636: Mailbag 5/6/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode six hundred and thirty six of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Oh, What's up? Thanks for tuning in? Soccer fans. This season, Fandel and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one of a kind soccer contest, a Spice Up Game Day, introducing the Captain Morgan Soccer pick them a weekly fantasy contest that's entirely free to play. The contest is simple, often who has answered ten questions about Captain Morgan and that week's soccer matchup. People with the most correct answers will earn their share of cash prizes. Head over to fandle dot com slash Free Game, Slash Captain Morgan and spice Up Game Day with a free shot at cash prizes every Saturday. No purchase necessary, twenty one years or older to enter. Location restrictions apply, voidware prohibited see terms at FanDuel dot com. Let's get to these questions. The first question this week is from twitters from at Jeremy Ruzas it says, from a value standpoint, don't you have to go Kenneth Walker over the five to seven top wide receivers at one oh two As a dynasty manager, running backs are always valued more due to lack of supply. Looking at the top three running backs last year, how Javonte jumped without stellar production and etn retained his value. Thanks. So my short answer to this is that it depends. My long answer is that I have a lot of data to back up why it depends. Lasstop season. I did a study on how rookies appreciate in value. I utilized Dynasty League Football dot COM's average Draft position data and I look to see how rookies fared in startup ADP from their rookie season to their second season. That's episode four hundred and seventy eight and can help a little bit with this question. But on that episode, the sample I was analyzing went back to twenty fourteen. That's how far back DLF's ADP goes. I found that forty eight percent of running backs in the first round of rookie drafts saw an increase in ADP from one year to the next. That number was fifty five percent at wide receiver so just in terms of startup ADP and getting better year over year, wide receivers were better selections and Round two running backs ended up being better bets than Round two wide receivers. The goal of that episode was to just look at how rookies appreciated in value versus their counterparts, and how a productive struggle startup build made a lot of sense as a result. This question isn't exactly asking that because we're comparing rookies to rookies, we're comparing Kenneth Walker to the other wide receivers in this class. So let's dig into those numbers a little bit deeper. And this is new data that I haven't talked about yet. I looked at first round rookie draft ADP and compared it to DLF startup ADP. I compared that startup ADP from year one when those guys were rookies to year two when they were no longer rookies, to see how they improved. When look at the twenty biggest row gainers in ADP player who just improve their ADP most in terms of raw number, the demographic is one quarterback, seven running backs, two tight ends, and ten wide receivers. Now that doesn't necessarily tell us a whole lot, because there could have just been more wide receivers drafted in round one of rookie drafts, meaning they just have a higher chance to have more gainers. This also wasn't talking about a player's ceiling, which I think is very important to this Kenneth Walker question. Really, that episode on how rookies appreciate in value just talked about very basic appreciation. It didn't talk about the degree of appreciation. First round wide receivers will appreciate at a slightly higher rate. They'll see their value increase more frequently than running backs, but that doesn't totally answer the question of ceiling right. In other words, let's say that you had twenty running backs and twenty wide receivers in our sample. So twenty running backs and twenty wide receivers who were first round rookie draft picks. Let's pretend that of those twenty wide receivers, all twenty increased in value year over year their ADP got better. Meanwhile, only ten running backs on increase in ADP. That doesn't necessarily mean that you want to get a wide receiver. There's just not enough information there. Because imagine a scenario where all of the wide receivers increased by just one spot in ADP, while all ten running backs increased by over fifty You may still want to go running back because you're not gaining that much value with wide receivers. It doesn't really work that way, but it's important to distinguish floor from ceiling here. You can really just look at year two ADP of these first round rookie picks. To help us answer the question of ceiling. Let's take all of the first round rookie draft players since twenty fourteen and just see how many of them were top twenty four picks in startup drafts the following season. So we're not necessarily looking at appreciation here, though, I will say all but one of the players who ended up being a top two round pick the following year in startup drafts ended up appreciating in value. The only player who didn't was Clyde Edwards, a layer, meaning he was a top two round pick as a rookie and then he got worse, but he remained as a top twenty four pick. He was still drafted in the first two rounds. Now, doing this method shows us that forty five percent of first round rookie draft running backs made it as a top two round startup pick. The following year, that number was just twenty eight percent at wide receiver, and when looking at first round pick, so top twelve guys, you've got twenty one percent at running back and fifteen percent at wide receiver. To put this all another way, running backs are appreciating towards a higher ceiling, but more wide receivers are just naturally appreciating in value. If you look at round three and round four of startup drafts, you find a higher proportion of wide receivers than running backs. So, like I said at the start of this question, it depends. I think Kenneth Walker deserves to be in the tier with the first round wide receivers from this draft because from a ceiling perspective, running