525: Mailbag 7/16/21

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j Jake zacher reson What's up Everyone. It's JJ Zacharesen, the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com and this episode five and twenty five of the Late Round podcast. So the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Monday's episode was one of my favorites. When you do research and you have a breakthrough, and when you're as nerdy as I am about this stuff, it's easy to get excited. Unfortunately, I think that excitement may have gotten in the way of fully communicating the idea that I was trying to communicate. If you didn't listen to Monday show, hit pause and go listen to it. There are a handful of questions today that tie back to the stuff that I talked about on that episode. The key thing that I talked about on that show, though, was how Team RB ones in the middle rounds. They tend to hit at a much higher rate when they have teammate running backs also drafted in those middle rounds. So, for example, Chase Edmonds this season versus James Connor, both are being drafted in the middle rounds, and Edmonds would be the hypothetical player who hits in this scenario. On the flip side, an RB one in the middle rounds without a teammate drafted near him doesn't do as well like Michael Carter this year, I had like ten or fifteen people hit me up after that show is published asking how we determine who the RB one is. And the fact that so many people ask me that means that I clearly didn't do a good enough job communicating this idea, So my apologies. The reason I was so excited about the data was because I'm strictly looking at ADP. The RB one in all of these scenarios was literally just the running back who was taken first from his backfield. So in the case of Arizona, it's Chase Edmonds. I'm not saying that I think that Chase Edmonds is simply the better running back between the two. Subjectively, I'm saying he's the player to target in this scenario because he's the first Arizona Cardinals running back being drafted right now. Now, clearly you're going to run into situations where things aren't that obvious, like with Tampa Bay. There's going to be a back and forth with Leonard Fournett and Ronald Jones' ADP throughout this summer. My suggestion in situations like that, though, is that if you're playing in a lot of leagues, you can just target both. It's also fine then to lean into the other aspects that help create a breakout running back that I've talked about for years now on the show, like being a good pass catcher. Fantasy managers are wired in a way where when they hear something like Monday Show and the stuff that I talked about on Monday Show, they wonder what that means for players individual players in twenty twenty one, and I totally understand that, but I would ask you to take a step back and think about what all of this means, look at it from that perspective. First, for example, I got an email this week from David that said, Hi, JJ, First off, love the show. Thanks, It's the only podcast where I never miss an episode. Just finish your new Breakout running Back podcast. And found I got really excited to go through ADP and see who the RB ones are that I should target. However, with such a small sample size, seventeen running I wonder if you've done any sensitivity analysis, like if you increased or decreased the breakout level, how much does that change the results? Also, how much does adding twenty twenty breakouts change things? And does that mean that we might need more data? Thanks David, So, just to be clear, the twenty twenty breakouts are part of this data. They weren't removed for the additional ambiguous backfield information that I talked about on Monday. They were just removed when I was talking about the criteria from last year's study. But yes, I did test this. I changed parameters when figuring this out, and as you probably guess, is the range between team RB ones and RB two teammates got wider and wider. The hit rate generally became less and less significant. Now that's at least compared to the running back sample in round six through nine. That's not saying that we want running backs being drafted back to back like Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones. I'm more so saying that if we just extend our parameters from where we were at, the hit rates did get worse as the RB two teammate was drafted later and later, those mid range rbs ones became worse. They had worse hit rates. I would say that there's almost definitely some noise to this data. I'm not trying to package this differently. It's almost impossible for there not to be noise when you're dealing with the average draft position, and the sample isn't massive either. But I'd say two things to that number One, the hypothesis here is what strengthens the overall argument. In my opinion, these middle round backfields with teammates being drafted close to one another suggests that we like that backfield Situationally, when you get an RB one who's a standalone RB one in the middle rounds and when his teammates are being drafted way way later, it's only logical to think that we don't like that backfield. We seem to know who that player to target is. That's a good thing. But if that's the case, why wouldn't we be higher on that player. Why is he just the middle round pick. It's likely because of situation. So if these two scenarios are situation based, then when one player emerges, it's not surprising that the player who's better off is the one from a perceived better situation. The other thing that I want to note about all of this is that even if you don't want to agree with what I've dubbed the ambiguous RB one theory, which is the least creative thing that I've ever come up with, even if you want to say that the sample is too small for these running backs in the middle rounds who have backfield teammates drafted soon after them, at least fall back on the fact that team RB ones perform better than team RB twos do. That's something that's a lot more difficult to dispute, especially in the middle rounds in around six through nine since twenty eleven, are sample size of team RB one's getting drafted in that range as eighty one, Team RB twos are worse is sixty two. The breakout rate is twice as good for those RB ones for those team RB ones. So at the very least, you can just lump a player like Damian Harrison with Chase Edmonds and say I'm drafting team RB ones instead of getting someone like James Connor or Raheem Moster or James Robinson. That's what I'm trying to say here. There are layers to this. I understand this urge in this need to immediately go to looking at who fits this really specific criteria, but we have to play the game a little bit looser than that. These are just general trends that we should keep in the back of our minds as we draft to help us find edges that our league mates may not understand. In most cases, they're going to have no idea that this even exists. And I think at the very least, the data is pretty clear. As drafters, we're pretty good at picking out the RB one and ambiguous backfields, and as drafters, we should be targeting those team RB ones in the middle rounds as opposed to backup running backs. And you can think of this in reverse too. Maybe you're not excited about the RB ones in those backfields, that's fine, but the data does suggest that the RB twos are bad bets, so avoiding those guys that may be just as reasonable of a takeaway as targeting the RB ones. Now I've got more questions about that study on today's show. I wasn't surprised by that because I think it made all of us think a little bit differently about the game, which is exactly what I want. We should be enjoying this kind of thing and trying to find answers and put these puzzle pieces together, and we should do it together. It's more fun that way. So thank you for all these questions in advance. Before get into those questions, though, baseball fans, Fandel is giving you the opportunity to get involved with daily fantasy baseball with the MLB Home Run Challenge. Each day, you can draft three players and you'll receive one point for every home run they hit. Score three or more points for a share of the two thousand dollars prize pool, and score six or more points and you'll win a share of the ten thousand dollars prize pool. All you have to do is head over to Fandel today and drafter sluggers. Eligibility restrictions apply. Head over to fandle dot com or download the fandle app for more details. The first question this week, or maybe the second question this week, is from at Michael Carvel Love the show. Thanks, Yesterday's was very thought provoking. That's great, confuse if that meant drafting running backs in the dead zone and how to no difference in RB ones and twos in ambiguous backfields for one hundred percent clarity. It would be great if you could go into specific details teams and running backs for twenty twenty one. Okay, so hopefully I made the whole point about the difference between RB one's and RB two is clear by now. By RB one, I'm talking about the player who's being drafted first in his backfield. So Chase Edmonds versus James Connor. You're preferring Edmonds because he's the RB one, he's being drafted first. Regarding the dead zone, no, I'm not really saying to draft running backs from the dead zone. The running backs that I focused on came from round six through nine. As you guys know, the dead zone is really focused on rounds four and five more so. But even if you include round six or round three, but that doesn't really matter for this study. Even if you include round six, it's not going to drastically change the way that we draft, or it shouldn't. I also went back and tested this and the same general theory holds true for running backs in rounds four and five. When they have a teammate being drafted in the single digit rounds with them, they perform better than running backs without that player. In fact, if you look at running backs drafted in rounds four and five who had a teammate drafted in the single digit round since twenty eleven, the hit rate of a player exceeding expectation by one hundred and more points is more than double compared to the alternative or running back without a teammate drafted close to them. This suggests that if there are some players who are on that borderline of what I analyzed, so in that round five range, and they have a teammate in the top one hundred and eight with them, so the first nine rounds you can still probably target those players. So for this year, I'm referring to Javonte Williams and Travis Etn in a lot of cases. And then to your question about the specific