Dynasty, in Theory: Two Rules for Rookie Drafts

Photo: Rich Storry, USA Today Sports

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There's a lot of really strong dynasty analysis out there, especially when compared to five or ten years ago. But most of it is so dang practical-- Player X is undervalued, Player Y's workload is troubling, the market at this position is irrational, and take this specific action to win your league. Dynasty, in Theory is meant as a corrective, offering insights and takeaways into the strategic and structural nature of the game that might not lead to an immediate benefit but which should help us become better players over time.

Rookie Drafts are Complicated. They Don't Have to Be.

It seems like every year, the dynasty community creates new models and metrics for evaluating rookies. Where once we used receiving yards, now we use "market share" (or what percent of the team's available receiving yards a receiver captured), an attempt to find great receivers stuck in bad passing offenses. Where once we focused on a player's performance in his last college season, now we look at breakout age or the age at which a player first achieved some relevant performance threshold (under the theory that it's harder to record 1,000 receiving yards as an 18-year-old playing against 20-year-olds than it is as a 22-year-old playing against 20-year-olds).

All of these developments are good; I'm of the opinion that it's always best to consider production in the context that it was achieved. But the result is an increasingly divided marketplace of ideas with many factions, each claiming to have found the secret to identifying future stars.

Fortunately for us, as I noted last week, the more uncertainty a system has, the better simple heuristics (or rules of thumb) tend to perform. This doesn't mean you should just ignore all of the new research and metrics and claims being presented every year (although you can feel free to if it'll make you happier or reduce your stress level a notch). But it does mean that no matter how many new ideas crop up, we can still get a lot of traction by just faithfully applying a few old ones instead.

A good heuristic should be like a slogan. My guideline is if I can't express the idea in ten words or less, I need to go back to the drawing board and refine it more. This imposes discipline; heuristics should be as simple as possible (and no simpler).

To that end, I want to present two of my oldest, most well-worn, most time-tested heuristics. As I noted last week, simplicity isn't a cure-all-- simple rules must be tested as thoroughly as complex rules (if not more so) to ensure they're valid. But I've been using these heuristics to great effect for more than a decade, so I feel fairly confident in them.

Rule #1: Draft For Talent, Trade For Need

When I started playing Dynasty in 2007, this was a fringe point of view. In the intervening sixteen years, it's become more and more popular, to the point where now it's virtually prevailing wisdom. But it grew in popularity because it works.

When you're on the clock in the rookie draft, it's tempting to look at your team and make a selection that fits with the rest of your roster. This is a bad instinct, and you should avoid it. In large part, this is because there's a timeline disconnect.

When you are looking at team needs, you're considering performance within the next couple of months. But rookies are rarely providing their peak value within the first six months of their career; the vast majority of a rookie's value lies in what he does from Year 2 until he finally hangs up his cleats. So making decisions based on the next six months is wildly short-sighted.

More importantly, in a dynasty league, there are very few pathways to get talented players on your team. There are waivers and free agency, but most managers overestimate just how much talent they should be expected to add through that route. Instead, the vast majority of usable player-starts in your dynasty career will come either through the draft or trade. (If you are skeptical of either of these points, I'd challenge you to track it for yourself for a year or two.)

And trading isn't a costless means of adding player value; typically, a manager must give up as much expected value as he or she receives in return. This means you need spare value on your roster in the first place before you can take advantage of this pathway. This leaves rookie drafts as the purest route for adding value.

If managers look at rookie drafts that way, they'll be a lot more successful in the long term. When they're on the clock, they should ask, "Which player available right now do I expect will most increase the total value of my roster" (regardless of the distribution of that value). You can always shift value around somewhere down the line, provided you have the value in the first place to move.

This rule can be scary; trust me, I know how silly it feels to have two Top 12 quarterbacks and still spend a Top 20 rookie pick on a third just because he's a better value than anyone else left on the board. The Footballguys staff started a dynasty league in 2013, and in that entire span, I've never spent a Top 30 rookie pick on a running back. I made 12 first-round selections, and 11 of them were receivers (the twelfth was a tight end). I also spent an 18th, 20th, 22nd, 24th, and 25th overall pick on quarterbacks-- generally despite already having at least one strong starter on my roster.

Is my running back position a shambles? Is my roster clogged with quarterbacks and receivers? Hardly. Over the last two years, my team's starting running backs have scored 1702 points; the second-best team has 1433 points, while third place is back at 1208. How? Well, I started Jonathan Taylor, who I got in trade for Alvin Kamara, who I got in trade for Michael Thomas, who I drafted. I started Austin Ekeler, who I got in trade for Cam Akers, who I got in trade for Brandon Aiyuk, who I drafted. I started Leonard Fournette, who I got in trade for Calvin Ridley, who I drafted. And I started Aaron Jones, who I got in trade for the 12th pick of the 2021 draft because Trevor Lawrence was the best player left on the board, and I couldn't stomach taking yet another quarterback.

Importantly, I was only able to make those trades because the first-round receivers I drafted were actually good. I might not have "needed" Calvin Ridley, but drafting him resulted in me scoring a lot more points at running back than drafting the best available rookie running back would have (Royce Freeman).

Similarly, all of those late-2nd-round quarterbacks I drafted far outperformed the running backs and receivers selected around them and resulted in more production in the long run. Deshaun Watson and Baker Mayfield were both traded away for a tidy profit, Jameis Winston delivered several crucial spot starts over the years, and Justin Herbert is now anchoring the position for me. (Teddy Bridgewater didn't do much for my team, but nobody bats 1.000.)

Too many dynasty managers view having a surplus of good players at a single position as a problem. If it is a problem, it's the kind of problem you should hope for.

This heuristic also comes with a corollary: "No one has needs in July." Or I suppose it'd be more accurate to say no one knows what their needs are yet. Players you're counting on will get hurt, players you're not counting on will be surprise preseason stars, and the way you feel about your team by the time Week 1 rolls around will be very different than the way you feel now. (Heck, the way you feel about it in Week 4 will be even more different still.)