1079: Buy Candidates

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha j J zacher what's up everyone. It's JJ zacharyesin in this episode ten to seventy nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Over the next two weeks, I'll be doing one show on by candidates and dynasty leagues and then one episode on cell candidates, essentially players to trade for and players that you might want to trade away. Now, Obviously, just like the fifteen transaction show that I do during the season, there's no clear cut process for finding these players for your specific league. A by candidate may not actually be a by candidate if the manager with that player has an unreasonable price tag on them. But this is just generally how I feel about these players based on what I'm seeing over on keeptrade cut dot com. It's not perfect, but it at least gives us a baseline of market sentiment. From there, I just compare my dynasty rankings to where the market has these guys to get some players you might be able to trade for or trade away. Today's episode, though, it's on the guys you should be trading for or at least looking to trade for Before I get to those players, though, I just have to let you guys know that the Late Round Prospect Guide is officially available for pre order, and this year, not only are the models improved, and not only is there some new fun scoring stuff in it, some nerdy stuff, but we're bringing tight end profiles, full blown profiles for relevant tight ends. The guide is bigger and better than ever, and it's for the exact same pre order price of fourteen ninety nine. To pre order right now, head to light round dot com. Okay, now, let's get to these buy candidates. It's harder to have huge discrepancies in my rankings versus the market with quarterbacks. There just aren't that many of them. It's a little bit more obvious as to who the good ones are. One player I'm a few spots higher than the market with right now, though, is Kyler Murray. I know he sucks. Jacobey Burssett's better, He's got accuracy issues for when it's worth. Kyler's expected points added per dropback was actually plus point zero four this past year, when Brissett was at minus point zero four. Brissett had a better completion percentage over expected, and Arizona went with a really pass heavy approach, which with Kobe percent under center. But I also think there's a chance that Brissett just fit what they wanted to do a little bit better. I mean, given those results as EPA per dropback numbers, I don't even know if that's the case. The fact is the NFL continues to have more quarterback spots open than actual viable quarterbacks in the league. Chances are, in the short term, as long as Kyler Murray is in the league, he's probably going to be a starter somewhere. And when he's been a starter, he's flashed upside in fantasy football. Now, Murray was only at fifteen point six standard fantasy points per game last year. He was just shy of that seventeen points per game mark in twenty twenty four, he said, back to back kind of mid seasons. He's also been above eighteen points per game though, and is four other relevant years. And for what it's worth, his peripherals looked a lot better in twenty twenty fourth than in twenty twenty five. His fantasy production was a little bit better, but the passing numbers were a good bit better. But look, I won't live this is just a costplay. You can get him at QB twenty seven right now. According to keep Trade Cut, He's a twenty eight year old, scrambling quarterback who likely is going to get another shot with a new coaching staff and what will be a new offense, whether in Arizona or elsewhere. So I'm fine with trying to see if I can take a swing on Kyler Murray at a low cost right now. And more broadly, I think the strategy I'm gonna go with this offseason, at least in super flex leagues, is to throw darts at some of these guys who we just can't imagine being a QB one in the NFL for an NFL team like Kirk Cousins, or Will Howard take a chance with a super late rookie pick, or someone just sitting on your bench. Having a starter in super flex leagues can give you a lot of leverage. Now, that's my only quarterback on today's list, because, like I said, it's a tough position to really buy and sell, given how tight rankings aligned with general ADP. I don't want to just go position by position today, though, I'm gonna jump around. So let's start with Quentin Johnston. I've never been like a huge Johnston truther, to the point where I had very little this past season, almost to a fault. It almost ruined me because he got off to a really good start, but fortunately for my sake, he slowed down as the season went on. There are so many reasons to be bullish on the Chargers right now, and I think Johnston in particular is really interesting. I have him a few wide receiver spots above where the market does. First off, we know the Chargers