611: Mailbag 1/28/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha. JJ zacher reeson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachareson, the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com in this episode six hundred and eleven of the Late Round podcast. On many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network, Thanks for tuning in. The World Fantasy Basketball Championship is scheduled to take place on March thirteenth, which means there's still plenty of time for you to qualify for the live final. To get in on the action, enter your best nine man NBA lineup into a WFBBC qualifier and finish in first place. Each finalist VIP package includes a trip for two to New Orleans, two luxury box game tickets to the Hornets Pelicans game on March eleventh, VIP entry to a special fan event, and so much more. The live final will be here before you know it, so head tofandle dot com slash WFBBC today and compete for your chance to party by the Bayou Building. Restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the Fandle app for more details. It's a mailbag show. Today, Let's get to it. The first question this week is from at Cooper Underscore DFF and all it says is when draft Gabe Davis. So this has been a hot topic on Fantasy football Twitter all week long. How should we be valuing Gabriel Davis. I think it's a little bit too early for redraft talk, so I'll just stick with dynasty with his answer. And this answer is going to be a long winded one because I want you guys to hear how I incorporate my model with this kind of thing, and it's a model that I want to rely on more this offseason. Talking through a player's journey is how I go about evaluating these things. With Davis, he entered the league as a non stud prospect. He got picked one and twenty eighth overall. My model had him as a sixtieth percentile wide receiver exiting that draft, despite the fact that this breakout age was fine, his size was fine, and he was in early declare I'm actually a little bit of the model didn't like him more than that. But regardless, his hit rate is a sixtieth percentile wide receiver prospect. Not great. In fact, I can tell you how not great it is. My prospect model is focused on how a player performs across his first three years in the league. The data point that it's focused on is the average points per game of a player's top two seasons across his first three years in the NFL. So if a player scored ten, eleven and twelve p PIERO points per game across his first three years, then the model is only concerned about the eleven and twelve number. Throw away that ten, so it's looking at eleven point five because the average of eleven and twelve is eleven and a half. It uses historical data to help predict what's going to happen during a player's two year maximum, so hopefully that makes sense. Now, I've bucketed players by percentile to give you a little historical probability chart. I haven't published this chart, but just pretend that it exists, because it does. From twenty eleven through twenty nineteen, there have been twenty one wide receivers in my database who ranked in the sixtieth to sixty fifth percentile. Of those twenty one, only one of them had a two year average above ten PPR points per game. And again, I'm going to publish these charts. Eventually that one player was Terry McLaurin, a guy that my model did not like a whole lot. The year two model liked him, but not the prospect model. His college production profile was just not good. But I've talked a lot about McLaurin over the last couple of years and why the model didn't like him that much, and that's irrelevant here. What is relevant here is one player out of twenty one that's not a good hit rate. But to make this even more consumable and easier to understand, even though this isn't what the model is looking at, I also like looking at best season pper points per game across a player's first three seasons, so the maximum points per game season that a player has over his first three years in the league. So again we have a sample of twenty one within this percentile grouping. Of those twenty one, only three of them were able to hit one season with a points per game average above ten, and only one was able to hit a points per game average above twelve, which again was Terry McLaurin. So strictly looking at the prospect model, things are not looking great for Gabriel Davis But let's take this a step further. If you look at the year two model, Davis's percentile rank jumpsed almost the eightieth percentile. He's at seventy nine point six percent. And for those of you who didn't listen to last week's mailbag episode, the year two model looks at how a player performed in year one and then it incorporates that into his prospect score to try to predict how he's going to do in years two and three. So Davis ends up taking a huge jump after year one, and that's something that we don't see that often from a prospect like him. In fact, since twenty eleven, Davis's year one to year two jump among players ranked in the fiftieth percentile or better is fifth highest in my database. Only Martavis Bryant, Terry McLaurin, Amen Ros Saint Brown, who I'll talk about in a second, and Denarius Moore saw bigger year one to year two jump in percentile ranking. And some of the players right after Gabriel Davis in that top ten includes Darnell Mooney and t Y Hilton. Now, the cool part is that I can run through the exact same exercise with the year two model, as I did the prospect model. Remember the year two model looks at the best season across a player's second and third year in the league. And also remember Davis was a seventy ninth eightieth percentile wide receiver in that model, after being a sixtieth percentile one in the prospect model. And if you look at how a player like that has done historically, it's really not that bad. Now, part of the problem is that Davis is right on the fringe of where I bucket these players, because technically he's in the seventy fifth to eightieth percentile, but he's so close to that eightieth percentile mark. So I'll let you know what happens the players in the eightieth to eighty fifth percentile, as well as