. As you mentioned, no point in looking any further as the mindset is that one will be right 95% of the time anyway (which gives you all kind of free time to do other things besides taking a look or another look at what most people consider marginal players).

Well I think we know why they do this also. It creates a built in excuse for when these players fail. Then they can just say "well the NFL drafted him in round 2. Not my fault they were wrong." Then they also do not need to do any hard analysis and stick their neck out for players who have lower odds of making it. I think the motivation for this is more about self preservation of reputation than actual hard analysis. That is what makes me angry.

The flip side of this is people who stick their neck out on every player then claim credit for it when one of those hundred guys does pan out.

 

[EBF]

Well I think we know why they do this also. It creates a built in excuse for when these players fail. Then they can just say "well the NFL drafted him in round 2. Not my fault they were wrong." Then they also do not need to do any hard analysis and stick their neck out for players who have lower odds of making it. I think the motivation for this is more about self preservation of reputation than actual hard analysis. That is what makes me angry.

There are no ulterior motives. It's really as simple as wanting to get the best players possible and draft position being the best single predictor of future value.

Nobody is saying that the analysis begins and ends with where a player was picked. It's hugely significant though and the best single data point to anchor to.