Rewind: Diving Into Dynasty Leagues

00:00:00
Speaker 1: What's going on? Everyone? JJ here with another Late Round podcast rewind a little while back.

00:00:06
Speaker 2: At an Evergreen show with Dynasty League Football dot COM's Ryan mcdowe, where we talked about Dynasty leagues. We talked about why you should be playing Dynasty fantasy football. Ryan offered up some Dynasty League structures, how to be a better commissioner, and then we dove deep too, where we talked about evaluating trades and rookie picks.

00:00:24
Speaker 1: Now, I did ask Ryan.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: About some value players from the particular draft that was about to happen, which was two years ago. So that may seem strange to hear a couple of years later, but Ryan actually had takes that aged well. Given we were talking about third and fourth round rookie picks, that's an area of rookie drafts that's usually filled with bus. It's just another reason why he was a great guest for this show. Oh and at the end of the episode, you're gonna hear me reference number fires March madness content. I'm just as sad as you are that the tournament's not happening. But remember this episode is two years old. Next year, guys, keep washing your hands, staying at home and we'll beat the tournament in a year. Before I played the interview with Ryan, I just want to send a quick reminder to all of you to check out Racing dot FanDuel dot com for all your horse racing needs while the sports world is on hold.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: I've been letting you know about this for the past week, so I.

00:01:14
Speaker 2: Won't go into a ton of detail, but check it out Racing dot fandel dot com.

00:01:19
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this week's rewind.

00:01:23
Speaker 2: All right, Ryan, let's just kick things off with a pretty basic, high level question. What are the key differences between the typical redraft fantasy football league that most people play in a dynasty league.

00:01:35
Speaker 3: So there's actually quite a few.

00:01:37
Speaker 4: I think the main one that probably most people are aware of is just that you keep players from year to year. So once you add that player onto your team, as long as you want to keep them there on your roster from one year to the next. Of course, you can make trades, make waiver moves, and things like that, but during this time of the year of the off season, they're still on your roster and we're still seeing trades made and things like that. Some of the things are probably the activity level. I think that's one of the negative things I've found in some redraft leagues is once your team starts losing, you lose interest, which is pretty pretty natural, and the league kind of goes downhill quickly. But in dynasty, even if you're losing in that specific season, you still have a long term plan and you're still making moves to win in the long range. So typically I think dynasty players dynasty owners are more active. Strategies change a little bit as well. You see player value become more about age, maybe than what you might see in a redraft league. Younger players, of course, are worth more, and dynasty players see value in those younger players, sometimes more than they should.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: Even so, we still have such a you know, a much larger group of people that are playing a redraft Fantasy football instead of dynasty.

00:03:03
Speaker 1: I hate it. I know that you hate it more than I probably hate it.

00:03:06
Speaker 2: But what do you think are the best kind of selling points for playing in a dynasty league instead of playing in a redraft when I know that you mentioned some, but are there any more that maybe you could could get someone listening to this right now to switch over and play in more in more dynasty formats.

00:03:22
Speaker 4: Well, I always tell people that if the end of the fantasy season or the end of the football season comes and you're you're feeling disappointed, a dynasty.

00:03:31
Speaker 3: League is probably for you.

00:03:33
Speaker 4: You know, if you're sad to see Week sixteen come and go or even the Super Bowl and you probably you probably.

00:03:40
Speaker 3: Want to try a dynasty league.

00:03:42
Speaker 4: But as far as the appeal, I think just kind of that that feeling of running a team, more of that general manager feel, because you are controlling the team again throughout the entire year, not just for a few months during the football season. You're making draft picks and trying to improve your team, things like that, And I think a lot of times dynasty is compared to playing Madden Football that we all did growing up and that franchise mode.

00:04:14
Speaker 3: That again, it's the long term, and I.

00:04:17
Speaker 4: Know a lot of people I would always just sim through the season to get to the all.

00:04:21
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, same. I loved it. I love doing the fantasy drafts and Madden.

00:04:26
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.

00:04:27
Speaker 4: So that's I think that's kind of similar to some of the good parts of playing in a dynasty league.

00:04:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:04:34
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So you Ryan, you play so many leagues, what is your kind of ideal dynasty league look like. I know that a lot of people, including myself, we all have preferences in terms of whether you like PPR half PPR. But not only that, but you know, super flex, how many teams are in the league, how.

00:04:48
Speaker 1: Big the rosters are.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: I think that's more specific of a dynasty question rather than a redraft one, per se, what does your ideal dynasty league look like?