a seventy fifth to eightieth in the seventy fifth to eightieth percentile grouping. And again this is for the year two model. Eighteen percent of wide receivers in that group had one season of fourteen or more PPR points in either year two or year three. When you look at the percentile group ahead of that, or the eightieth to eighty fifth percentile group, that number jumps to thirty percent and in that same eightieth to eighty fifth percentile group, one quarter of the players hit sixteen or more PPR points per game in either year two or year three. For reference, a sixteen plus point per game season is a fringe wide receiver one season or a low end wide receiver one high end wide receiver two. What that means is that if you can bine those two percentile buckets, you'd probably expect Davis to have maybe a ten to fifteen percent chance to give you a low end wide receiver one or high end wide receiver two season and year two or three. Clearly, that did not happen in year two, and the odds are obviously stacked against him, but the odds are stacked against most players that you would also be getting for Gabriel Davis. So yes, he'd have to be someone of an outlier with my prospect model for him to hit. There's no doubt. But I think that you could argue that he's already trending to be an outlier because of his jump from year one to year two, and then look at what's going in his favor. He did what he did down the stretch for the Bills, and they finally gave him more looks he did what he did against Kansas City. He's tied to an elite quarterback, and it's logical to think that he's going to enter the twenty twenty two season as a starter, even though the original chance of him being a great Fantasy football wide receiver is not very high based on my model. We have to adjust our initial thoughts on players with new information, and every piece of information that we're getting with Gabriel Davis is that he's probably pretty good. I actually have met wide receiver thirty four in my Dynasty rankings right now. That may be higher than what the consensus is saying. I don't know. We don't really know what consensus is thinking right now because all of this is really fresh. But I'm willing to trade players who have established ceilings or maybe on the wrong side of the age curve for Gabriel Davis right now because his journey has revealed that he's a pretty good player, and if he doesn't pan out, it's not the end of the world. In a lot of cases, you're not having to spend a fortune to get Gabe Davis. I mean, in some cases you are, don't get me wrong. Some people are definitely overspending, But my overall point is that just because he wasn't highly sought after coming out of school doesn't mean we should simply hold onto those priors with this new information that's come our way. This next question is from at Walk Underscore of Underscore Shane, and it says how early is too early to draft Amen Ross Saint Brown next year? So I figured i'd take this question next because the prospect model talk is top of mind. Amen Ross Saint Brown was a better prospect in my model than Gabriel Davis. He entered the league with about a seventy second percentile prospect score, and as I alluded to just now, with Gabriel Davis, Aman Ross Saint Brown saw one of the biggest jumps from the prospect model to the year two models. Since twenty eleven. Saint Brown now has a year two percentile rank in the ninety first percentile, almost the ninety second percentile. Year two players historically with that percentile score have done pretty well, But admittedly there's not a massive massive difference between a score like that and a score in the low eighties. But if you look at players who ranked in the eighty fifth to ninety fifth percentiles in the year two model, you can paint a picture for Saint Brown. Since twenty eleven and through twenty nineteen, we've got thirty eight wide receivers in that cluster. Of those thirty eight, five of them gave you one season in either year two or year three with a PPR points per game average of eighteen or more. So thirteen percent of those players gave you a very very very solid mid range wide receiver one season during their second or third year in the league, if not a higher end wide receiver one. That number doubles when looking at sixteen or more PPR points, and it's thirty seven percent when looking at fourteen or more PPR points per game. And for the record, any player in this model that scores better than the ninety fifth percentile is in really, really, really good shape. I'm talking Jamar Chase, Jalen Waddle, Davonte Smith, and my guy Elijah Moore. I think Saint Brown is in a pretty good spot. I do have my concerns about what his true ceiling really is, which is sort of a concern that I had when he was coming out. He was always a solid enough prospect, though I think The worry with him is what happens if the Lions have everyone healthy and add more competitive players to that offense. Targets are earned, yes, but if there's a ton of good competition, target shares can drop. Now. It's tough to answer where Saint Brown should go next season because I haven't done season long rankings yet for twenty twenty two. But in Dynasty, where I have done rankings, I've got Saint Brown in a tier above Gabriel Davis at wide receiver thirty. When looking at his year one to year two model comps, there are definitely guys who did not pan out, Don't get me wrong, but t Y Hilton and Stefan Diggs went through a very similar journey in my models. I'm not saying they're stylistically like Saint Brown, just that their stat scores are pretty similar from year one to year two and the jumps that they made. I can definitely see the allure, But I'm likely just gonna be at market value as Saint Brown. It's not a strong take, but it's the truth. This last questions from at Justin White VA of the upcoming free agent running backs Ronald Jones, Chad Penny, Chase Edmonds coming off of their rookie contracts, which ones was your model high on coming out of college. I'm getting too old to trust my memory, maybe giving hope for what could be in new scenery. So we're really talking about the twenty eighteen draft class here, since those players have their rookie contracts coming up unless they got a new deal. But in that class, we had a lot of good running backs. Saquon Barkley is the standard in my model because he was an absolute freak coming out and then he was selected second overall, but he's not a free agent. You mentioned Rashad Penny, and that's someone that my model loved. Penny was a very good prospect according to the model. Clearly it didn't hit for him until the final games of this past season, but he's incredibly intriguing. To give you some perspective, Penny had almost a ninety eighth percentile rating in my model coming out. Since twenty eleven and through twenty nineteen, we've had fourteen running backs at at least a ninety fifth percentile mark. Of those fourteen, six of them gave us a season with twenty or more PPR points During their first three years in the league. That's essentially a top five season. Eight of them gave us a season with sixteen or more points. He just happened to be a bust among a lot of non busts. But most running backs who are trying to get new contracts, I want guys who can catch passes because they're the most likely to see work for a longer period of time or more consistent work. So I'm not really that interested in Ronald Jones right now. I've never been interested in Ronald Jones. But Chase Edmonds, that's someone who I might watch, just pay close attention to that side of a running backs game as he moves through his career. This has questions from at ABQ Joe Underscore are Your recent show on missus got me thinking if you've ever done a meta analysis, i e. How did this year's mistakes compared to previous years? Do you find you still make the same mistake despite your intentions? Do you review past year's mistakes. I do make the same mistakes, but they're often results based, Like with Damien Harris. I'm fine with missing on a player like Damian Harris who had so many things go his way this year, but still finishes an RB two. I will almost never buy into a running back who was a very little pass catching ceiling Derrick Henry aside, because even in their best case scenario, they're still not league winning players. So I've missed on players like that in the past, and some of you might be saying, well, JJ, maybe it's a blind spot in your process, but I don't think it is, because while I'm gonna miss on those players, I also nail all of the players that people are buying into that only have two down upside. I avoided Ronald Jones for years and it largely paid off. That's just an example of that. So I would say that I make repeatable mistakes, yes, but I would also say that maybe like ninety percent of those mistakes, if I were to put a figure on it, are more results based than anything else. And I'm cool with that. The things that I get wrong that I actually get angry about are the ones that are clearly foreseeable and I was just stupid in the moment. All Right, we only have one more question this week. I dug deep on the questions that I did get because I thought it was more interesting that way, But this last question is from at Casey Underscore Riggan, can you explain why so many preseason slash draft rankings have the player that finished one for their draft position ranked as one for their position the following year. Outside of tight end, repeat number one finishes happened so rarely, so isn't it more likely that someone else in that top ten finishes number one overall? So, first off, we obviously can't just assume that all rankings take the top player from one year and make them the top player the next. It definitely happens, but it's not all the time. But you're right, it's unlikely that a player repeats as the top performer at his position over year. But that happens because it's really hard for a player to finish at the top of his position. Like let's say that someone has Jonathan Taylor as their RB one next year. He was the RB one in twenty twenty one. Are you not going to rank him as the RB one solely because of that reason? Okay, let's say that you don't rank him as the RB one, Then who do you put in his spot? Christian McCaffrey. Okay, that's valid. CMC obviously has that ceiling. But now you're drafting CMC over Taylor just because you think CMC has better odds to finish first overall, But does he actually have better odds to finish first overall? It's just really hard to finish first overall to begin with. Part of the reason that there's change with the top spot at each position is because in order for a player to be that good in fantasy football one year, he likely had to have at least somewhat of an outlier season. But if you have a player who has more repeatable peripherals, then it still makes sense to have him at the top of your rankings list. This isn't a game of who's gonna finish first overall. It's a game with probability. So let's look at it through a probability driven lens. And this is just an example. This is not how I actually feel about these players, but I think it drives home the point. Let's say there's a zero percent chance that Jonathan Taylor finishes next season as the RB one overall. But let's also say that there's a one hundred percent chance that he finishes as the RB three. Now let's say that Christian McCaffrey has a fifty percent chance to finish as the RB one, but he also has a fifty percent chance to finish as the RB twenty. Christian McCaffrey has better odds of being the RB one in fantasy football. Based on your question, you then think that he'd be more deserving of being ranked as the RB one in fantasy football, but clearly he wouldn't be the better pick because you know that Taylor is giving you an RB three performance from an expected outcome standpoint, McCaffrey is not better, and from an expected outcome standpoint, chances are when you looked across the running back lands, Jonathan Taylor would still be your RB one even though his odds are finishing as the RB one, those odds are zero in this scenario. This is all about probability. That's going to do 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 to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I really really appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend