348: Mailbag 2/14/20

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Resa, j J. Zacher Reson. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachereson, the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode three hundred and forty eight of the Late Round podcast, one of many shows that are part of the Fan Duel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. A few things to mention before getting to today's questions. I made a couple of mistakes on the show earlier this week, and I want to clear it up. I want to clear things up. The first thing is about Nikil Harry. Now, on the show, I mentioned that he had about a twenty percent chance of hitting given his rookie season numbers. But I phrased things really poorly. I should have just not included that piece because it didn't make sense. What I really meant to say was, if we were to assume that Harry would be successful, only twenty percent of players in that successful wide receiver data set were as bad as he was during their rookie seasons. Now, that single statistic obviously wasn't the crux of the argument was selling ni Kil Harry. The idea is that he just wasn't productive during his rookie year, and like I talked about in the Unproductive Rookie Season episode a couple of weeks ago, that's not a great sign. Generally speaking, good fantasy assets were good when they were rookies, and the only truly elite wide out that we've seen with numbers as bad as Harry's during their rookie season was with Antonio Brown. But when I mentioned the statistic, I phrased it poorly, and I wanted to address it now. The other thing that my idiot self screwed up on that show is that I accidentally said that Raheem Moster was going to be thirty eight years old next season. Clearly I misspoke, and I didn't catch that when editing the show should have been twenty eight, not thirty eight. He's actually not old enough to be your dad. The last thing to mention before we get into this week's question is that you guys should check out Fandel's XFL contests if you have no idea who's even playing in the XFL. I've got a primer overrun number fire dot com for this week's slates that can help you out, But head to Fandel dot com click the XFL tab and make some lineups. This first question is from Twitter. It's from at TJ Sumter fifty four. When building the first three rounds of a redraft, do you always go best available or do you try to do two running backs, one wide receiver, or depending on draft position, one running back, one wide receiver, and one tight end. Look I try to be flexible. Tight End is generally not a position that I draft early, for reasons that I talked through on a show last summer on tight end Strategy. It was episode two hundred and sixty one. But it's a onesie position. You're only starting one player at that position in your lineup, so it's inherently devalued. It makes more sense to go early round tight end and early round quarterback, but there always seems to be a team or two who wants a guy like Kelsey more than I do. Best Player Available as an idea is kind of BS though. It's impossible to strictly go with a BPA type approach without factoring in things like positional scarcity, which is why we're not even discussing quarterbacks in this question. You're already doing that. You naturally do this when you're drafting. I just don't like the phrase best player available should be best value available, and the same goes for the real NFL draft. Maybe it's a stupid thing to even bring up, but I think it's important. But it all depends on league format and where I'm drafting. If I'm in a standard non PPR league with no flex spot, and I'm starting two running backs and two wide receivers, I'll likely pound the running back position early. I might start with three running backs, but I'm always cognizant of tears and what I can get with my subsequent picks. This last question is an email, says Hijj, a huge fan of the show, have been for a long time. Thanks with the offseason upon us, I couldn't help but pick up an orphan dynasty team. It's my first dynasty team ever, super flex tight end premium. I made a couple of trades right away and now the team has Lamar and Wentz, Kittle and Andrews, but it's lacking at running back with basically Melvin Gordon and Darius Geis as the only two viable options. My question is, since my team wasn't the playoff contender under the previous owner. Should I trade Lamar for a low end QB one plus a couple of startable assets, or hang on to what could be a high end QB one for years to come. Basically, I'm new to all this and I don't know how to manage a dynasty team. Please help, Josh. So you're clearly set at quarterback and tight end, which is great. If you're set or reasonably set at wide receiver, I actually would consider staying put. And the logic is that I'm assuming that you've got some sort of high rookie selection in this year's rookie draft. If the team was bad last year, this year's running back class is pretty strong, so you could fill those gaps via the rookie draft. Basically, what I'm saying here is that if you have a hole at running back, that's going to be the easiest hole to fill in year one with a rookie. We know that rookie backs perform better than rookie wideouts. I actually did a study on rookie pick evaluation a couple of years back, and front half of Round one rookie backs are by far the best assets to draft for year one production. It's not close it's also probably not that surprising. So if you have one of those, and here's the important thing, if you're trying to win in twenty twenty, then I wouldn't be overly worried about running back. Actually, and if your wide receivers are good, then all of a sudden you've got a pretty complete team. There are a lot of factors to consider with a question like this, but I would say to either just get one of those backs this year, and if you don't have one of those picks, or if you're worried about getting a good running back, then you should start planning for twenty twenty one. If you don't think that you're going to be competitive, it's okay to build for the following year and create a powerhouse. I also think that you should always consider trading anyone. Everyone has a price and can be sold, So even if you're competing this year, still see what you can get for Lamar Jackson. It can't hurt. That was quite the brain vomit, but hopefully you can get something out of that answer. It's kind of impossible to be super direct when I'm not staring at your roster. This sess question is from Jake it says, do you have any advice for getting some less than willing dynasty owners to start trading? Love the show? Thanks. Now, if you really want a trade done and the person's just not budging because they obnoxiously overvalue their own players, you can always just take a deal that's below market value. Like if your goal is to just get a deal done, sometimes you have to make some sacrifices, and to that point, make sure your trade offers are objectively fair. That's important. But some people just don't like trading that much. Sometimes you can't do anything about that. It's stupid and it's annoying. But