384: Mailbag 6/19/20

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host jayj Zsa Jay Jake zacher reson What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyese and the editor in chief at Fandel and at Number five dot com in this episode three hundred and eighty four of the Late Round Podcast, well of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Pause, thanks for tuning in. Before getting into the questions this week, I want to let you guys know that the Belmont Steaks are coming up on June twentieth this weekend, and you can stream and bet all the races on the FanDuel Racing app. The Fandel Racing app is specifically designed for sports fans who are new to horse racing, and they've made it simple for anyone to learn the ropes. Best of all, right now, FanDuel Racing is giving new users twenty to one odds on any horse to win the Belmont Stakes. Just sign up and deposit on Friday or Saturday before the race, then bet five dollars on any horse and get an undred dollars if they win. That's on the FanDuel Racing app. Age and residency restrictions apply. Cite credit expires after thirty days gambling problem called one eight hundred five to two two forty seven hundred. The first question this week is from Twitter from at understander Underscore of which player has the most inflated value, the largest bubble and Fantasy football by both ADP and industry experts. Okay, so this guy might not be the player who I think is really really overvalued, but this question allows me to talk about this player a little bit, so I'm going to talk about him. I've been on a roller coaster ride with this dude since even before he entered the league. But it's Devin Singletary. I didn't like him coming out of school. Then I liked him and what he did last year, and then they drafted Zach Moss and I only sort of cooled off of him. But now in redraft leagues, I'm kind of shocked by how early Devin Singletary sometimes gets drafted. I'm just having a hard time seeing the ceiling for Singletary. Like I do think that he can meet ADP, he can meet expectation with where he's being drafted, which is RB twenty four in the month of June according to Best Ball ten's ADP. But he has two things working against him. The first is the offense that he's in. In the low passing volume that we could hypothetically see from that offense. They were twentieth in the league in neutral script pass to rush ratio last year. Now they're projected to be a decent team, So gamescript may not favor a pass heavy approach, even with Stefan Diggs in the mix. That may seem like a good thing for a running back that they may be run heavy, but not for a running back like Singletary who's projected to be more of the pass catcher in that backfield while Zack Moss takes on early down and potentially goal line work. Now I just brought up Stefan Diggs, and he's also an issue. That's a good player coming into town, one who's going to demand a target share well north of twenty percent of he's healthy. That has some sort of trickle down effect. It's not going to be easy for Singletary to see a ton of targets just inherently because of the offense that he's in. But now they're there's more competition for those few looks in the offense and the goal line work. How do we feel confident that Singletary is going to see a lot of goal line work. He had two goal line rushes. Last year he was losing work to a fifty five year old running back. Now he's competing with Moss. Whatever you feel about Zach Moss, the only way I see Singletary being a true league winner is if Zack Moss is just completely terrible, or if he gets hurt. Maybe that happens, and maybe that's the case, but Singletary's outlook to me is just not great. His ceiling is capped by a situation. I like Singletary the player after what I saw in twenty nineteen, I do think that he's good. I even thought that he was a potential by candidate way earlier in the offseason. But from a redraft perspective, I think people are overstating his ceiling. Maybe it's because a lot of people think that Zach Moss is gonna suck, but I just don't see how Singletary blows up without an injury to Moss. At least that's how I see things right now. This has questions In email says, hey, JJ, love the show and all the great content you put out. I found your podcast last year and it is one of my absolute favorites. Hey, thanks, a question for you about tight ends in light of all the great tight end talk that you've done in the last couple of weeks. I've always been a late round tight end proponent, but I've noticed in my league the last several years they seem to be going earlier and earlier. Last year it was ten of them in the first six rounds, and some of my late round targets are gone before I'm ready to target the position. Should I start thinking about pulling the trigger on tight end earlier if this trend holds true, or should I lean in even heavier on the late round approach and take advantage of the value in the earlier rounds? Chris, Okay, So here's how I think I would handle this. Tight Ends are like quarterbacks and that you're starting one of them in your fantasy lineup. So, like I've talked about a lot on the show, the demand of the position isn't as high, which allows later round options to be readily available. What this does is it increases your opportunity cost of draft a tight end early, at least compared to running backs and wide receivers. A baseline wide receiver might be drafted in round six, a baseline tight end could go in round twelve. That means the point advantage that you're getting is being stretched across more rounds, so the value of that early round tight end shrinks. But naturally, if you're saying baseline tight ends get drafted earlier, then that point advantage is being stretched across fewer rounds. Getting Travis Kelcey in round two while the Mike Kasiki