offensive line was terrible last year, largely due to injury, but according to PFF, the Chargers ring thirty first in pass block rating this past year. Rashaan Slater was out all year, though, and Joe Alt he only played six games. In those six games, justin Herbert averaged twenty one point one fantasy points per game. When Joe Alt was out of the lineup, that number dropped by over five points. And keep in mind Oft didn't even have significant snaps in a couple of those contests. Regardless, you can see the impact even if it's not all him. You can see the impact that a key offensive line injury can have it an offense, and that naturally has a trickle down effect. Most players in that Chargers offense had better production with Joe Walt, but Quentin Johnston was over fifteen PPR points per game with him and below ten without him. Now, of course, other factors like injury and matchup all of that come into play here, but it also makes sense that a worse offensive line wouldn't allow plays to develop for a player like QJ who can generate some of those down the field plays. The offensive line should be healthy next year. They're gonna see an insane improvement from that, just naturally. And then they get Mike McDaniel as offensive coordinator, and I am so unbelievably excited for that. McDaniel's historically used a ton of motion in his offenses to scheme open his way wide receivers. Miami was first in pre snap motion last year according to Fantasy Life data. They were second the year before that, and then they were first in twenty twenty two and in twenty twenty three. So he was first in the NFL in his use of motion in three of his four years as Miami's head coach, and his team was second in the one year that they weren't first. Quentin Johnston has his flaws, but if you can get him open in space, he can do a ton after the catch. Despite not performing like a top thirty wide receiver all the time, he's been top thirty in yards after the catch over expected across the entire league in each of his last two seasons. That's according to next Gen Stats. This just has a chance to be one of those transactions where you can get a bump in value year over year, but you should also get decent production from him. Two. This isn't strictly a value play. You can gain that market value while also gaining production on your team. I'm not expecting the world, but I'm really into buying this Chargers offense, whether it's justin Herbert himself QJ or even someone like Trey Harris. Let's shift a running back now, and let's talk about my guy, ba Shall Tuton. Running back's a really weird position when you project post year one. I have my year two models that look at prospect scores alongside year one production to try and predict how well players are going to perform moving forward. And I can flat out tell you that with running backs, year one production matters way less than it does a wide receiver, a wide receiver. It's actually pretty predictive. Well, some metrics are at running back. If you look at the next three years of production for these guys year one PPR points per game, it's actually less predictive than just their prospect score their ZAPP score, So how they were entering the league is more predictive than how they actually played in year one. In the NFL, that means the ZAP model, it's gonna get a decent amount of WIT in the year two model, and it does. And base shall Tuton had a good ZAP score relative to where he was drafted, so his year two scorer it doesn't look that bad, despite the fact that he never took over that backfield in Jacksonville in year one. But I talked about this on the Mailbag episode last week. It's not a lock. Even though it could definitely happen that Travis Etn is in Jacksonville next year, he's a free agent, and Tutin really wasn't that bad on the ground this past year. Now, this certainly isn't the end all for a lot of reasons, but Tutin did have a significantly better success rate than Travis Etn last year. Etn bested him in rushing yards over expected per rush and an EPA per rush, but those marks were still okay enough for Tutin too. I'm just sitting here seeing number one a good prospect which gets a decent amount of weight. Number two a potential opening in that backfield, and then number three it's an offense that we want to buy into. So I look at keep trade cut and I can't quite comprehend why Besshall Tuton is behind Jalen Warren and Trey Benson and just ahead of Rico Daudel. Maybe your league's market doesn't say that, but to me, Ba Shall Tutin should be like five running back spots higher than he currently is, if not more. And look, even if Etna is back next year, I don't think that means that Tuton just disappears. And at the very least he's a very viable handcuff. But there's also an outcome here where he's just the dude. Now, speaking of that year two model, Pat Bryant comes in with an ok enough score that places him in the flex play category in bucket. This is news to everyone because I haven't announced it, but the year two model, it's not projecting year two through year four play not year two and year three. I've grown to realize that there's just too much variance with how I was projecting things with best season out of year two or year three, so I expanded to year four to cover a player's whole rookie contract. It seems to make more sense anyway. But Pat Bryant being a flex play means there's not some super high chance he's gonna give us wide receiver one or wide receiver two production, but there's not a bad chance at flex production. Hence, he's a flex play, and the market just doesn't seem to care about that whatsoever. Bryan's keep trade cut value is at wide receiver fifty seven. I have him about ten wide receiver spots higher than that Troy Franklin's keep trade cut value wide receiver forty six. For the record, I like Pat Bryant straight up more than Troy Franklin right now. Not to be fair, Bryan's peripherals were not amazing this past year. A one point two to two yards per route run rate for a rookie is nothing to write home about. The year two model, which dates back to twenty eleven, has eighty one wide receivers who finished year one with a yards per out run rate of one to one point four. And among those eighty one, just eleven of them had a fourteen or more PPR point per game season and year two or year three or year four. Honestly, I guess that's not horrible, but a higher mark would have looked better if he was a little bit better in yards per out run. Now, with this model, I look at what I call journey comparables. I take a player ZAP score, his prospect score, I take his year two score, and I find comps based on those two scores. They're not archetype comps at all. They're just how do they look going into the league and how do they look after year one? For Pat Bryant, his top five comps are Dante Moncrief, Nico Collins, tray Quon Smith, Josh Palmer, and Jalen McMillan. That's not a horrible group at all, considering that flex play tag. Brian started running more routes than Troy Franklin during the second half of last season. Courtland Sutton's thirty years old Marvin Mims has not been the answer. I'd much rather take a chance on a more unknown second year player than those players. Even Franklin, who again started to see that drop in usage down the stretch. That's not a good sign. And subjectively, I genuinely think that Pat Bryant was on his way to having a massive game against Buffalo in the playoffs before that concussion. Maybe we as fantasy managers possibly trying to get Pat Bryant. Maybe we're lucky that that didn't happen, because now he's cheaper. I obviously wish the circumstances, though, were different, but like most by candidates, we're not looking at a flawless player here. If he was, he wouldn't be a bye because his price would be a lot higher. But I think Bryant makes a lot of sense as a dart throw this offseason, this next by candidate. He's kind of on the opposite side of the career in age trajectory spectrum. It's kind of wild that I'm recommending this player because I faded him last year. I had him as a cell on this show, and I very very rarely am actually trading for a thirty year old wide receiver. He's actually gonna be thirty one during this next season, but Terry McLaurin wide receiver forty eight on keep trade cut. It's very clear and obvious as to what happened to McLaurin this past year. Holdout gets that contract. Injured on and off all year. Jane Daniels has hurt for a lot of the season. It was just a mess for Washington. But his cost last year, one year ago today was wide receiver twenty four. Now it's doubled to wide receiver forty eight. And yes, he had a down year and he got a year older. We all age, but get this, you guys. Terry McLaurin actually saw his yards per route run go from one point nine to eight and twenty twenty four, the year where he had that crazy thirteen touchdown season, to two point two to two this past year. Now, he had about three hundred fewer routes, but he was still efficient per route run. His targets per route run that actually increased too. His first downs per route run got better, his separation number, some of his tracking numbers they were a little bit worse, but they were still fine overall. Basically, what I'm saying here, I don't think Terry McLaurin just fell off. He just was hurt, and he regressed in the touchdown column. But the market it's starting to point in the direction that he has fallen off. In twenty twenty six, he'll be a commander. There's a new offensive coordinator there, which hopefully does more good than bad. But Jaden Daniels, most importantly should be healthy. You don't have to make a move like this right now necessarily. Look, I do fear that the market's going to realize that Terry mclaurin's underlying metrics weren't actually that bad last year. They were actually good, and when that collective realization happens, his price could rise. Okay, I've got to throw one really good player out there on this show. They all can't just be dart throws. We can't just be bargain hunting. So I'm gonna go with Ashton Genty here. Genty had a disappointing season from a fantasy perspective. According to my numbers based on where he went in season long drafts, he underperformed versus that expectation by two point four PPR points per game, and a lot of his underlying metrics they're not incredible. He was fortieth out of forty eight qualified running backs and rushing yards over expected per rush, he had the absolute worst success rate in the league among that same group, But according to PFF's data, Genty also was ahead of only Quinn Shawn Judkins and rushing yards before contact per rush, the Raiders were thirtieth and run blocking great according to PFF. Situationally, things couldn't have been that much worse for Ash and Genty as a rookie. Like I said earlier with Beasehall Tuton, the nice part about Gent is that a lot of that stuff is just not that predictive. His prospect score is gonna be more predictive than a lot of those numbers, including year one PPR points per game, which still wasn't that bad because he was seeing volume. But Genty right now is RB four and the fifteenth overall player over on keep trade cut, I have him at RB three and the tenth overall player, And look, I'm not gonna lie. The year two model is making me feel a lot more confident in this take. He's still the highest possible category after year one because of that volume and because of his Zapp score. That Zapp score was one of the highest at the model's ever seen, and that's leading him to absurd journey comparables. Again, these are players who had a similar ZAPP score and then had a similar year two model score. But his journey comps here are like Christian McCaffrey, Todd Gurley, and Jamier Gibbs. Now that's an incredibly bullish outlook, and I do think that things need to change quickly in order for Genty to live up to that kind of hype. But if you want to take a big swing, a lot of the stuff that is predicted for year one, mostly volume related things. They do favor Gent a lot more than that efficiency stuff. But there's no doubt his prospect score is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. Now, I don't typically spend up at tight end in Dynasty. I'm trying to find those diamonds who are super cheap, and one of those might be Terrence Ferguson. The tight end ZAP model is still getting a little bit of a makeover, but Ferguson looked pretty good in that model last year as he entered the league. Meanwhile, as I talked about on the Death of the Wide Receiver two episode from a week and a half ago. Teams are reacting to the modern defense more by throwing out of heavier personnel packages or just running out of those packages, and the Rams did that a lot more in twenty twenty five. There are eleven personnel rates, so three wide receivers was sixteenth in the league this past year at corne Fantasy Life data at fifty nine percent. The year prior, in twenty twenty four, they were second in the league at an eighty two percent rate of eleven personnel use. In twenty twenty three, they were first in the league at ninety five percent. Mcveigh's offense saw a significant change in twenty twenty five. Now, Ferguson's like a tweener type who could line up all over the field. He's almost like a Darren Waller, and honestly, when you watch him, you kind of get those vibes at times, and we saw that with his alignment. Accord to PFF data, only six tight ends lined up in the outside more frequently last year than Terrence Ferguson did, And when you filter out to only look at tight ends who had fifty snaps out wide, he was fifth highest. Darren Waller. Funny enough, he ranked number one. Now. Technically Kolbe Parkinson could be gone this year due to some savings for the Rams, but I don't see that happening. He played too big of a role this year. But Tyler Higbee is a free agent, and I think Ferguson, who's just twenty two years old, can develop into a big time receiving threat for this team. To be honest, I think the Rams knew exactly what they were doing when they drafted Terrence Ferguson. They were planning for all this. It's a higher variance move, but I'd be willing to buy into him at that mid tight end two to low end tight end two price tag. My love for Sean Tucker may never die. Rashad White's a free agent and he essentially told the world that he won't be in Tampa Bay next year via Instagram. That doesn't make it a guarantee, but it sure doesn't seem like he's going to be there next season. That leaves the depth chart to Bucky Irving and Sean Tucker. Probably Technically, Tucker's a restricted free agent because he was undrafted. He's now played three years in the NFL. But if he leaves that means a team