00:04:56
Speaker 4: So about five years ago, I came up with an idea for a league. I called it Kitchen Sinc. Because it basically took all of these features, some of the ones that you already mentioned that we're in some of my existing leagues, and just put them all together and it has really grown to be my favorite format, my favorite league type. But the kitchen Zinc leagues, and there's some others that are similar to this as well, but they are contract leagues, auctions DEVI, which is short for developmental, basically meaning we're drafting college players before they even get to the NFL in some debbie leaguer even drafting high school players.

00:05:41
Speaker 3: Also super flex.

00:05:42
Speaker 4: Like you mentioned, and just a balance scoring, trying to swing away from the wide receiver heavy approach, which just having super flex having some tight end premium does that a little bit?

00:05:53
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:05:53
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So you already mentioned Kitchen Sync.

00:05:55
Speaker 2: You know, you commission a ton of dynasty leagues for someone listening who wants to start up a league, and hopefully we inspire some folks to do so after listening to this episode. But what do you think makes a good league commissioner? I know that your reputation is that you are the best league commissioner, Ryan, So what are some things that you do to make the game overall more enjoyable.

00:06:14
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know about that. That's that's high praise. I appreciate it. Scottfish is pretty good himself. We don't want to we don't want to knock Scott, but yes, I think you have to be organized. I kind of feel I feel like I'm unorganized in every other facet of my life, but when it comes to fantasy football and running these leagues, I think you have to be organized. Again, talking about the Kitchen Sink League, I try to be creative with the format of the league.

00:06:43
Speaker 3: It's pretty easy.

00:06:44
Speaker 4: For most fantasy players, most dynasty players to go out and find just a basic league, So I want mine to to be different. In some way, being flexible, being responsive to the players in your league. You know, things come up and people get frustrated, and you just have to respond quickly and make the best choice for the league.

00:07:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk more and focus our attention more on kind of the strategy of dynasty and the league management or team management of dynasty. There's more trading that goes down in a dynasty league than a typical redraft one, which you mentioned at the top, and oftentimes those deals then involve rookie picks. We do see draft pick trading and redraft leagues, but it's not the same as what we see in a dynasty league. So I want to ask you, what's your process for rookie pick valuation? You know, how do you compare pieces who are already established, so a player that's in the NFL right now versus a draft slot of a player who hasn't even played a snap in the NFL.

00:07:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a really challenging piece to me, especially when you're talking about trading picks that are not just current draft picks, like we might be talking about these twenty eighteen picks that are coming up in the next couple months.

00:07:57
Speaker 3: But I got a trade proposal the other day that involved a.

00:08:01
Speaker 4: Draft pick from twenty twenty, which, yeah, just kind of just kind of shook.

00:08:06
Speaker 3: Me a little bit that they are. That's where we are.

00:08:10
Speaker 4: Typically for me, I don't like to trade away my future picks again talking about twenty nineteen or even twenty twenty, because those picks are only going to gain value. So typically I'm trying to trade for more picks, especially second and third rounders. A lot of times you'll find people willing just to throw those in to get a deal done. But the closer we get to those drafts, and obviously we're over a year from from those drafts at this point, but the closer you get to drafts in general, the more valuable those picks are going to be. So you can make a profit in that way pretty easily.

00:08:47
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So it's almost like the old saying that money now is better than money later.

00:08:52
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, exactly.

00:08:53
Speaker 2: So when it comes to a rookie draft, then what's the best way, in your in your opinion, to determine draft order? You know, is it always or do you typically just play in leagues where the worst teams get the top pick the following year do you usually go with the wrap around approach or do you restart the second round with the top of the draft. How do you typically go about that?

00:09:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess I'm probably pretty old school with this one. I just go worse to first. The league champion picks last, regardless of his of the record or standing during the season. And one thing I do like to do is the teams that don't make the playoffs, we do it a toilet bowl, which is again pretty common in dynasty league.

00:09:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, a loser bracket if you want to call it that. But then the winner of.

00:09:39
Speaker 4: That loser bracket gets an extra first round pick, So in our twelve team leagues, that becomes the one point thirteen pick, kind of a supplemental pick, something to play for for those teams. But the rest of the order, Yeah, just pretty standard is what I prefer. A lot of people try to mix that up with potential points, basing things on or something like that.

00:10:01
Speaker 3: There's lots of ways to do it.

00:10:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:10:03
Speaker 2: So, since we're talking about rookies, and since you're playing in DeBie leagues, what are some of the things that you're looking for personally when you're evaluating rookie running backs and wide receivers, the two most important positions in fantasy football.

00:10:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough for me.

00:10:15
Speaker 4: I really feel like kind of my wheelhouse is player value and not necessarily the scouting side of things. Of course, I can I can watch games and decide if I like a player or if I think a player is you know, is.

00:10:30
Speaker 3: Good at football hashtag.

00:10:31
Speaker 4: But as far as the scouting piece, I'm really relying on on people I trust more for that, including you and Russell Clay Waldman and Grand Barfield and Matt Harmon, you know, all these guys that are putting out great content this time of year.

00:10:47
Speaker 3: I'm just learning from you guys.

00:10:49
Speaker 2: So would you say then that you're taking that information and you're better applying than information, because I think that's that's the one aspect of fantasy football and dynasty obviously as well Readravet Dan Dynasty that kind of goes overlooked where where it's not just about you know, honing in on a process to pick the right players, but understanding how to kind of take the information that you're reading and find inefficiencies and value that way.

00:11:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.

00:11:15
Speaker 4: And again I'm not starting from scratch, sure, sure of course I've got I've got some some opinions and some takes on on these players, of course, and then adding in what what again, these these trusted resources say can can adjust my my uh, I guess my valuation of that player. And and again it comes back to that kind of knowing the the market and the value of what we what we've seen from rookies last year, rookies the year before, how their value is going to change throughout their first couple of years in the league.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's definitely the knowing the market piece is so much more important in dynasty as well, just given the fact that in redraft you're really just worried about how people are looking at guys obviously just that season, but you're only worried about one draft, right, But dynasty things can fluctuate so much. And I know that you are constantly tweeting out ADP information for dynasty leagues, super helpful for most for folks who are playing dynasty leagues, and that's a great resource for people to kind of get a gauge of those market efficiencies and inefficiencies.

00:12:17
Speaker 1: But I have to.

00:12:18
Speaker 2: Ask you too, Ryan, since we're talking about running backs or talking about rookies here rather, who's your favorite value rookie running back and wide receiver as of today?

00:12:27
Speaker 1: Obviously things can change.

00:12:28
Speaker 2: This is early March, we're not even close to the NFL Draft, but you know we're post combined now.

00:12:35
Speaker 1: So who are your guys?

00:12:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's quite a few.

00:12:38
Speaker 4: I think this class is just so deep, maybe even deeper than what we saw last year, with talented, talented players that are going to make an impact in Dynasty at some point, maybe not this year, and again it doesn't have to be. I have been running some rookie mock drafts as well to gain some rookie ADP, and some of these players that are falling outside of the first two rounds, first two and a half rounds, I'm really surprised.

00:13:05
Speaker 3: I'm going to cheat a little. I've got two at each position that I like.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: That's perfect.

00:13:09
Speaker 4: Nahem Hines, one of your guys from your area over there at NC State. I think he's a player that can just come in and have a role immediately as that third down pass catcher type running back. His ADP right now is thirty in rookie drafts, so you're talking about the middle of the third round justin Jackson is the Northwestern running back. He just had a ton of carries throughout his college career, some heavy usage there, so he may be one of those guys in dynasty. I'm going to try to draft him in the third or fourth round. I expect him to contribute immediately as well, but then I may look to sell him. Maybe not a long term guy there with Jackson. He's thirty three is his ADP, So again that mid to late third round portion, portion of the third round. Wide receiver Dashawn Hamilton, Penn State guy.

00:13:59
Speaker 3: Nice, Yeah, forty one is his ADP.

00:14:01
Speaker 4: That just feels like stealing to me. I think he probably probably got overshadowed by Barkley. And we even saw the tight end Mike get sick. He just tear it up. So Hamilton's probably still going to be undervalued a little bit. And then the last one I would look at is Antonio Callaway, Florida wide receiver. Maybe we should say former Florida wide receiver had the off field troubled and didn't play this past season at all, so lots of red flags there, but he tore up the combine as well. I think he's a late draft pick both in the NFL and in dynasty.

00:14:34
Speaker 2: Drafts, are you generally down on this rookie wide receiver class and more, you know, just generally higher on the on the running back class.

00:14:42
Speaker 4: I think you have to be this year just you know, just with Barkley and guys and Chubb and Penny and you know, it goes on and on, and that's why. So it's just the trends we're going to see. We saw wide receiver dominate for what for three or four years at least, and now running backs are by which I'm glad to see. I've kind of become known as a running back hater because I suggested basically punting on running backs in dynasty startups a few years ago.

00:15:11
Speaker 3: But to me, that was the play because the talent just wasn't there. Now the talent is back.

00:15:15
Speaker 2: So I have an interesting question about dynasty strategy because unlike redraft leagues, where in redraft you're basically your strategy is looking more so at positional value and maybe taking a quarterback early, taking one late, or going zero r B. Obviously those same principles can apply to dynasty leagues, but there's obviously a larger difference as well, just because you're looking at the long term and you're looking at you know, three years, four years, five years down the line. One strategy, for example, that a lot of owners may do is tanking in year one in order to build that young group, that young core group of players, all while gobbling.

00:15:53
Speaker 1: Up future draft picks.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: They're really just looking for youth and they're trying to get those future picks.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: In order to win, say in year three.

00:16:02
Speaker 2: Have you found that to be successful at all, or you know, what's your usual approach when you're going into a startup.

00:16:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, that describes my strategy pretty well. I wrote an article four years ago for DLF and I called that strategy productive struggle, which is actually an education term. I'm a teacher in my for my day job, and the idea behind that is you're going to struggle in year one and almost almost intentionally struggle, but you know that productive piece is coming, the production is coming. At least that's the plan, and obviously it doesn't work out every time. If it did, everybody would do that. But banking on those young players acquiring extra draft picks, extra rookie draft picks in future years, moving down in the draft and taking a shot on some of those players who they're value may be low now, but you expect it to bounce back or you expect it to increase. In general, that's essentially the idea behind productive struggle, and I've tried that several times.

00:17:13
Speaker 3: It's worked really well.

00:17:14
Speaker 4: In some cases, I've won some championships in the second year of the league after after being you know, last place or second to last place in year one, and in other in other cases it's taken two or three years. But to me, that's that's just kind of the fun piece. Try to build it almost from scratch and get those young players that are exciting to own and have that high upside.

00:17:41
Speaker 1: Do you find that approach to just be riskier overall?

00:17:44
Speaker 3: It probably is.

00:17:45
Speaker 4: Yeah. You know, if you're if you're drafting basically, if you're drafting a dynasty draft with a redraft mentality, and you're taking Tom Brady and Larry Fitzgerald, and you know, these veterans that may not have many years left in their career, You're going to be building from scratch in a year, in a year or two and starting fresh. So it's just kind of of a different way to view it. Obviously, we've seen we've seen every type of strategy be successful.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. You know there.

00:18:16
Speaker 2: Like I've said earlier, you know, there's a lot of people listening to this podcast that haven't touched a dynasty league before. So to you, Ryan, what's the one piece of advice that every new Dynasty league player should know?

00:18:27
Speaker 4: I think you have to understand the player value because it is it is so different from redraft or even keeper leagues. If I think that's kind of the gateway to dynasty for a lot of people is they'll play in a one or two keeper league, but dynasty value is so different, both with your veterans being devalued your young players seeing much greater value.

00:18:50
Speaker 3: You already mentioned the ADP that I managed for DLF.

00:18:54
Speaker 4: I think you know, I would suggest that is a place to start, just to get an idea of how to value these players compared to one another.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:19:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So last question really quick before I let you go, Ryan, where's the best place for listeners to find dynasty leagues. That's one of the questions that people keep asking me and emailing me in about is just they want to participate in these dynasty leagues and they love the idea of them it's just that their friends and their redraft leagues maybe aren't as into managing teams in this way because they're not as big of the generates as we are. What's the best way for people to find these leagues?

00:19:29
Speaker 4: Well years ago before really before I was even on Twitter or anything like that, I found leagues at the forums at Football Guys, at the forums at Dynasty League Football. So I still suggest both of those spots as places to go. And then if you're active in the fantasy football community on Twitter, you'll see leagues forming almost every day, or people looking for owners, looking for someone to take over an orphan.

00:19:55
Speaker 3: Team or to fill out that last spot.

00:19:57
Speaker 4: In their new dynasty league. So I think think between those three options, Football Guys, DLF, the forums there, and then on Twitter, that's where I would start.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for hopping on and dropping some knowledge.

00:20:08
Speaker 3: Ryan.

00:20:08
Speaker 2: If you guys aren't following Ryan on Twitter, his handle is at Ryan MC twenty three and you can find his work over at Dynasty League Football dot com. And don't forget about the Dynasty Command Center, which you can find on Twitter at Dynasty Command. It's a great resource for dynasty football help. You can find me on Twitter as well at Late Round QB and this week, guys, definitely go check out number fire dot com because we're pushing out a ton of awesome March Madness content that will undoubtedly help you win your office pool. Thanks for listening, everyone, and I'll catch you on Friday with this week's Mailbag episode.