535: Mailbag 8/20/21

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyas and the editor in chief at fandel and at Number five dot com. In this episode five hundred and thirty five of the Late Round podcast may shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. I would say that of all the things that I talked about this offseason, the one thing that seemed to be most interesting to people is the ambiguous RB one theory. Even this week when I ask for mailbag questions on Twitter, a lot of them focused on the theory. For those of you who didn't listen to the Breakout running Back episode last month, and for those who didn't see the article that I published on Number five right after, let me give you a quicker rundown. I looked at a bunch of different criteria that we should look for when spotting breakout running backs. For example, you should target past catching backs in the middle of the late rounds when looking for players who can far exceed ADP expectation. And there's math and there's reasoning to why that episode lays it out. It's episode five hundred and twenty four. Now, the ambiguous RB one theory sort of spawned from that study. What I noticed was, in general, team RB ones by ADP they were breaking out an exceeding expectation at a much higher rate than team RB twos and by team RB one's. I'm talking about running backs who were the first running backs selected from their team by ADP. So Kareem Hunt, for example, he's a Team RB two. Nick Chubb is being drafted ahead of them. Michael Carter is a Team RB one. He's the first Jets running back off draft boards. Historically, in the middle in the late rounds, team RB ones have fared much better than team RB twos. But what was really interesting about the data was that team RB ones in the middle rounds who also had their Team RB twos get drafted in the middle rounds with them, they panned out at a really high rate. This is what the ambiguous RB one theory is all about. The ambiguous RB one theory states that when you're looking for ambiguous backfields to target, you should be attacking middle round team RB ones who have teammates who are also being selected in the middle rounds. There's math that backs us up. I'm not going to rehash that today. If you want to read about the ambiguous RB one theory, search for it on Google and you'll find the article. What I'm finding is that people aren't totally applying this the way that it was intended. I've had multiple people message me saying, JJ, I got Zach Moss. He fits the ambiguous RB one theory, but Zack Moss doesn't. Now. Moss is a good target this year in my opinion, for a lot of reasons, one of those being that he's the RB one by ADP on his own team, but he doesn't fit the ambiguous RB one theory because Devin Singletary, his teammate, isn't being selected in the middle rounds with him. The same goes for Miles Gaskin. Multiple people ask me this week, does Miles Gaskin fit the ambiguous RB one theory now because his ADP is likely going to drop And the answer to that is no, not unless Malcolm Brown's rises into the single digit rounds, and that's highly unlikely. Now. I said it before and I'll say it again. There's likely some noise in the ambiguos RB one theory data. The sample size of teammate running backs being selected in the middle rounds over the last ten years is not very significant, and things have almost been too good to be true. We have to be open minded about that. But at the very least we know team RB ones are better than team RB twos. We at least have that baseline, and we have a pretty large sample size to be confident in it. The other thing to note here is something I talked about in last week's mailbag. ADP data is going to vary more and more this year than in year's past because there are a lot of places gathering ADP data these days, and each places a different demographic of drafters. I'm going to continue utilizing the same my fantasy league data that I've used for other studies. I've gathered only August redraft leagues over the last ten years for these studies, and looking through that lens right now, the true ambiguous RB one theory running backs they look to be Javonte Williams, Chase Edmonds, Trey Sermon, and actually Leonard Fournette. Traves Etn's ADP has show above pick sixty, though I still like them a lot, considering the theory still generally holds true with running backs in the dead Zone as well. I talked about that on the Mailbag episode after the running Back Breakout show. But those other guys are the ones who really seem to fit that basic criteria, and we have to remember that this is not a guaranteed way to find a breakout. We're still working with pretty low rates because breakouts don't happen all that often. But I feel confident that working through the criteria that I laid out and by being aware of the ambiguous RB one theory, you can increase your odds of hitting on a player. I just wanted to clarify things here because I've seen people talking about this on Twitter. I saw it on Reddit this week. It's on me then to make things as clear as possible. If people aren't fully understanding what I'm saying, it's on me to be a better messenger. I need to be clearer. So hopefully all this helps to make it clearer. Now, before we get into the questions. This week, Baseball Fans Fandal is giving you an exclusive way to get in on the action with