is likely going to use him outside of Tampa Bay. That's good for fantasy. If he stays, there could still be some opportunity for fantasy purposes. Now, if we assume White is gone and Tucker's still there, which I think is the most likely outcome here, Bucks could very easily add someone to bring a pass catching element to that offense. But I'm also of the belief that that's not totally necessary because Bucky Irving and Sean Tucker can be three down backs. And maybe this isn't quite an elephant in the room type situation because people just might not be aware. But Bucky Irving really wasn't that great in twenty twenty five. Now, injury impossible, off the field stuff that could be playing a role here. It probably is, But Irving was forty fifth out of forty eight qualified running backs last year in success rate, which by the way, Rashad White behind that same offensive line ranked second. Irving was dead last in the league and rushing yards over expected per attempt. Now, Irving was bound to regress a little bit after that crazy rookie season, but that's an over correction. He had stuff going on, so hopefully That's why we saw what we saw, but it does at least make the case for Sean Tucker a little bit more enticing. Tucker's proven that he can carry a decent workload at times throughout his career. He did that college too, and the Bucks started using him exclusively as the goal line back towards the end of the year. They also brought in Zach Robinson to lead that offense as offensive coordinator. I'm not one hundred percent convinced that Tucker will definitely work in this zone heavy scheme that we're probably gonna see with Robinson, mostly because according to Fantasy Points data, Tucker was one of the worst players on zone runs in success rate this past year. But he has the speed and quickness to stretch defenses. So I'm imagining a scenario here, hear me out, Rashad White is gone that opens up receiving opportunity in that offense. Over White's last three seasons, he's at targetshers of thirteen percent eleven percent in a little over eight percent. He's never been below that eight percent mark in a single season. The Bucks could try to fill that in some way, but that's all bacon to Tucker's current cost, that's RB forty eight over on keep trade cut. I'd gladly spend that kind of price for a player who, at the very least is a pretty good handcuff in this offense. But there's plenty of upside for more if some of these Bucky Irving trends continue, if the Bucks don't add something significant to that backfield, and if Tampa Bay just wants more of a split backfield in general, all of those scenarios are very possible. The last player I want to get to today, of course, it's Luther Burden, a couple of my favorites to end today's show. I do think Burden's next few years could go into a lot of different directions, so I don't think this is as much of a slam dunk as it could be, specifically, because the market recognizes that potential to some degree. Currently on keep trade cut, Luther Burden's wide receiver twenty, I just have him higher than that. Now, this may be too much of a deep dive here, but I think it's really important. Everyone's gonna think that this recommendation has a lot to do with his high yards per route run rate, but that's only really a part of it. Yards per route run is not a bad metric to look at when analyzing year one to year two to four impact, but across a larger set sample, it's not as predictive as you might think. The players who hit certain thresholds specifically two yards per rout run are higher. They've been special, but much of that aligns with volume two, and volume is a talent proxy. Luthor Burden did not see that volume as a rookie. That's where people against yards per route run as a predictive metric will come after you, And honestly, I don't even disagree with that. Let me just lay this out. Burton finished year one with a two point six y nine yards per route run rate. Among rookie wide receivers. Since twenty eleven with two hundred and more routes run, only Odell Beckham was better. Legitimately, that's it. The difference, of course, is that Obj had a twenty eight percent target chair as a rookie, Luther Burden was at thirteen percent. Burton wasn't gobbling up tons of volume in his offense, but when he did run those routes, he was really effective. Now, if you lower that threshold to one hundred routes run, Marteves Bryant joins the list as players with highigher yards perout run rates than Luther Burden, So it's him and Obj. And if you look at the rookies who had one hundred routes run and a two and a half yards per out run rate are better, it's Beckham, aj Brown, Jamar Chase, pokin Akua, Justin Jefferson. So we're looking great now, but then it's Marteves Bryant Rashid Shaheed. Now my stance is that we shouldn't place Burden in that bucket with players like Jamar Chase and pokin Akua, because