backfields, I'd then look into the forty nine ers and targeting Trace Sermon, and then look at Arizona and targeting Chase Edmonds. Those are really the main examples this season, I think, with Tampa Bay being iffy given four, Nette and Rojo's ADP are as clearcut, So you're really looking at Javonte Williams, Travistn, Chase Edmonds, and tray sermon. It just so happens there are a lot of rookies that hasn't always been the case. I think it just plays into what I've been saying. They're probably not terrible at judging running back situations. What scarier from a team RB one standpoint is when we're elevating the player simply because he seems like the guy in his backfield, like Mike Davis this season. But I also want to say you don't need to simply avoid the running back dead zone, especially as ADP is shifting. Over the last month, running backs have gradually been drafted later and later, probably because every single fantasy analyst is talking about the running back dead zone. That changes opportunity cost and makes them more attractive. Because opportunity cost is a really big piece of this. Given these current trends, I actually think there's an argument to be made that the dead zone won't matter nearly as much in twenty twenty one. This last question is from at J five zero eight six seven seven to two eight question regarding the running back breakout episode. The stat you mentioned was they average thirty six points higher than expectation per year, but does that make them viable If you go from fifty to eighty six total points, that's five point three points per week, which is still unstartable. It seemed like an arbitrary number to me. Thanks well, it wasn't an arbitrary number because it was being compared to other samples that we were working with, and it was by far the best outcome among all of those samples. But keep in mind that a running back selected at pick one hundred, he has an expected point value of over one hundred points. You guys can read the article that I wrote on this topic called Fantasy Football Introducing the Ambiguous RB one theory. I wrote that on number five earlier this week. In that article, I have the running back chart of preseason expectation or ADP versus postseason result, and you can see what a typical middle round running back scores so at each level or each ADP spot. The expectation for those specific running backs, the RB ones, with a teammate drafted close to them, it's raised by thirty six points on average. That's how it's been historically. If you had a player drafted at pick sixty five, that baseline expectation is going to be different than a player drafted at like one hundred and three, but the average increase is thirty six points. We're not using these numbers to necessarily project fantasy points scored. We're using these numbers to see where the best places are to attack in order to find actual league winning running backs. This last question is from at Doctor Fantasy Dad. Per your end of the Year Missus podcast, you identified that Keenan Allen and Stefan Diggs should have been targets and not fades since they were being drafted at their floors. Basically, who is being overlooked this year? Yeah. I didn't totally fade those guys last year because I played enough leagues to where I don't need to fade anyone. But I definitely was underweight on both Stefan Diggs and Keenan Allen last season, and that was wrong and not very great. I did not enjoy that. But what I realized with Digs more so than Allen. With Allen, I think is just a lot of lined for him last year. I don't think he was really being drafted at his floor. He was a miss, but not for the same reason as Stefan Diggs. With Diggs, we were working under this assumption collectively that Buffalo would be this run head and Diggs was being drafted as if that was a lock. I think we can look across the landscape this year in pinpoint, Tyler Lockett as a wide receiver who's being drafted too low because of the assumption that the Seahawks are going to be run heavy. Now people are also not into Locket because of inconsistency, but there's a lot of variance in something like that. I'm not that concerned about inconsistency. I care more about peripherals and volume, and I think that you could maybe argue Odell Beckham, but he doesn't have the same production backbone that Stefan Diggs had entering last year. OPJ hasn't given us a really strong fantasy season in some time, so there's more of a reason that he's being drafted where he's being drafted regardless of how run heavy that Brown's team is, and regardless of how run heavy we think that Browns team is going to be. Lockett, though, is coming off a huge season where he was productive, but he's being drafted as if it's a lock. The Seahawks keep up this run heavy approach, but it's not as obvious as Diggs, at least in hindsight. I understand I'm talking in hindsight, so it's a little bit different, but it doesn't seem as obvious as Stefan Diggs because there are other reasons why people don't love Tyler Lockett, like his consistency or his perceived consistency. This last question is from at Brennan Underscore Brink. First of all, love the show. Thanks in a redraft. Is it worth stacking your top wide receiver with his late round quarterback like AJ Brown and Ryan Tannehill or Calvin Ridley and Matt Ryan. I get