the MLB Single Entries series, presented by Rodo Grinders. Each week, enter a featured single Entry Series contest to win cash, compete for a seat in the forty thousand dollars online final. Just play daily and FANDO will add your four highest point totals together to get your combined score and rank for the week. Head over to fandle and enter the MLB Single Entry Series today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Head over to fandle dot com or download the Fandle app for more details. The first question this week is from at Greg H. Lewis, Hey, JJ, love the show. Thanks. What parts of preseason are worth paying attention to? Is there any correlation between preseason usage and in season production? Thanks? So, I should first say that I don't think you want to go all in on things like preseason snaps, Like if a dude that you like isn't playing with the first team, don't just totally totally panic. But there is information that we can gather from the preseason, specifically from backfields. Miami is a good example of that. This past weekend, we sew them utilize Malcolm Brown a lot on early day, even on passing downs with the first team. He was honestly the one a in that backfield. He played more first team snaps than any other back. Is that because they like him more than Miles Gaskin. Maybe maybe not. I thought Gaskin looked better than Brown in that game. But the fact that we're seeing a split backfield like that connected to the fact that Gaskin isn't a high draft capital back. He's not a player that a team's gonna feel tied to. I think all of that is something right, Like, there's something to that Naji Harri is playing constantly with the first team, That's something. Don't let that usage cloud your player evaluation or your situation evaluation. But I don't think first team snaps are meaningless in the preseason. Pay attention to how that unfolds, and sometimes it will make you feel slightly different about a player or two. This last question is an email and says, hey, JJ, big fan from Brazil, and yes you have a lot of fans in Brazil. What's up Brazil? The question I have a late rookie draft next weekend. What has changed in your original rookie run published after the NFL Draft? Who rises and who falls? Any updates? Thanks? Renault Santos So I've gotten a few questions this week about my rookie rankings. And honestly, I'd say not a ton has changed. I was already pretty bullish and Elijah Moore, I still am same with Terras Marshall, and I might be into Rondell Moore a little bit more than I was after the NFL Draft, And then on the flip side, it's tough to be into Cadarius Tony right now, just given the way that he started his career there in New York. I think I had him in a similar tier with like D'ami Brown and Nico Collins, but I'd probably go with them over Canarius Tony at this point, at least Dami Brown, who I think is very very good. Aside from that, not a lot has changed. You guys can still use those rookie rankings from after the NFL Draft. This last question from at FPL Mahomes. Haven't heard a lot of superflex talk on the pod recently. With the quarterback landscape changing pretty drastically over the past year or so, has your strategy changed much in the early rounds. Yeah, I haven't talked a lot about superflex this offseason because I've talked a lot about single quarterback league strategy and how the quarterback position is changing there. But yes, because it's changing in single quarterback leagues, it's naturally changing in superflex two. Like I've been saying, until we get enough quarterbacks to where literally ten to twelve of them have true QB one upside a true QB one ceiling with their rushing, then the players who are separating themselves with their mobility are likely going to give you an edge. I do think we're bound to see a little bit of regression with passing numbers this year, and we may see the difference between one quarterback to the next and fantasy points scored that might shrink a little bit. But I'm still expecting this quarterback market to be pretty efficient, which means it makes sense to spend up more than you typically would, And by typically, i'm talking about how we would spend in twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen. A lot of the same ideas and principles do still apply. I did a giant Superflex study a while back on episode one hundred and thirty nine, and a lot of the ideas in that episode are still valid. But if you can bind the ideas from that episode with what's happening right now, I think it calls for more of an anchor QB approach in these formats, where you get a stud if you're able to, and if you do that, you get your anchor, and you can wait a little bit longer than others might wait, because at the end of the day, the difference makers are what we care about, and if the market is efficient, which I think it generally is, maybe aside from the guys that I talked about in the Players to Target episode, but if the market is efficient, then those elite quarterbacks are the ones that you only need to care about. A lot of the QB twos in fantasy football are going to be interchangeable in rank, like a Matt Ryan or Kirk Cousins, so you can try to extract value with QB twos by drafting at the bottom of those tiers, and those tiers are pretty massive. There are a lot of players who could finish as like