backs have more ability than wide receivers do in dynasty, but wide receivers also have better floors. They're technically safer long term bets. So if you're rebuilding, this is why I always say go after wide receivers. So the way that I see it is sure, if you want to take Kenneth Walker, there be my guest I still would prefer Drake London at the very least. But I'm not going to fight this idea. I do think that we should still be looking at the player himself. To me, Walker isn't as good of a prospect as the top three running backs from last year's class. There's the glaring issue in his profile that I've talked about plenty on this show. So you can't lose sight of the player himself when making that choice. But you're absolutely thinking of this in the right way. That dynasty isn't just about the individual player, but also how that individual player will appreciate in value year over year. I just wish I liked Walker a little bit more than I do. He's a great player. But I'm still going with the non Johan Dotson first round wide receivers over Walker because the wide receivers are a very very good group, and I can at least feel good about them appreciating in value, even if the ceiling isn't as insane as a running back ceiling. The next question is from Patreons from at g Hound eleven eighty nine. It says, Hi, Jded loving the late Round prospect Guide. Thanks thanks for all your amazing work. Could you explain how to view draft capital delta any interesting takeaways you saw post draft from this metric. So draft capital delta is just how my model views a player versus where he was drafted, and it spits out a percentage. I'll run through a quick example. The database that I work off of uses players who either went to the combine or who were drafted, so undrafted players who didn't go to the combine they're not in this database. When a player goes undrafted, he gets a particular number associated to him in the database. That's his draft capital, and all undrafted players it's the exact same. And since so many players go undrafted, that number represents a lot of players in the database. That means that even if a player goes like pick two hundred, that's not necessarily a low pick within my model because there are so many players who went after two hundred, which consists of players who went undrafted. So what draft capital delta says is, Okay, here's the percentile that picked two hundred is in, and here's the percentile that the player's prospect score is in. Let's find the difference between those two numbers. The example that I use in the late round prospect Guy which you can get over on lateround dot com is with Darnell Mooney. Mooney went one hundred and seventy third overall in the draft, and he had fifty fourth percentile draft capital as a result. Remember a lot of players go undrafted, but the model showed that Mooney was a sixty six percentile prospect, meaning he was twelve points better in overall scorer than he was in terms of draft capital, so he had a positive draft capital delta, making him a potential value. Really, draft capital delta is looking at how the model views a player without necessarily factoring in draft capital. So because I know the inputs of the model are favorable for finding good players in fantasy football, then I also know that players with positive draft capital deltas are just generally better bets. But don't assume that a player with a positive draft capital delta is better than a player with a negative one. At the end of the day, today, a player's prospect score is the most important piece, and that includes draft capital. For example, this season, Isaiah Pacheco has a draft capital delta of about ten percent, which is great. It's another reason I'm into him as a dart throw. Meanwhile, Damian Pierce has a draft capital delta of minus nine percent because he had a pretty incomplete production profile in college. But Pierce is significantly better than Pachecko in prospect score. He should be drafted ahead of him one hundred percent. It's just that Pacheco is an interesting player given it looks like he went underdrafted. In the guide, I lay out some examples of how it's been useful in the past. It's not nearly as predictive as the prospect score is, but it's at least something that we can use to help find glaring values. This asked questions from at impulsivity on Twitter. It says a guy like Bryce Hall would have gone much earlier in the NFL draft five years ago, but teams now correctly value running backs less. Does your model factor in positional shifts in draft capital or do you stick with the exact draft position because there's enough other variants to worry about. I also got another email from Dana that says after being drafted, Breeshall did an interview where he let slip. The Jets had tried to trade back into the first round the night before to draft him but were unsuccessful. Can you elaborate on how the model may have adjusted his scoring had that happened. Assuming a first round draft capital somewhere into thirty to thirty two range versus round two at thirty six, does it really matter all that much? So, look, I get questions like these all the time because I say that my model uses draft capital. It does use draft capital. It should use draft capital. It's a very helpful resource, and I think that they're very fair questions, But I think the questions usually exaggerate the narrative a little bit. I'm not sure teams have shifted that dramatically from the historical evaluation of running backs. I'm not talking about now versus nineteen seventy. I'm talking about now versus like twenty ten. We just have a small sample size that we're working off of the current era of football. So all it takes is like two or three instances where a team does something really dumb at the position for us to think that that's how teams think. Like, let's just look at this at a high level. We didn't have any first round running backs this year, when we had two last year. We had one in twenty twenty one. In twenty nineteen, three and twenty eighteen, and two in twenty seventeen, in twenty thirteen, and in twenty fourteen, we didn't have a single first round