stacking questions for this show basically every week. I answered it last year, but I'll get it out of the way now so that people can reference this whenever they have that question. There was a great article done on stacking by Mike Leoni of Established the Run last season. You guys can check it out if you google deep dive stacking in season long Fantasy Establish the Run. Essentially, what Leoni found was pretty logical. Stacking could be beneficial, but not at the expense of being a suboptimal drafter and a managed season long league you don't want to reach for stacks just because you want to stack, and they obviously work better in larger field tournaments. So you should try to stack, but not if it means that you're forcing it. Now, one thing to keep in mind with stacking is that if your late round quarterback ends up hitting, you'll then generally see the players on his team hitting as well. And Leoni has data that talks about this in that article. There's a lot of upside from that perspective. It's not just the weekly angle that we think about, it's the yearly angle as well. So I would say overall, yes, you should prefer stacking, that's what the data seems to suggest, just don't force it. The sash question is from at next Man Up one oh one. Can all the ADP based strategies that you highlight be applied to auction values or are there nuances with doing such a translation? Thanks and loved the Breakout running Back pod. Thanks. So, I did an auction draft strategy episode last season. It was episode three hundred and ninety three. That should help with this question and more questions about auction drafts. But I want to at least say that, yes, you can use all the principles that I talk about on this show from an ADP perspective and generally attribute that to auction drafts. At the end of the day, the values aligned to some degree, to a pretty strong degree. It may not be super easy to implement, it might not be super seamless, but you're not playing that drastically different of a game when you're going from a snake draft to an auction draft. But definitely check out episode three hundred and ninety three. This last question is from at Igloo Brew. Do you think David Montgomery is being drafted too low this year? Going behind Carson, Sanders, Swift and Jacobs and ADP seems ridiculous with Fields or Dalton being an upgrade to balance their offense. So it depends where you're drafting, because in a lot of places he's still going ahead of Josh Jacobs, and thank goodness for that, because he should be going ahead of Josh Jacobs. I'm starting to buy Montgomery more and more, though I've let it be known this offseason that he's in store for not just regression, but just worse peripheral numbers as well. A lot of the peripheral number stuff was the result of Tarreek Cohen coming back though, and there was a report recently that said that Cohen still hasn't fully healed from his ACL injury. If Cohen's banged up, that gives Montgomery the necessary target share projection that he needs to have a true ceiling this year. The running back environment is more competitive this year than last year, so it's tough to put him that much higher. But if you want to throw Montgomery had a Carson or Sanders, I don't think that's all logical. Now, you mentioned that Fields or Dalton would be an upgrade to balance their offense, and while I don't fully disagree, keep in mind that David montgomery season last year, as a lot of us know, was sort of split between being very very average and very very good. From weeks one through nine, he was averaging twelve point three PPR points per game, and Tarik Cohen wasn't there for a lot of that. Montgomery's final six games saw an average of twenty five point seven points per game. That was partially because the Bears offense was moving the ball a lot better during that stretch. The Bears averaged thirty point two points per game. During Montgomery's amazing stretch from weeks one through nine, they averaged nineteen point one points per game. So when we're projecting, it's important not focus too heavily on what went down when Montgomery was super relevant and fantasy we don't even to fall back to what happened weeks one through nine. But even if you meet in the middle, we can't just assume that Dalton and fields are an upgrade over Montgomery's environment during the final six games of the twenty twenty regular season. Not only that, but as I've alluded to through studies this offseason, having a rookie quarterback and having a mobile quarterback that's not a great thing for running backs. It's probably not the biggest deal in the world for Montgomery, I'll be honest, but I would lean more that it's a bad thing than a good thing based on history, based on our evidence. So my final answer here is, yes, I think if his EIGHTYP stays, which we have to watch, but if his adyp stays, he's of value. Given this Cohen news, I just don't know if you can get that much higher than like RB fourteen or RB fifteen with David Montgomery. That's going to do for today's show, though, thanks to all of you, for listening. If you've got subscribe to ly around podcasts, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, you know. Forgots. Follow me on Twitter at late round QB. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend and I will talk to you next week