tier gets drafted in round six is a lot different than getting Kelsey in round two, while that Kasiki tier gets drafted in round twelve. In the latter example, the person getting Kelsey is losing more value. So I would say with your example, if you're pretty sure those tight ends are going to be going fairly early, then it makes it more advantageous to get Kelsey, your Kittle, or even Andrews at their ADP. I don't think reaching for them is necessary, but I'd feel a lot better getting them in the early rounds if you're convinced that you're league is going to be reaching with those other tight ends. This has questions from at Stepfather's FF. Kittle seems like a slam dunk in the early twenties, all pre draft top tier wide receivers and running backs are picked, with many second tier running backs gone too. He's the most talented tight end and he's reaching his prime. While Kelsey ages if San Francisco regresses, there'll be more passing situations. Isn't thirteen hundred yards and ten touchdowns very realistic? I don't know about very realistic, but your general thoughts here aren't wrong. In my opinion, the forty nine ers had to pass to rush attempt ratio of point nine to six last year, when they had one that was one point one four in neutral game scripts, meaning they were a decent bit more pass heavy and neutral scripts. That's not surprising since they were one of the best teams in football. They saw positive game scripts, which meant more running. Neutral gamescript ratios are more predictive than overall ratios year over year, so that alone tells you that they should be more pass heavy. But on top of that, of all the teams about a ratio below one since twenty eleven, so of the twenty eight teams that finished with more runs than passes in a single season, the following season, the average increase was byzero point two to three in ratio, and only three teams didn't see their offenses become more pass heavy. So the forty nine ers are likely to throw more and that'll slightly change their pass to touchdown ratio, which was fourth lowest in football. And that's all baked into my projections, and my projections don't have Kittle close to thirteen hundred yards and ten touchdowns. I'm at one thy sixty seven yards and seven to eight touchdowns, which is still really good, but it's not Travis Kelsey good. It depends on where he ends up going in your draft, though Best Ball tens has him going seventeenth overall in the month of June, which I think is too rich because he's going ahead of Miles Sanders and Chris Godwin. If you're taking him over Kenyan Drake or Miles Sanders, I'm not for that. So I guess I agree with your stance when there's a very clear tear drop at wide receiver and running back, But where he's going in best ball formats that hasn't exactly been the case. Right now. I have him pretty much where you said in the early third round, and you can see that ranking. If you're a number five or premium members, to go to number five dot com and check that out. This last question says, just found your pod and listen to like forty of them right away. Very concise, great work. Thanks. What are your top three dynasty league tips for a startup in superflex leagues? Okay, so for a dynasty superflex startup, I'd say these would be my three tips. Number one, Since it's a superflex league, remember that quarterbacks are currency in a redraft league. It's a lot easier to devalue the quarterback position more than your league mates do. Even in superflex formats and dynasty they're valuable not just because of the point advantages that they can bring, but because they're in high demand all the time. I'm not saying go crazy getting these guys early, but do think about longevity when drafting the quarterback position more so than a regular league. Number two, and this goes for most dynasty drafts, but at least get a core of players who should appreciate in value. You can go with a win now team that looks almost like a redraft team, but at least get a core where you feel good about their value increasing year over year. Youth is usually a good way to do that, getting young players who should still produce, and number three, pay attention to contracts, especially at the running back position. I've made plenty of mistakes and I have plenty of regrets even this offseason by not putting enough emphasis on players who have locked in deals. That's valuable even if the player isn't as good as the market thinks that he is. This next question is from at Josh Underscore Jenkins five. Given your last two podcasts on spotting breakout running backs and wide receivers, should we generally be targeting players in good offenses younger than age twenty eight to twenty nine. With this logic, Poulio Jones is an easy fade. Better to be a year earlier than a year late in a redrafts right. So keep in mind that the podcast and the studies that were done on breakout running backs and wide receivers are related to players who were drafted after round five. There wasn't any analysis done on early round players, so since Julio's an early round guy, I can't make these conclusions. Now. With that being said, because of Julio's age, I think that you can at least make the case that he slips to the bottom of whatever tier you have him in. But in redraft, I still think he's fine and I still have him as my wide receiver five. It's just how projections play out. He's in a pass heavy offense as the top option. He's coming off a fourteen hundred yard season where he played in fifteen games. I think his dynasty ADP is kind of crazy, But in redraft, I'm fine with getting an aged veteran who's relatively reliable in those early rounds. This has questions from at first round Whiskey thoroughly enjoy the podcast opinions on the sixth spot given to the highest scoring team not already in the playoffs. I love it and feel like it's time to implement it in my leagues. Gary from Northern Ireland, Yeah, I'm all for this. I brought this up on my show in the past. I've talked about it on Twitter quite a bit. But if you're in a twelve team league, you should reward the top five teams a playoff spot, with the top two teams having a bye, and then for the sixth spot, give it to the team not currently into the playoffs, so team outside the top five that scored the most points. It helps solve the issue of schedule variants, all while allowing head to head matchups to still matter. You don't have to go to a points only league in order to make things truly one fair. This last question says, how do you value talented but injury concerned players like Evan Ingram, Will Fuller, Brandon Cooks, Todd Gurley, Dalvin Cook, Adam Thlen, et cetera. These are guys who have missed significant time but are top tier players when healthy. I think one way of doing this is to start by assuming that everything is butterflies and rainbows. Think about where someone like Will Fuller or Brandon Cooks could finish if they were healthy all season long, and obviously be reasonable. Don't look at the ceiling. Just figure out where a reasonable finish could be for that player. From there, knock them down your rankings or your tiers, or change their projection based on information that you take in from doctors and from teams. Once you have a rough idea of where they should be ranked, you can compare that to adp. If one of those players who you believe is injury prone is being drafted at his average outcome when he's healthy, then he's probably overvalued. But I'm not an injury person either. Some injuries matter more than others, so I try to read what doctors are saying so I can have a good grasp on what to expect. But overall, I try to figure out a player's outcome if he were one hundred percent healthy, or maybe I should say if he had no concerns, and then I compare where that outcome is to his ADP. If there's a big gap, then that means that fantasy managers are sort of embedding those injury question marks into a player's cost. This last question is from at ike Asar. How do you distinguish the difference between hard strength and schedule versus garbage time opportunities? For instance, Daniel Jones is a tough beginning schedule, but shouldn't that mean high volume second halves for the Giants passing game? Okay, so think about what strength of schedule means. It means the player is facing a tough opponent, so it's technically already factoring in garbage time. We shouldn't associate a team trailing with more pass attempts either, because if they're trailing, that means they're not able to put up as many points as they should be putting up in the game. Like sure, the defense might be playing poorly, but in order to get to garbage time. In order to get to that point in the game, the offense has to not play all that well in the first place, otherwise they wouldn't be in garbage time most of the time. At least. I actually wrote about this topic last year on number five. There's very, very very little correlation between fantasy points scored and the number of pass attempts a quarterback has. On a per game basis. Since twenty eleven, the R squared value between pass attempts and points scored is just point zero five. It's about double that and looking at implied team totals, and then when it comes to actual team totals, the R square at is point four to six, which isn't that surprising. The more points a team scores, the better the quarterback generally does in fantasy football. Now, in that study, I also found the quarterbacks who were favorites were adding about point seven more points per game to their averages than underdogs were, meaning that we should target favorites versus underdogs. I think the fantasy football community gets this wrong very very often. We think about garbage time as if the rest of the game didn't exist, But it takes a garbage performance to get to that garbage time. Why worry about the last eight minutes of a game versus the first fifty two. A tough opponent is a tough opponent, and it doesn't automatically mean that more passing volume will be there either. I actually went and I looked this up for this question. I looked at the correlation between team wins and pass attempts allowed since twenty eleven. Given this question, and given the way that a lot of fantasy managers think, we might expect teams with more wins to have faced more passes attempts, because if they're winning, that means they're seeing positive game scripts, so their opponents are facing negative game scripts and they're throwing more as a result. Since twenty eleven, the R squared between wins and pass attempts allowed has been point one point seven, a little bit below that. That's not super weak by football standards, but it's also not the strongest in the world. And then on top of that, Like I mentioned earlier, on a week to week basis, pass attempts aren't even what we need to be looking for at the quarterback position. It's more about efficiency anyway. So to answer this question more directly, if the opponents are tough in terms of projected pass defense and if the Giants let's say, have a low implied team total as a result, that's not a good sign for Daniel Jones. It means he'll either have to be super efficient when throwing touchdowns as in the Giants will need a high pass to rush touchdown ratio, or he'll need to get it done with his legs, and that's very possible. I'm just noting that these other things need to happen if things look grim from a scheduling standpoint, Just using Daniel Jones is a hypothetical example. Don't worry so much about garbage time. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've yet subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend, and I'll talk to you next week.