running back pick. So if we drew the line at first round, I would say things really haven't been that much different. Maybe teams have finally realized they shouldn't spend top five or top ten picks on the running back position, but let's not pretend that that's happened frequently or so frequently enough to drastically change a model. It only happened six times since twenty eleven. And really, the hit rates of those running backs was really good for fantasy purposes, So these players probably should have been elevated. They probably should have looked better in a model because they were drafted so high. They ended up being very good in fantasy football. And I'm talking about Ezekiel, Leonard Fournette, Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey. It made sense that the model liked them for fantasy purposes. Now, I test the model every year in tweak things where it's necessary to tweak things, But I don't think it's necessary to drastically change things at running back. Honestly, not only that, But when I and others are utilizing this model, it's largely in a one or two year timeframe. I use the model for my year two scores, and it can obviously help for rookies, But once players are in the NFL and playing, and I'm talking like three years in, we're generally only concerned about how they're doing in the NFL, which means when we actually apply the model, we're doing it within a really short timeframe. While I'm technically comparing Breis Hall to Leonard Fournette in this model to get a percentile score, the same exact thing is happening with the running backs in this class and the class before it. It's all relative, and there aren't enough data points at the top. There aren't enough Leonard Fournette or Ezekiel Elliott data points to really skew the data in a way where it's going to dramatically shift things or dramatically shift the way that we view a player. And then to the point about the Jets potentially getting Bree Hall in the first round but not being able to trade up, there's just no way that I can account for that, because if I end up accounting for that with Breee Hall. I'd have to account for that with every other instance that happens, which would be impossible because we don't have that information and we can't even confirm that information with the Jets. And look, it wouldn't change the bottom line about how I view Haul as a prospect. Whether he was picked thirty sixth overall or thirtieth overall, he was still going to look like an elite prospect in the model. Would first round draft capital have helped him? Yeah, of course, not a ton, but it would do something. But we're using the model as a guide here. It's important to keep that in mind. This test question is from at Alex Underscore Butler eight. Why is Cordero Patterson so low? Still not much competition for carries? Has a running quarterback? I don't think he's great, but last year seems like a floor. Okay, So a couple things about this. Number One, remember that the running quarterback is not necessarily a good thing for a running back in fantasy football. I talked about that on episode five and ten, which was the impact mobile quarterbacks have on their teammates. Number Two, I don't think last year is Patterson's floor at all. He's thirty one years old, and last year was the first time in his career that he hit more than sixty four rushes in a season. Were teams using him the wrong way, probably, but it's hard to bank on a player that old seeing a ton of work, so we can't say that last year was his floor. With that being said, though, my early projections do seem to like Patterson more than the consensus does, mostly because the team lacks playmakers that gives him more of a touch ceiling. But don't sleep on Tyler Algier either. My model gave him a strong draft capital delta and he had a seventieth percentile score. That's not great, but he's definitely a real candidate to take over that backfield this year. He's got a three down skill set and he compares favorably to James Connor. The last question this week is from at Castle Underscore. Jeff It says, how crazy am I? For one draft Sky Moore over Chris a Lave in the mid first I like Moore's landing spot better and he's an early declare, But a Lave is so much higher in your model. Yeah, A Lave is higher in my model because he's objectively a better prospect in my eyes. It doesn't mean that More can't be better. I just think process wise, a Lave is better. A Lave is coming from a huge power five program where he played alongside stud wide receivers and he was productive. Sky Moore's best season yards per team pass attempt rate was three point four eight at Western Michigan as a junior. Chris Alaves was three point twenty four, so not that much worse as a junior while playing on a team with Garrett Wilson, Jackson Smith and Jigma and Jamison Williams, and A Lave even missed one of Ohio State's eight games that year. A Lave went eleventh overall. Sky Moore went fifty fourth overall. And like I said on the show earlier this week, the early declared stuff is not everything. It's just an input. We shouldn't use that solely to see if a player is good or not, especially because a Lave himself didn't need that final season. Of course, the landing spot for More is better. I love sky Moore. I'm not trying to downplay sky Moore here. I'm trying to boost up Chris a Lave. I've been talking sky Moore up for months, but the lack of Chris a Lave love around the industry is absolutely wild to me. He's a very good prospect. From strictly a process standpoint, I don't think it makes sense to take a player like more over a Lave, even though the situation is absolutely awesome for sky Moore. And remember this is all about probability. When I say these things, I don't mean it's impossible for sky Moore to outscore Chrysal Lave or to have a better career. This is absolutely just a process thing that's gonna do it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you had to subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. It over to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening. Everyone really appreciate your support this week, especially enjoy your weekend.