a fantasy football podcast host isn't going to be able to convince one of your friends that making trades is fun. Your job is to explain why the trade makes sense and why the trade makes both of your teams better. Explain why you're doing the trade, and explain the thought process as to why the trade benefits both teams, because that's the goal of trading. In the end, there's going to be a winner and a loser in the long run, but at the time of the transaction, both sides should appear to make both teams better. This ask question is from at Marcelo Underscore. Is Eckler greater than Bell? I thought this was a really interesting question in thought. I'm assuming this is Dynasty focus, and according to Dynasty League Football dot COM's ADP data, Eckler is indeed ranked ahead of Le'Veon Bell, and I think that's logical. I do expect the Chargers to have someone in that backfield with Eckler next season. I don't necessarily think that he's going to be a workhorse. It's in his range of outcomes, but I think the most likely outcome is that he's still splitting work. And there's some ambiguity now with Philip Rivers no longer being there. But Eckler's over three years younger, he was more productive in twenty nineteen, and depending on the quarterback situation, he could end up in a better overall environment than Le'Veon Bell has. I think Eckler's probably a safer bet, But I also low key think that Le'Veon Bell is an interesting by low for a team who's looking to compete in the short term because he's older, he's coming off a bad year, and people aren't necessarily high on the Jets offense. That presents a by low opportunity if you think that he's going to see a lot of volume next year and maybe the year after. I think that volume is at least going to be on his side in twenty twenty. As of now, though, give me Austin Eckler. This last question from at T steppin. We saw DeVante Parker become a valuable fantasy asset this past season when Preston Williams went down with an injury mid season. With Williams returning, are you concerned that Parker might not return on draft investment in twenty twenty and would you consider him a cell in dynasty. So let's not overstate the impact that Preston Williams and that injury had on DeVante Parker. Williams played until Week ten. Through that point in time, Parker was averaging a twenty point two percent target share per game. After Williams went down, that number rows to twenty two point three percent. That's not that significant. And the thing is Parker also averaged just a fifteen point seven percent target share in the two games where Ryan Fitzpatrick either didn't play a whole lot, which was Week three, or when he didn't start, which was week four. If you look at games with Ryan Fitzpatrick, we're only talking about a point eight percent target share per game difference with and without Preston Williams. Now, of course, Parker ended up producing more without Preston Williams. His Fantasy points per game average was significantly higher during the second half of the year. But during the first half Miami also faced Baltimore, New England, the Chargers, the Bills, the Steelers. They had a much tougher schedule than during the second half of the year. Down the stretch, they went up against the Giants, Bengals, and Eagles. It wasn't that tough or as tough for DeVante Parker because Fitzpatrick seems to be in their twenty twenty plans. I don't think i'd be looking to sell Parker. Everyone has a price, like I said, but Devonte Parker's surge is more Ryan Fitzpatrick related than it is Preston Williams related. In my opinion. This last question says, hey, JJ, what are your thoughts on selling Aaron Jones in Dynasty? A lot of his points last year came from touchdowns, which will be unsustainable. His value will surely never be higher what would you be looking at getting in return for him? Thanks out? Okay, So I rarely answer though what would you be looking to get in return for him? Questions, because I think it defeats the purpose of trading. It's a backwards way of looking at things. Your goal isn't to force a certain player onto a different team. Your goal is to find a team who needs what you're offering, or who values a player more than you do, and then you should trade that player to that team. So find a team that needs a running back or a team that really overvalues Aaron Jones, that's your trade partner. I'm sure that that manager will have plenty of usable assets to trade for. To the point of this question, though, with Aaron Jones being a cell yes, I think he's more on the cell side than the buy side. I've talked a lot about how unsustainable his touchdown production was this past year, so I won't revisit that. But if someone's buying into that, then sure try to get rid of Aaron Jones. The fact that someone like DJ Moore is being drafted right next to him in dynasty startups, that's crazy to me. I'd rather have more by a pretty big margin. But the thing with Jones, I do think that he's sort of the last running back or in that last running back tier before you get into the true question marks. He and Miles Sanders are right next to one another in ADP and after that you get into guys like Melvin Gordon carry on Johnson that type of territory where their workloads are more up in the air. With Jones, you should feel pretty good about his one to two year outlook. And one additional thought before moving on, Jones is twenty five years old right now, He's already played three NFL seasons. What happens when his contract is up. That's a question that you've always got to ask and be worried about with running backs. So that's just another reason that's selling now at a peak. Isn't a terrible idea? This last question is from at Tyler Strong ninety five. What's the next advancement for fantasy football? A new standard for scoring folks switching to victory points format on mass best ball becoming the standard, et cetera. So the way I've always viewed the fantasy gamers that with every season people playing fantasy football get more into it. People just get more involved. Years ago, people only cared about touchdowns in fantasy. Then they started caring about yards, and then keeper league's got more popular, and now we're seeing Dynasty leagues becoming more and more popular because people can't get enough and they want to do stuff year round. So I think Dynasty is absolutely going to get bigger now regarding scoring and lineup settings. The only way that things will change at a large scale, and I think I mentioned this before on the show, is if sites like ESPN and Yahoo make those changes the norm. If the standard format on ESPN, let's say, is a superflex format, then that's what's going to start this change. But until we see that happen, I don't think the format itself is going to change in a huge, huge way. That's going to do it. For today's show, 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, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. And remember with the off season mailbags, feel free to email me at jj at number fire dot com with any questions. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend