614: Sell Candidates

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zachersa JJ Zacher reson. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachar Eesen and this is episode six hundred and fourteen of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Last week I talked through some players I'd be looking to trade for in Dynasty. This week we're looking at sell candidates, players who I would not be trading for, Players who if they were on my roster, I'd be looking to send them away. Now, just like last week, I don't want to force anything on this show. If I feel sort of a certain way about a player, I'm not bringing him up on this show. And there are plenty of those situations across the league where I lean one way versus the other. The players today are players who I just see as straight up cells based on the market. Of course, that market is going to be slightly different from league to league, but it's the general idea here that counts. Now, before we get into those names, basketball fans, FANDLE and TNT are giving you the opportunity to get in on some NBA action with the NBA on TNT over under contest for any TNTNBA broadcast. All you have to do is opt in and choose over under for each prop, lock in your picks before the end of the first quarter, and compete for a chance at five thousand dollars in prizes. Head over to fandle dot com today and participate in the free to Play NBA TNT over under contest. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandle app for more details. Last week I didn't have a quarterback to talk about, but this week I do. And I hate saying this because I want him to succeed. I want him to dominate. But what I want doesn't matter. It's Jalen Hurts. If you were to tell me that Jalen Hursts would be locked in as the Eagles starter for the next five years, I'd be totally fine with the fact that as January startup, average draft position according to Dynasty League Football dot Com was QB seven because when Hurts plays, he's effective in fantasy football for the most part, and maybe that ADP shifts a little bit now that we saw the Eagles get bounced early in the playoffs, and to be fair, that ranking is lower on a site like keeptrade cut dot com, but since it's an average, it shows us there are people out there who really, really like and want Jalen Hurts. And I can tell you that in my rankings, which you can now get over on the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon page. My rankings have Hurts at QB thirteen In Dynasty. Player evaluation is all about the combination of production and longevity. The production part Jalen Hurts has down his rushing ability allows him to be a consistent QB one in fantasy football, and I don't think that should really be debated at this point. The longevity portion is what's most important with Jalen Hurts. Longevity breaks down into things like ajpex's an asset appreciation and honestly, we're just asking the question, how long is this player going to have his job. Quarterback is like running back, and then there's only one of them on the field at once, usually at least with wide receivers. Even if a wide out starts to tail off, he still has a shot to be on the field to give you something in fantasy football. If there's any talent left in the tank with quarterbacks, if you're benched. You're not scoring a thing that creates more long term variants, just like it does at running back, and where there's smoke, there's fire. The Eagles have consistently been tied to different quarterbacks over the last year and a half, and while I'd sometimes shut out those rumors, the fact of the matter is Jalen Hurts hasn't been the most effective passer in the world. Like I said, his fantasy production and upside has a lot to do with his legs. During his rookie season, Jalen Hurts was thirty fifth out of thirty nine quarterbacks in clean pocket passer rating according to Pro Football Focus. This past year, he was twenty ninth of forty. He was also below average and completion percentage over expected in both seasons. It's good that he improved, but there's still questions about him being a true franchise quarterback, not necessarily by me, but at least by the league. In that January EIGHTYP data, Hurts is being drafted ahead of Dak Prescott. There's zero chance that I would ever make that move with the information that we have right now, and he was also being selected above Trey Lance justin fields Trevor Lawrence, Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson. I have all of those guys ranked higher than Jalen Hurts, so I'm leaning cell with Hurts. I don't think he did enough to answer all the questions that people had going into twenty twenty one, and that's created almost just as much volatility as we had last off season with him. The first running back on today's list may be a little bit surprising to some. It's Elijah Mitchell. It wouldn't be right for me to say that my prospect model was high on Mitchell after last year's draft, but no prospect model should have been high on him. He was a sixth round pick. But I will say my model liked Mitchell more than the drafted I introduced this concept in the Late Round Prospect Guy that's launching in about a month, which you can pre order over at Late round dot com. But there's this idea that I introduce called draft capital delta. It looks at the percentile score that a prospect had in my model, and then it looks at the percentile the player was drafted in from a draft capital perspective, and it can then tell me if the model liked a player more or less than the NFL drafted. In Elijah Mitchell's case, it said that he was undervalued, So that was a win. That's part of the reason that I was into Elijah Mitchell and rookie drafts. I know that because I have him in a lot of leagues. I talked about him on this show after the draft. I talked about him before Week one, when Trey Sermon was inactive. I talked about how he was this Raheem Moster clone who should work in the Shanahan offense. Now, I certainly didn't expect this, don't get me wrong, and there are people out there who were higher on Elijah Mitchell than I was. This isn't some sort of victory lap. Setting the stage here by saying that this recommendation is the opposite of having some take in the preseason and just sticking to it. I'm gonna let historical data do the talking with Elijah Mitchell here. As you guys know, another feature of the Late Round Prospect Guide is the year two model that I developed this offseason. That model looks at how a player performed in year one, and it combines that performance with this prospect score to get a year two model score. Elijah Mitchell went from being a fifty fifth percentile prospect to an eighty seventh percentile one from year one to year two. He saw that big of a jump. Now, those numbers don't really mean a whole lot to you because you don't have any context. So let me give you some context. Since twenty eleven and through twenty nineteen, we've had a little over one hundred and fifty running backs who were either drafted or at the NFL Combine who also ranked below the sixtieth percentile in the running Back Model. And again, Mitchell was in the fifty fifth percentile, so we're talking even a little bit higher than him. Some of these running backs I'm looking through twenty nineteen and not through twenty twenty one is because players who were drafted in twenty nineteen, they've now played three seasons in the league, and I want to focus on those three seasons. Of all of those running backs in the sample, two of them gave you at least one season with at least sixteen PPR points per game across their first three years in the league. Those two backs being CJ. Anderson and Miles Gaskin. Chris Carson is the other one who gave you fifteen or more PPR points per game. For reference, that type of performance is a low end RB one performance. DeAndre Swift was the RB ten this past year with sixteen point one PPR points per game. Now, Elijah Mitchell gave you fifteen PPR points per game this year, but he's not in that sample because he hasn't played three seasons in the league. But it just goes to show you how rare what he did was, and given the other players in that group, it's not exactly encouraging about his future. Here's the thing, though, This is why year two model exists, because if Elijah Mitchell's rookie year performance was so good, then it'll be reflected in that model. And an eighty seven percentile year two model score is not bad, but it's not ideal for upside. Let's go back to that twenty eleven to twenty nineteen range. Among all running backs in the database who had a year two model score below the ninetieth percentile, only two point eight percent of them were able to give you a season in either year two or year three with sixteen or more PPR points. That's it. But you might be saying, well, JJ, not a lot of running backs have done what Elijah Mitchell has done, and you're not wrong. But that's another thing I want to talk about. In my prospect guide, I'm introducing another concept called journey comparables. Journey comparables are created by looking at a player's prospect score, looking at his year two score, and finding players who went through a similar path from right after the draft to right before their second season. In Mitchell's case, he did have some comps, even though what he did was so rare. The top one was Zach Stacey, who was a little bit better as a prospect in my model, but saw a jump to the eighty seventh percentile after year one. He did nothing of significance through the rest of his NFL career. The second one was Andre Ellington, who had a really bad score entering the league in my model, but had a really nice rookie season as a receiver and receiving numbers matter in this year two model. Like most of my models, as we know, Ellington never became some yearly RB one. And then the final guy, James Robinson, a player of my model really thought should have been drafted, but he wasn't. He jumped all the way up to the ninety third percentile, so even better than Mitchell after year one. As we know, Robinson's team took a running back in the first round of last year's draft, right after his rookie year. The point to all this is that Number One, if Elijah Mitchell becomes a high end RB two or a low end RB one over the next two years, he's going to be an outlier. He's already been somewhat of an outlier, but you're really betting on something that just does not happen very often. Part of that is because of the fragility that comes with situations like this. The forty nine Ers could very easily utilize other backs in that backfield given their investment with Mitchell. And Mitchell despite looking amazing on the ground this year and having great explosiveness with the ball in his hand. I won't even deny that I love Elijah Mitchell, but he wasn't that much of a pass catcher for the forty nine ers. Now, if you'd rather ride it out because you also didn't invest a whole lot in Elijah Mitchell, I totally get it. I'm gonna hold Mitchell in some leagues where I've got him as well, because they're a really easy player to root for. But with that being said, you're likely going to win this bet eight times out of ten. Technically way more than that, but I'm giving everything the benefit of the doubt. Since Mitchell did have a really, really good rookie year, if you can sell him at a premium, I think it's logical based on history and by the way that journey comparable stuff that I walk through. I do that with every relevant year or two player in the Late Round Prospect Guide. Did I mention that you could pre order it at Late round dot com? Now that running back choice of Elijah Mitchell might have been a little bit surprising, just given how I talked about him this past season. This one not so much. It's Damien Harris. When it comes to trading away running backs, I try to be a year ahead, meaning if I get owned by a player by them having a good season right after I trade them, so be it. At the running back position, though we know that injuries can happen in that one season anyway, or maybe he just bus But Damien Harris has just one year left on his rookie contract, and I think we can feel pretty confident saying that he just had the best season he's likely ever gonna have as a pro. Just playing probability here. But I talked about all of this on The Things That I Missed episode In twenty twenty one, Harris continued the tradition of New England Patriot running backs who saw a decent rush share and not a decent target share. He saw fewer than four percent of the team's targets this past year. As we know, he got by on touchdowns. Among the top eighty running backs in fantasy football, he ranked first, and percentage of points that came from touchdowns. Maybe you're sitting there listening to this thinking that I just have something against Damien Harris, because, like I said on The Things that I Got Wrong episode, I sort of got Damien Harris wrong this year. I'm not hiding from that. But I also mentioned on that episode that I will gladly take an l on a player like Harris all day long. He did something that likely was not sustainable. That's especially true when you consider Ramandre Stevenson is right there behind him on the depth chart, and Stevenson could dig even more into Harris's workload here in twenty twenty two. That's my beef with Harris. I just don't see a ceiling unless something drastically changes on the receiving end. I mean, the dude scored fifteen rushing touchdowns this past year, which was tip for the second most in the league, and he still finishes the RB twenty in points per game. Think about that, and now he's being ranked as the RB twenty four in Dynasty over on Keep Trade Cut Dot. He's the RB twenty five in startup drafts according to DLF. I have met RB thirty two. I actually think there's more upside with Ramandre Stevenson in that backfield than with Damian Harris. It seems like now is the right time to sell. And if Harris has another one of those big touchdown seasons, which sure that's totally possible, then you're missing out on a low end to mid range RB two campaign. After this year, there's a chance that he's not even a Patriot. I don't really have any beef with David Montgomery the player. He's a solid running back, and I even think that we should probably project him to be a workhorse or have that workhorse role in twenty twenty two with this new coaching staff. That at least is the general expectation. But again, I like to try to be a year ahead of things with running backs, and as I talked about on last week's show Backup, Khalil Herbert had a really good rookie season, and whether that matters or not remains to be seen. I'm just always nervous about running backs and dynasty who aren't in a totally elite tier. They aren't necessarily looked at as elite like in real football or even fantasy football, but I worry about what their second contracts might look like. And at this moment, David Montgomery will be a free agent after this coming season, which means there's currently some volatility to his outlook after twenty twenty two. So, just to reiterate what I've been saying, I want to be a year early and right now. If you look at Dynasty League Football's January ADP data, Montgomery is being drafted ahead of some really good wide receivers like Elijah Moore, Michael Pittman, and Calvin Ridley, and he's getting taken over Travis Etn at running back, and he's going significantly ahead of Josh Jacobs. Jacobs is eight months younger than David Montgomery. They came from the same draft class, but there's at least some chance that the Raiders use the fifth year option on Jacobs. So I need to be clear here that I don't really see this as a knock on David Montgomery the player. This is purely a cost thing. I don't spend for these types of running backs in dynasty because they don't have good long term odds. A running backs career can be derailed pretty fast, especially when dealing with contract extensions and new deals, and I don't know if Montgomery is gonna get a deal or not. Honestly, I'd probably lean more on the side that he is gonna get a new deal. I'm just saying that you can get a good return for him right now, and there are plenty of question marks surrounding his situation if he does get another deal, like Khalil Herbert, a new coaching staff, a mobile quarterback when that typically hurts running backs more than that helps him in fantasy football. So I think flipping David Montgomery right now makes sense. I'm gonna stick with Chicago here and go to someone who a lot of people really like and understandably so, and it's Darnell Mooney. I've revamped my prospect model through the years. I try to look at it every single season and make it better. And as I talked about earlier, I work with a metric called draft capital delta that shows the difference between a prospects score and his draft capital score. In that model, one of the most underrated prospects at wide receiver over the last decade is actually Darnell Mooney. The model says that he was way underdrafted, which is kind of cool to see. His draft capital delta was eleven point five percent, meaning the model had him eleven point five percent higher in percentile score than draft capital had him. But we have to be cognizant of a few things here. Later round picks usually do not pan out at a very high rate. I think we're past the point of just referring to Mooney as a late round pick. Sure, but let's not pretend he was some stud last year. He definitely had his moments, but those moments also came with some down performances, which led to a PPR points per game rate under thirteen that leads me to my next point. Even when factoring in his rookie season performance, Mooney had a Year two model score in the eighty second percentile. Over the last ten seasons, we've rarely seen a player in that tier or lower than that tier give us a wide receiver one season in PPR points per game. We don't even see wide receiver two seasons happen that often from players ranked in that tier. Seventy five to eighty five percentile tier over the last decade have given us a fourteen plus PPR point per game season in years two or three at a fourteen percent rate. Mooney hasn't even hit that yet. But fourteen PPR points per game at wide receiver is like a low end wide receiver two, high end wide receiver three. There's a fourteen percent hit rate among the tier that Darnell Mooney is in to be that now. I don't think anyone has this expectation that Mooney is going to be a wide receiver one. That's fine, but I'd argue there are higher upside players being drafted in ranked below them at wide receiver. Kadarius Tony, who had a better Year two score, that's one of them. Juju Smith Schuster, who I talked about last week. The Bears also have the aforementioned mobile quarterback in justin Fields at least in the short term, And as I talked about last year on episode five hundred and ten, mobile quarterbacks impact their pass catchers negatively, and the Bears are probably going to beef up their wide receiving group. It's at least a huge need with Alan Robinson now a free agent. My point with Mooney is that I think there's just a little bit too much projecting going on when you can get proven, solidified pass catchers in this range. So even though I like the player and my model like this player, I think the market is a little bit high on Mooney right now. Now. Lastly, I find the wide receiver market to actually be pretty efficient at the top. There are players here and there that I think you can make a cell argument for, like someone like Keenan Allen or even Terry McLaurin. But I don't want to single players out on this show for the sake of doing it. Like I said earlier, where I think you can try to extract value this year is with truthers. It's with players who don't have very good odds to break through, but there's always a manager to in your league who really likes those players. Like with Josh Palmer. My prospect model did not like Josh Palmer. He really didn't have a lot going for him coming out last year. He wasn't in early declare, his statistical profile was really trashy, but he found the right spot and he had decent draft capital. Now, because the fantasy football community saw all of this, because the fantasy community is very numbers driven, Palmer's ADP was actually more than reasonable in rookie drafts last year. Like at the very least, Palmer was a Day two pick in the actual NFL draft. So in turn, I actually have some Josh Palmer on my dynasty rosters despite not liking him at all last year. And I'm at least seeing if there are Palmer truthers in my leagues where I have him, because his outlook does not look very good despite coming on strong towards the end of the year with almost a fifteen percent target chair per game across his final five Now, I want to read you something that I wrote for my prospect guide when talking about Palmer, because again in the late Round Prospect Guide, I'm doing stuff for my year two model. The part with Palmer says, quote, from twenty eleven through twenty nineteen, there hasn't been a single wide receiver from the prospect model that entered the league with a sub seventy fifth percentile score. To give us one season of sixteen mo PPR points per game across his first three years in the league. That's a mouthful, but it's important. It shows us that even if you trade Palmer away, chances are you're not trading away a stud. That's the thing with Palmer. If you find someone who loves him and you get a decent return, the odds that you're trading away something significant they're not very high. Not only that, but Palmer, who entered the league with a sixty eighth percentile prospect scorer, his Year two model score is still just in the seventy fourth percentile. To give you some context, only ten percent of players in the seventy to seventy five range from twenty eleven to twenty nineteen, which again this is where Palmer is. Only ten percent of them gave you one double digit PPR points per game season, and either year two or year three, it's a small transaction to make, and yes, Mike Williams is a free agent, but use that to your advantage when negotiating a trade. Chances are Palmer is not going to be anything significant in fantasy football, even though he's attached to one of the best young quarterbacks in the game. We have to lead with talent, and my process is showing me that Josh Palmer isn't quite there now. Just like last week, this is not everything. These aren't the only players that I'd be willing to trade away right now. I just thought they were a good mix, and there were guys who seemed to have large discrepancies between my rankings and what the public seems to think. That's gonna do it though. For today's show, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. I know I sound like a broken record, but as always, remember to pre order this year's Prospect Guide over on Lateround dot com for just twelve dollars once it goes out on March fourteenth. That price jumps to fifteen dollars. I'm honestly just really excited for people to get into it because it's one of the most comprehensive things that I've ever done in this space. So thanks everyone, really appreciate you listening. I'll talk to you later in the week with the Mailbag Show.