the QB fourteen this year, So that's my approach in those leagues here in twenty twenty one, I'm still taking CMC over Patrick Mahomes in the one oh one spot of my superflex drafts, but I think you can get an elite guy in the first or second round and then use that as your anchor for the rest of your draft. That way, you're not constantly playing catch up at the quarterback position. So hopefully that makes sense. I could do like three episodes on this topic, but I tried to make that as logical and straightforward as possible, so if you're drafting this weekend, you can implement some of this discussion. This last question is from at Nathan Tyke, giving your recent study on rookie quarterbacks only supporting one pass catcher. Our San Francisco pass catcher is going to burn people this year when Trey Lance takes over. Either Kittle is going to bust, which hurts his high ADP or Ayuk isn't going to take the second year leap, which would break dynasty. Yeah. Look, this is something I've talked about periodically on this show throughout the offseason or since I did that study. I'm lower on Kittle than the consensus this year for this very reason, and I'm slightly lower on Brandon Ayuk because of it too. I'm not fading them or avoiding them like some of the players that I talked about earlier this week, but there's definite concern and maybe Trey Lance is that good. I hope he's that good. The thing is, I'm sort of hedging all of that by just drafting Trey Lance himself, because with Lance, we know the rushing is going to be there, and we know the ceiling is there. Because of that, if he somehow puts together a season where there's more passing volume than we expect and there's this really high passing efficiency, I'll still benefit. I have Trey Lance. I'm still capturing the awesome pass catchers in San Francisco with Trey Lance. Ayuk in particular has really risen in leagues. I saw that he's now going ahead of the Steelers wide receivers T Higgins, Miles Sanders, Traves, ytn Adam Thielen. That's a pretty big opportunity cost. I love him as a player, but much more from a dynasty perspective. With the forty nine Ers having such a good schedule, a mobile quarterback and a rookie quarterback at least more than likely, there's a lot of downside to the situation itself. There's not that much volume that could come his way. Long term. I think he's gonna be great. Short term. I still think he's gonna be fine, and it's always risky to be slightly underweight to good players in redraft, but there are a lot of good players being drafted around Brandon Ayuk as well, So yes, I think this concern is very valid. One of the two pass catchers can definitely emerge, but it's very possible that they both are pretty good but not really good, and that's just because of their overall situation and what we've seen historically, So don't fade them, just temper expectations. This next question is from at Mountain Man MT. We've all heard of the running back dead zone. Does a similar dead zone exist for tight ends? It seems like middle round tight ends rarely meet expectations. Makes me wary of Howkinson, Andrews and Pitts. So it's true that middle round tight ends have sucked historically. They really have, and I've talked about that on this show a lot through the years. I wouldn't consider Kyle Pitts a middle round tight end at this point, though someone asked me about Pits not really fitting the criteria that I laid down on the tight End Breakout show. But keep in mind that criteria is for middle and late round time ends. Pits doesn't fit that. It's a little bit different. He's not a middle or late round tight end. He's not being drafted after round five. And with Hawkinson and Andrews, both of them have the one thing going that you really really want from your tight end, and that's that they're being drafted as the first pass catcher from their team. They also project out pretty well and they're both good players. The middle round tight ends that you want to watch out for year in and year out are the ones who are playing on teams with clearly better pass catching talent. I talked about this when referencing Dallas Goddard on Monday Show. But the hit rate for tight ends in the middle rounds who aren't their team's top pass catcher by ADP, it's not very good. We don't see breakouts come from that subset very often. In fact, of the fifty five tight ends who have been drafted between rounds six and nine since twenty eleven who've had a pass catcher from their team drafted before them, so think Tyler Higbee this year, Dallas Goddard this year, Logan Thomas this year. Only three of them exceeded ADP expectation by one hundred and more points three out of fifty. Now consider the alternative tight ends who are their team's top pass catcher by ADP. Since twenty eleven, we've had eight of them, so not a lot of them. But of the eight, we've had one breakout, so it's a better hit rate. But the average gain in points versus expectation among this group of tight ends is over thirty points. You're losing points on average with a non top pass catcher group. I think the reason that we see this is because managers are panicking, similar to how we see them panic with the running back dead zone. They see that they miss out on what's perceived to be a good player. They then reach, and then that player doesn't work out because he's just not very good. You shouldn't reach for players. Historically, you're way way better off targeting late round tight ends than middle round tight ends. It's not even close, and it's not even close when you compare late round tight ends to tight ends who aren't the first pass catcher from their team by ADP in the middle rounds. This asked questions from at Castle Underscore Jet. With the Baltimore wide receiver corps becoming a Medical Corps. Does this move Dobbins up your board at all? When does he become a value for you versus a back to avoid? So I got a lot of questions after my Players to Avoid episode where people were like, but when would you take player X? Where would you take JK. Dobbins? And the answer to that is that my rankings should help. If you go to number five, click NFL at the top, go to draft kit, and then expert rankings, you can see my half PPR rankings right now. I have Dobbins at RB eighteen and thirty eighth. Overall, he'll typically get drafted a few spots higher than that. I like a lot of wide receivers in that range over him too, But that's what I meant when I said that I'm not simply fading him. Of all the players on that list earlier this week, he's the one I probably feel worse about putting on that list more than Derrick Henry. But yeah, I've got him at RB eighteen as someone who can probably exceed that rank, but not someone who I see having this insanely high ceiling this year. So I'd reference those to know when i'd snatch one of the players that I talked about on that episode, and no, I'm not bumping him up because of the injuries. We've still got a lot of time before the start of the season and it wouldn't dramatically change his projection regardless. This ask questions from at DJ James Rock. Do you decide strategy pre draft or during the draft depending on how things are going? For example, should I decide on streaming quarterback and tight end before drafting and just wait those positions out or a just mid draft If a high value player falls far enough, you absolutely, positively, without a doubt, should be adjusting while the draft is happening. This is why preparation is so important. This is why knowledge of different strategies and approaches is so important, because it allows for that flexibility. It allows you to think on your feet. This is a key reason I've opted to be an analyst. That's more about teaching people to fish above all else. You don't win in fantasy football in any sort of sustainable way by just going into a draft and just picking the right players because things rarely go according to an exact plan. Players are going to be sniped and you have to adjust. The Only way you can adjust well is by having that strategic backbone. Let me give you an example. I'm currently in a super flex startup draft with thirteen other analysts who are great dynasty players. I figured people would go quarterback heavy, and they did to start the draft. But when I thought it would stop, it didn't stop. Some of the quarterbacks that were being selected above foundational pieces, it was insane to me. I'm not saying those managers are wrong. I'm saying that I valued the position differently than they did. So I knew pretty early on that I wasn't going to have a great shot at competing right away in this league because I wasn't going to reach for a QB two just for the sake of competing. I immediately went into productive struggle mode and I've been drafting strictly on appreciation and gobbling up future picks. Some drafts, and I think dynasty drafts in particular, they just force you to move in a certain direction. Given what you're valuing versus what your league mats are valuing. You should enter a draft with a general draft plan, don't get me wrong, but you have to be flexible based on how your league mats are valuing players and based on how your league mats are structurally drafting. Like if you go into a draft and you say I'm waiting on quarterback no matter what, and then Patrick Mahomes falls into the late sixth round, you should probably adjust. You should probably draft Patrick Mahomes. That's the easiest way to think of it. The last question this week is from at fourth and Drew. Lance and Fields both had solid preseason debuts. I was hoping to draft one of them in rounds thirteen or fourteen in a redraft league, but fear now I might need to draft them a bit sooner thoughts. So I think this is a good exercise on opportunity cost. I don't think most fantasy managers realize the difference between a round nine or a round ten pick. It's not significantly different than a round thirteen or fourteen pick. Your hit rates, your expected outcomes, it's not that different. If you need or you want to reach on a late round pick by like three rounds, it's really not that big of a deal. Now, I would say to not reach for that player and choose them over someone that you have substantially higher in your rankings, Like don't get Justin Fields over Russell Wilson. I'm just saying, don't lose sleep over late round picks and reaching for late round picks. There's not a ton of reason to try to extract value at that point in the draft because hit rates are already really low to begin with. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. You never get to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, Happy drafting this weekend. I will talk to you next week.