Dynasty Data: Startup Draft Reaches at RB

A player's Dynasty ADP is largely a function of his redraft ADP and Age. Data modeling can help us quantify the strength of these connections.

A linear model built to predict a wide receiver's Dynasty ADP based only on their age and Redraft ADP returns an R-squared value of 0.957. An R-squared value of 1 would be a perfect connection. The 0.957 value indicates that about 95.7% of the variability in dynasty values can be explained by age and redraft value.

The most interesting aspect of these models is not the players whose Dynasty ADP is exactly what the model predicts. Instead, the insight comes from analyzing the outliers. In this week's four-part series of articles, we will highlight the running backs and wide receivers whose Dynasty ADPs most differ from what the model says their Dynasty ADP should be, based upon their age and Redraft ADP. For example, Jameson Williams is 23.3 years old and has a redraft ADP of 109 (according to Sleeper). The model says Williams should be going in the middle of the 8th round of dynasty startups (93.5 overall). Instead, his actual Dynasty ADP (111.5) is a full round and a half later. The model says Jameson Williams is a steal at his current Dynasty ADP, but is he really? 

We will investigate that question and examine the other running backs and wide receivers whose Dynasty ADPs are outliers according to the model.

Series: See RB Dynasty Startup Draft Steals here >>>
Series: See RB Dynasty Startup Draft Reaches here >>>
Series: See WR Dynasty Startup Draft Steals here >>>
Series: See WR Dynasty Startup Draft Reaches here >>>

Running Back Dynasty Reaches

Let's look at the players the model predicts should be going later in Dynasty drafts than they actually are to see if we can identify potentially undervalued Dynasty targets.

Thoughts on Overvalued RBs

Stop drafting Miles Sanders and AJ Dillon. It is time to remove them from your draft boards. Both have fallen to third on their respective depth charts and are well past the age at which we should expect any improvement in skill. 

Bucky Irving is Undervalued in Redraft. In this article, we are mostly looking to redraft data for dynasty insight. However, it is often the case with an outlier that the model is making a poor prediction because one of the inputs is bad. In this case, it is the Redraft ADP of Bucky Irving. Irving is going much higher in other redraft leagues than he is on Sleeper (220.8 ADP). He should be going even higher. The new offensive coaching staff in Tampa Bay appears enamored with Irving, and he is likely to carve out a significant role behind Rachaad White.

Christian McCaffrey is an outlier in every sense. The model does not believe McCaffrey should go in the first round of dynasty startups. I tend to agree. We are not drafting any other 28-year-old backs anywhere near the first round. That being said, McCaffrey is such an extreme outlier in almost every way that I cannot fault anyone for betting on him having multiple huge fantasy seasons in his future. He is not a player I will target in the first round due to his age-related risk factors, but I will not go so far as to say he is a reach. The size of the potential reward makes the age risk reasonable. 

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