335: Mailbag 12/20/19

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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 Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at FanDuel and at Number five dot com in this episode three hundred and thirty five of the Late Round podcast. On many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. So this is the final show of the twenty nineteen Fantasy season. It's bittersweet. On one hand, I really love doing these podcasts and analyzing fantasy football with all of you. It's hard to complain about the work. On the other hand, it's still a lot of work. It'll be nice to relax and not have to tild about fantasy football for a little bit. But because this is the last show, I wanted to thank all of you for listening this year. Quite literally, Without you guys, I wouldn't be doing the show. You guys are the best. I'm not gonna go away or anything, though. I'm still gonna be doing two episodes a week during the offseason. But this twenty nineteen season is about to wrap up, and I wanted to show some more love because all of you are really important to me, as I always say, thanks for tuning in now before get into your mailbag questions. This week, as usual, we've got another free role for all FanDuel podcast network listeners. Head tofandle dot com slash League slash Brandon. That's the name Brandon. Enter a lineup and have a shot to win number five or premium and even a little bit of cash. It's free to enter, so head tofandle dot com slash League slash Brandon. This first question is from at big Headed Eskimo. Any potential twenty twenty stashes that you'd suggest grabbing off the wire? Can't say Darwin Thompson, So I got this question a lot this week. I'm assuming we're talking more keeper league related information here rather than dynasty since people are stashing players in dynasty leagues all the time, regardless of the time of year. But some keeper league stashes would include Justin Jackson since Melvin Gordon might not be a charger next year. I think that you should hold on to a lot of the high end handcuffs too, like Tony Pollard, because if your keepers don't have to be submitted until the draft, and your draft is say in August, maybe middle of August. Then there's a chance that something happens to a running back starter during training camp. So if Ezekiel Elliott goes down Pollard all of a sudden as a cheap keeper, I'd snag aj Green if he's still out there. Preston Williams maybe considering how he was coming on. Those are just some off the top of my head. But you can always take chances on rookie wide receivers who didn't do a whole lot this year, or even young running backs you like off the wire, And yes, Darwin Thompson is one of those players, as is someone like Justice Hill. Chances are you're not gonna get a cheap keeper off the waiver wire right now, though, or someone who's gonna be an earlier round pick next year. But those are just some names that popped into my head. This next question is from at J Swan underscore, NYI biggest process air you made this season that you will address for next year. So, being a data driven analyst, I'm never gonna buy into outliers. I'm not going to buy into things that seem completely unlikely to happen, and that's fine. Being this way allows me to get things right at a higher rate. But to this point, I think there are instances where I almost take that too far. A perfect example is with what happened with Derrick Henry this year. Now I'll get into this more when I do an episode in the Things that I missed, but a huge reason I had Derrick Henry as a cell around the time that Ryan Tannehill took over is that I made the assumption that the Tennessee offense wouldn't be that much better without Marcus Mariota. Now, I think from a range of outcomes perspective, the median outcome for the Titans passing attack was that it might be just a little bit better because Marcus Mariota was that bad, so anyone stepping in was likely to be better. I would never ever predict what happened with Ryan Tannehill. That's just not gonna happen. But I should have allowed for a little bit more variance. I went with the assumption of, well, they're not very good offensively, so those scoring opportunities won't keep up, and that was a mistake and process. What I really want to work on next year is being better at handling that type of change. Basically, if I'm looking looking at the range of outcomes, loosen that range a little bit. I won't do it from the perspective of like touchdown regression, but when it's something that's more ambiguous and difficult to measure, being more open to significant change is very important. This last question says, why do so many players judge themselves and fantasy quote experts so harshly for their fantasy football failures. I'm amazed how many people fail to acknowledge the significant role that luck plays in this game. So I actually kind of disagree with this. There's certainly a luck element in the game of fantasy football, but luck exists in any game that you play. If you think fantasy football has more significant luck than like a hockey game, I wouldn't necessarily disagree, But where do we draw the line? To me, fantasy football is like the stock market. You can say that there's luck involved for investors who have made millions of dollars buying and selling stock, But are you gonna dismiss the talent it took to know which stocks to buy and sell. Probably not. You're gonna say, Wow, that person was really smart for investing that company when no one knew who they were. I feel the same way about fantasy football. Over the long run, luck tends to even out, especially with more leagues that you play in. Like, if I'm being real here, why is it that I'm able to be profitable year over year playing fantasy football? There's no way I've just been lucky for the seventeen years that I've been playing this game. On a game by game basis, though there's certainly variants. We can project a dude to go nuts in a given week and he may come through just ten total yards. But I think it's really really important to not get fixated on those individual performances. It's important to look at the bigger picture. We all know how easy of a trap negativity bias is, and when we form negativity bias, we can become a little irrational. We make excuses as to why these bad things are happening, and fantasy football luck is generally that excuse. I've made the excuse, and everyone listening to this podcast