609: Mailbag 1/21/22

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the La Podcast with your host JJ Zachersa JJ zach ARESA. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachareson, the editor in chief at fandle and at number fire dot com in this episode six hundred and nine of the Late Round Podcast, the many shows that are part of the Fandel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. This Saturday features two divisional round games. The Bengals play the Titans and the forty nine Ers play the Packers, and Fandel is giving you a chance to get in on the divisional round action. All you have to do is head over to Fandel dot com and create your own daily fantasy lineup for the Saturday Million contest. There are tons of cash prizes to be had, so head over to fandle today and create your daily fantasy lineups. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the Fandel app for more details. It's a mailbag show today. Let's get to these questions. The first question this week is from at Mountain Man MT. I know you factor in draft capital when evaluating players. At what point you remove this from your evaluation. Elijah Mitchell's sixth round is clearly the lead back in San Francisco. Does he keep getting downgraded due to draft capital or does only his production matter moving forward. So it's funny that you bring this up as a lot of you know, I've got a prospect model for running backs and wide receivers, and as this question is saying, that model uses draft capital. It looks at different inputs and tries to predict how well a player is going to perform across his first three years in the league in fantasy not real football, although there is some obvious overlap. Something that I've been working on since the end of the season is what I'm calling the year two model. It utilizes the prospect score from my model, and it looks at how a player also performed in year one, and by utilizing the prospect score, it predicts the next two seasons better than rookie season points per game alone, a lot better. So Elijah Mitchell, my model didn't love Mitchell post draft, but based on his draft capital, it did like him slightly more than where he was drafted. I sort of subjectively liked him a little bit more than that, though, because I thought he was a good Raheem Mostert comp and Mostard had done well in that Shanahan offense, but Mitchell is obviously starting at a weaker baseline than someone like Javonte Williams. Williams had good draft capital, Mitchell didn't. And even though draft capital isn't everything, it does give us some signal because it tells us that number one, a team of evaluators either really liked or didn't like a player, and then number two, it could play a role in the investment that a team has in that player. So there's obvious risk in later round players hitting beyond their first season in the league, which is why in that year two model it likes Javonte Williams more than Elijah Mitchell. Mitchell has an eighty seventh percentile year two score. Javonte Williams is ninety fourth percentile. And by the way, one player this model likes a lot. Michael Carter just throwing that out there. But I'm bringing this all up because it plays directly into your questions. If the prospect model itself is giving more signal for this year two model, and if draft capital is an input for that prospect model, then draft capital still matters after year one. It just matters a lot less than it did for a player entering the league, and I can see that when I'm testing this model. What I plan to do over the next month or two is publish probability charts where you can match a player's percentile ranking with this probability to hit a certain points per game threshold in year two or year three. It'll all make more sense when it happens, I promise. I just wanted to tease it a little bit because I'm excited about it. This ask question is from at fifty eight w King podcast, best young wide receivers with below average quarterback play that I should continue to draft. So let me go back to that exact same model that I was just talking about, but for wide receivers. The year two model obviously loves Jamar Chase. He's a ninety ninth percentile year two guy. It then likes Jalen Wattle and DeVante Smith a whole lot too. Wattles in second, Smith is in third, but they both have very high scores. But one player is not far off from either of those two guys, and that's my guy, Elijah Moore. More is in the percentile bucket of ninety five to one hundred, and players in that bucket hit at a very very high rate. In fact, historically half of the players in that bucket have gone to give us at least one season in year two or three where they hit at least eighteen PPR points per game. For context, that's like a top five season, and that rises to almost sixty percent when looking at sixteen or more points per game. That's just how things have gone historically. It's not a guarantee, but those are some really really good odds. At the very least, you can feel good about someone like Elijah Moore over the next two seasons giving you at least one season of fourteen plus points, and that's per game because for some one in his percentile ranking, that's happened over seventy seven percent of the time, and that could be considered more of a low end wide receiver two season. Like I said, I'm excited to roll this out more and allow you guys to consume it and see the probabilities for yourself. In the meantime, I'll answer this one in a very straightforward way. Elijah More this last question from at top three to three. Your transactions always mention players to buy and sell, but I feel like my league mates are skeptical if anyone's selling after a spike week or two. Do you ever preemptively sell high before a week where a player is in a smash spot? So if you're asking if I sell a player before he gives you any sort of good performance, the answer is usually not, because you're not gonna get a lot in return. But if a player has some sort of baseline established, like if your league mates know that the player is decent and he's got an upcoming matchup in a smash spot, there are plenty of times where else before that great matchup, if that's what you mean, because I'll use that matchup to my