again, they saw a lot of volume Burden didn't. But I also don't think this is as simple as saying he's gonna go down the path of Rashid Shaheed, which, to be fair, Shaheed's not a bad player, but it's definitely true that different thresholds and qualifiers will paint a different story, and I want to be transparent about that. Like if we look at rookies with yards per out run rates above two, which, to be fair, Burden was well above that mark. Even when you consider the two playoff games that he played in. He was still well above that mark. But rookies with yards per out, run rates above two and between one hundred and three hundred routes run burden again, to be fair, was in the higher end to both of those thresholds. Just hear me out. You get Martavis Bryant, Jerrus Wright, Kadarius Tony Shaheed, Jordan Whittington, Donovan Peoples, Jones, d'antavian, Wis, Hunter, Renfro, and Robert Foster. Really mediocre names, maybe aside from Renfro and Martaves Bryant, but there's also some really good reasonable names on that list, Randall Cobb, Chris Godwin, Christian Watts, and Tyreek Hill. When you see tweets from myself or someone else with stats and some random thresholds, they're not the end all. We're just sharing something that's interesting. You should always want more context for literally any data point that you see online. My job on this show is to give you that context. But this is why I really enjoy modeling this kind of thing. This is why I think the year two model can be really helpful, because it's going to take a combination of these statistical factors to help us forecast and forecast more accurately and way these things properly. With the wide Receiver Year two model, We're not just looking at per route run stats. Raw volume matters too, and that's why Burden he has a really good but not totally excellent Year two model score. I'm bringing Burden up for two reasons. Though number one, his year two score places him in the elite producer category. It's on almost the lower side of that category. But realistically, guys, his score it's almost identical to Amecca Bucah's and yet Ameccha a Buka, who I like a lot. You guys know that I love him as a wide receiver. He has a costo in dynasty that's significantly higher than Luther Burdens. You can argue that Abuka has a better chance of seeing a bump and volume year over year because of these reports that Mike Evans has done in Tampa Bay, but that's not a guarantee right now. And there are also reports of DJ Moore not being in Chicago via trade, and I think all of us are going to favor that Ben Johnson offense and situation over what's going on in Tampa Bay right now. And for the record, Burdon's zapp score comparable to Abuka's. Actually, the updated model likes him even more, but that's for another day. This isn't the trash Abuca either, just to be clear. It's more just a market comparison for a second year player who looks different analytically, but the model sees them very similarly, but one is far more costly than the other. Now that brings me to number two, and that's the journey comparables. Burton's journey comps include names like Brandon Cook's, DJ Moore, Tyler Boyd, and even a little bit deeper like the tenth best comp Jackson Smith and Jigba. Now, there are some good players in there, with not a lot of busts, but there are some busts like an Elijah Moore. The elite producer category, it's a really good category for a player to land in. Obviously I did add another category for the crazy good players, the legendary performers if you will. But elite producers still do really well. If you look at their best two season average across the years two through four. Elite producers get to eighteen or more PPR points per game at a twenty three percent rate, meaning they're giving you multiple wide receiver one seasons essentially at a twenty three percent rate. They get to sixteen or more at a fifty eight percent rate. Legendary performers, they're up to sixty four percent. Now, I do think there's a chance that the burden manager in your league is just really high on him, potentially too high. They're still downside risk here. But if I'm looking at where a place like Keep Trade Cut has him and where I have him, I think the reward far out weighs the risk. He showed signs of being a really great player in year one despite it being kind of a slower build. Now, I had some other players on my bi candidate's list that didn't quite get to today, like Alec Pierce, Slide, McConkie, Christian Watson, even Ramandre Stevenson was on that list. There are plenty. If you're curious where I have these guys ranked, you can head to the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon by heading to Lateround dot com. But hopefully today's analysis gets you going in the right direction to start this offseason. That's it for today's show. Though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you soon