today has made the excuse of luck or being unlucky. But over the long run, or even across leagues in a single season, like I said before, luck evens out, and there are ways to mitigate your wrist to ensure that Luck isn't playing as big of a role as you want. Maybe that's something that I can dig into over the off season. This next question is from at Eric Belair. What can we realistically expect in terms of regression for Lamar Jackson next season? Yeah, so this is definitely a topic that's going to be brought up a lot over the off season, but we should at least be expecting a drop in touchdown rate. He's at eight point nine percent right now, which is not sustainable. If someone sells it as sustainable, then they've never studied touchdown rates and touchdown regression. But I don't know how much we'll see him regress as a rusher, partially because we've never seen anything like Lamar Jackson before, but also because he's now done it for multiple seasons. The passing is where I'd be more focused on. But unlike Patrick Mahomes this past year, the regression won't make Jackson a clear cut of void in drafts. Because of that rushing floor. He should still be the QB one and he should still be ranked in a tier of his own. This next question says lost when Kamara came up a bit short last night. Looking at games since the injury, he scored sixteen, fourteen, ten and four prior to last night. This is on Monday night. Is this just the new norm for him? Touchdown regression? Notwithstanding, this isn't gonna be a very numbers driven take from me, But I think that both Alvin Kamara and Saquon Barkley, when you watch them, they don't look like the same running backs as they did before their injuries this year. So I'm of the belief that Kamara is going to bounce back next year, and if I can get them for a discount, I would. The next question is from at Laser Shot two nine to five six. What's your end of season process for reviewing your projections versus the results and how to learn from them? I literally line up my projections versus the actual production and then check the outliers and see if there was something that I missed. Usually it's gonna be injury related, but sometimes it's not. And when it's not, that's when I really dig in and try to figure out why, and then I adjust my process. This last question is from at Simons six two two. Hey JJ, love the show. Thanks, I'm a commission of a fourteen team league. Are there some new trends or formats to upgrade our league, like super flex or tight end Premium in recent years? Thanks? I think moving to a super flex league is a great move. I think superflex should become the norm, but it's gonna take a lot of time for that to happen. I think the big thing that commissioners need to do is set up a playoff structure where you have at least one spot for a team that had really bad schedule luck. You can't play defense in fantasy football. It's not fair if you consistently faced teams that just happen to blow up against you week over week. Like I said earlier, there is some luck involved in fantasy football, and this is a good example of that. But you can combat it the leagues that I commission. I take the top five teams, I let them get in, and then the sixth spot in the playoffs goes the most points not currently in, So that team could have won three games because a bad matchup luck and still get in the playoffs. That's the fairest way to do things. And you could even extend that to two spots instead of one. This last question is from at D Underscore Mac Underscore Boom. Who would make up your way too early twenty twenty top five at quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and tight end. So I figured i'd save this one for last because it's a fun one that allows us to look at twenty twenty a little bit. Now, let's start with quarterback. I think the top three are pretty obvious. I'd go Lamar Jackson, then probably Patrick Mahomes, and then Deshaun Watson, and then the final two I'm gonna say Dak Prescott and I'll give a slightly bold take and say Kyler Murray. I want rushing quarterbacks. That top five feels right now. At running back, I'm gonna go with Christian McCaffrey at one. That's pretty obvious. I'll go Dalvin Cook at two, Saquan at three, Zeke at four, and Alvin Kamara at five. I think that you can make the case for a few guys depending on what goes down during the offseason, though, I'm expecting the Chargers to get a running back if Melvin Gordon's gone, But if they don't, we know Austin Eckler would be really intriguing and then what happens with Kareem Hunt. Nick Chubb also has that type of upside if Kareem Hunt is not a Cleveland Brown next year. Now, at wide receiver, I'll go Michael Thomas number one, DeAndre Hopkins number two, and then it gets kind of interesting. I may put tyreek Hill third, DeVante Adams fourth, in Julio fifth, but there are really interesting players who could sneak into the top five, like Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, Amari Cooper, maybe even Baby Tron, Kenny Galladay or dare I say DJ Moore. At tight end, I'll probably put Kelsey number one just because of the quarterback situation, and then George Kittle, but then there's a huge gap after those two. I'm still not a fan of Zach Ertz for fantasy purposes. Fantasy managers have been fortunate that there have been so many injuries to pass catchers in that offense because Ertz was not very good to start the year with more mouths defeat. But I think you can make the arguments for Ertz, Walder, andrews Hooper, maybe Hunter Henry, and then maybe Evan Ingram as well to all be in the top five. But it's definitely Kelsey and Kittle first. I may have missed some guy there, but that's where my head's at right now. Like I said, there's plenty of time to discuss before the next Fantasy season gets going, and I'll be doing that discussing on this podcast twice a week starting in the new year. That's gonna do it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, because remember I'm still gonna be doing the show during the off season. Don't unsubscribe, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. And as always, if you guys could leave the show a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, it would be greatly greatly appreciated, especially if the show helped you get to a Fantasy championship this year. Thanks again for a great season and for being awesome, awesome listeners. Happy holidays. I'll catch you guys in twenty twenty.