advantage when I negotiate. I talk about that a lot on the fifteen Transaction Show. Now let's just use an example so everyone's on the same page here. Let's say you have someone like Josh Jacobs who you wanted to get rid of. He's coming off a performance where he scored a couple of touchdowns, but you know his performances have been kind of fluky. Upcoming for him is a matchup against the fifth worst defense against running backs. You might be inclined to sell before that matchup, though, because what happens if Jacobs doesn't actually perform, Now your league mate's gonna be less inclined to trade for him because in a great matchup, Jacobs didn't come through. So it just all depends on circumstance. There needs to be a baseline established though, for every single player that you're trading, or else you won't get anything reasonable in return. Yes, I understand and agree that plenty of sell candidates can be obvious, and it's much easier to just say that you're gonna sell than actually getting a deal done. This last questions from at e Steiner ten thirty. Where are you at on Cede Lamb's dynasty value seems to be a very hot topic lately in these streets. Yeah, I've seen this discussion on Twitter over the last week since that Cowboys game, and as usual, I think there's just a lot of people going overboard with it. Ceedee, Lamb is a very good player who's done good things in his first two years in the league. He was the wide receiver twenty or twenty one in PPR points per game this year, depending on how you filter that out, and that's after a rookie season where he was a solid wide receiver three. Meanwhile, this all didn't come from nowhere. He was a very very good prospect. He had a ninety six percentile rating in my model when he was drafted. Okay, cool, So I just noted very obvious things. What now. I think a lot of the discussion around Lamb obviously has to do with the market above all else. Some people had him as the Dynasty wide receiver one this year, and while they likely don't have him there now, that's usually what starts these types of disagreements, and he one hundred percent does not currently look like the Dynasty wide receiver one, but a lot of people have tayclock now, I think the obvious top two wide receivers right now in Dynasty are justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase period. And then maybe you could make an argument for Lamb next. But I think there's just as good, if not better, of an argument for aj Brown, Tyreek Hill, DK Metcalf and even Jalen Waddle. But there's some concern with Lamb. Good players command targets. Lamb's target share per game this year was just a little over twenty percent. You're not going to get an elite season with that type of target share, and we can sit here and we can say, well, he's competing for looks with really good weapons, with really good players in that offense. I mean, is he or was he nothing against Dalton Schultz? I think is really underrated as a player. But Michael Gallup didn't even play for most of the season. Amari Cooper is good, yes, but a twenty percent target share is pretty far off from being elite. Can it become elite? I mean, given his background in his profile, of course, but when you're talking high end wide receiver ones in Dynasty, you can't just be hoping for something. You need to see it. You need to know that it's possible. There's nothing wrong with being high on a player like Ceedee Lamb, but I do think there's a good chance someone in your league likes him more than they should, so I lean more on the cell side, but I'll be honest, it's not with the same conviction that others have in the industry. This last course is from at Resist the Tilt. When evaluating incoming rookies, particularly wide receivers, do you account for their environment in any way? If there is a general lack of offensive production based on system coaching, quality of quarterback, et cetera. How do we find prospects whose numbers don't pop? So I'm trying to make a point to follow my model a little bit more this season than I have in the past. I always say that my prospect model is my guide, and it most definitely is, but historically I haven't leaned on it as much as I should have. Had I leaned on it more, I would have had more conviction and honestly a better hit rate. And I bring that up because my model doesn't necessarily say this guy played with a freshman quarterback who is absolute trash. Instead, it looks at numbers and metrics that inherently account for those types of things. To some degree, my model is mostly looking at market share numbers, or to put that another way, numbers that get spin out based on the context of a player's team. So a wide receiver's numbers are really being compared to other wide receivers on his team first and foremost, If a player has really insane market share numbers, it tells you that the offense was relying on him heavily and that he was performing well within that offense. And then from there you can compare across offenses because you're not looking at raw numbers. That's really important with college foot more so than the NFL because in college there are more teams and that leads to a lot more variation in how teams are calling plays. You get a wide range of pass rates. So going back to your question, how do we find prospects whose numbers don't pop, Well, it depends on the numbers that you're looking at. Some metrics are a lot more predictive than others. A player's total yards that won't tell you as much about his future in the NFL versus a player's yards per team pass attempt because in one instance, it's just a raw number that can be influenced by how often a team passes. There's no denominator, there's nothing to tell us how often a team was throwing the ball in that offense. With the other, you're giving it context and you're able to more easily compare that number across teams and across players. If a player's numbers don't pop, and if that player doesn't have strong draft capital, then chances are you won't care that much about him. But that's okay. Chance that same player does well in the NFL is pretty small. I say this all the time, but I think it needs to be repeated with a question like this. Productive college players are not automatically productive in the NFL, but productive NFL players were typically productive in college. A player like Terry McLaurin does not happen very often. And even for a guy like McLaurin, there were still pieces to his profile in hindsight that were attractive, and he still had decent enough draft capital. So the overarching answer here is that these numbers are sort of naturally taking these factors into consideration. It's not a flawless process, not even close. But the alternative is not flawless either. That's what sometimes drives me nuts about criticisms towards numbers based scouting. When people hate on it, they don't think about the alternative, and that alternative is watching a player and scouting with your eyes, which I still do for the record, But let's not sit here and pretend that that's a lawless process either. This last question is from at doctor Fantasy Dad. Why are people afraid of drafting Deontay Johnson moving forward when he is going to get a quarterback upgrade? Now, I don't know if this is a thing or not, but if it's a thing, it's a stupid thing. Deontay Johnson did what the Steelers asked of him, and the Steelers over the last two years ran an offense to try to mask two things. Number one, a bad offensive line. Number two and aged a mobile quarterback. Ben Roethlisberger got the ball out quick, and he got it to Deontay Johnson. Just because the Steelers use Johnson in that way doesn't mean he's incapable of being used in any other way. And to be honest, the fact that they want to get Johnson the ball so frequently that's a good sign. Stop making it seem like a bad thing. Targets are earned. Not only do you have to be open to see a target, but if a player is seeing the ball over and over again, it's probably be because he's good, because the team wants him to touch the ball, because he's a playmaker. Johnson over the last two years has averaged a twenty two point two percent and a twenty seven point nine percent target share per game, And the only reason that twenty two percent number is as low as it is is because in twenty twenty he kept leaving games early that lowered his overall rate. Johnson can still get down the field. If you watch any single game from him, you can see that he even had comparable catch rates on fifteen plus air yard throws to Chase Claypole over the last two seasons. I still like both Steelers wide receivers, and if people are downgrading Deontay Johnson specifically because of a quarterback upgrade, thinking that he won't see as many looks at least in terms of target share, I'm gonna buy Deontay Johnson. Then the dude is a stud, and he's been a stud for a couple of seasons now. The last question is from at Arkman. Noah, what is something you wish you had known when you I first started playing Dynasty Fantasy Football that you have learned from experience or research? Man? I love this question. I thought it was the perfect question to end today's show with. I have screwed up and learned so much about Dynasty since I started covering it. I've been playing Dynasty for probably like eight years or so, and I don't think my content shifted to Dynasty until five or six years ago. My first prospect model sucked iterations of that model also sucked. My outlook on Dynasty sucked. It has completely changed over the years. I even did shows for this podcast, for the Late Round podcast that I completely disagree with now. And let me tell you what the single greatest shift was for me, the thing that made me view Dynasty differently. And this happened years ago, but it came down to this, player value is arguably worth more than player production. I remember doing a study on the value of draft picks years and years ago, rookie draft picks, and the study basically said, look, your draft picks, they don't amount to much in terms of production. And that's true when you look at averages. You're one oh three pick in your rookie draft, it's probably not gonna become something super significant in points per game. But what flip for me was that it doesn't always matter. Yes, you need your Dynasty roster to produce, don't get me wrong, But in order to build true Dynasty powerhouse rosters, you need to build value to your roster. You need players who can produce, yes, but you need players who can appreciate in value. That way, you can continuously build that powerhouse, whether it's through trading or utilizing draft picks, because when you do analysis that says this draft pick gives you an average of this type of production, what that type of analysis fails to see is the ceiling. It's looking at averages. So think of it this way. There are only so many true difference makers in fantasy football. Like I'm talking players who are giving you a sincere week in and week out edge. If you trade a singular draft pick for a player, you're likely not going to get a league winning player. No one is trading Jamar Chase for a first round pick. They're getting way more than a first So the cheapest and the easiest way to actually gobble up and obtain those high ceiling players is through the rookie draft. Doing it via trade sort of means that you're buying into that players ceiling, because if the player is already ranked as a top dynasty asset, that there's not much room for him to go. Now. Of course, sometimes your team is in a position to do something like that because you're ready to win. Your team is already stacked. But a mistake that I've sometimes made is buying the players who have shown that they don't have that type of ceiling anymore while giving away that potential or at least the potential player who can actually appreciate in value. So that's easily the top thing that I've learned. Like I said, I didn't learn it like yesterday, but I didn't think that way as much when I first started playing. And for the record, I think episode four hundred and seventy eight really outlines as well. It's an episode I did on how rookies appreciate and value. Just because production may not be there doesn't mean your Dynasty roster isn't getting better. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and no forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week. Everyone really really appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend and I'll talk to you next week.