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Today, we have a shorter, special edition of the Dynasty Investor article for you. We are going to look at how 2024 and 2025 rookie picks were valued using KeepTradeCut (KTC) throughout the calendar year 2023 and sliced up into four time periods: NFL playoffs (Jan-Feb), NFL draft season (Mar-May), offseason (Jun-Aug), and the regular season (Sept-Dec).
Key Points Up Front
- Rookie picks are quality investments that appreciate over a calendar year and offer asymmetric returns.
- Rookie picks generally appreciate during the regular season, playoffs, and draft season.
- In general, rookie picks depreciate in the offseason.
- Regardless of the season, you likely will see positive appreciation buying "early", "mid", and "late" first-round rookie picks one and two years out from drafting.
- The best time to buy a rookie pick is at the start of the regular season (Sept), and the best time to sell a rookie pick is right after the NFL draft/during your fantasy rookie drafts (May).
Rookie Pick Analysis
Below are the 2024 and 2025 rookie pick KeepTradeCut (KTC) prices graphed over two years. KTC characterizes picks as "early", "mid", and "late", and these are just the "mid" picks on one chart. As you can see, the 2024 picks at each round are worth more in KTC than the 2025 picks throughout the calendar year 2023, with the gap larger the earlier the round. Also, you can see that the line generally moves up and to the right (except for the offseason), showing price appreciation throughout the total chart, i.e., picks increase in price over time.
Now we are going to break the chart above into four seasons or periods and look at the percentage change during those periods: NFL playoffs (Jan-Feb), NFL draft season (Mar-May), offseason (Jun-Aug), and the regular season (Sept-Dec).
Here is a quick example of how this is calculated. The first dark blue bar, on the very left-hand side of the chart, is a 2024 mid-1st round pick. The KTC price of a 24 mid-1st round pick on 1/1/23 (beginning of January) is 4708, and the KTC price of a 24 mid-1st round pick on 2/28/23 (end of February) is 4807. And we are looking for the percentage change here, so (4807 / 4708) - 1 * 100 = 2.10%. You can see that the first bar is up above the zero line, representing +2.1% of price appreciation over that time. And you do that for all the picks.
Now, some conclusions from this chart. Looking at the far right-hand side, you can see that all picks appreciated over the 2023 calendar year. We can also see that, for the most part, picks increase in price during the regular season, the playoffs, and the draft season. You can also see that, for the most part, picks depreciate during the offseason. So, the best time to buy picks is the start of (September) and into the regular season, and the best time to sell picks is right after the NFL draft/during your fantasy rookie drafts (May).
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Rookie 1st Round Pick Analysis
Here are the same charts, except now we are just looking at the early, mid, and late first-round picks.
Again, the data is broken up into the seasons on a percentage change basis.
Both charts look relatively similar to those above, except the offseason generally doesn't show depreciation, just looking at the 1st round picks. So you can feel safe buying 1st round draft picks year-round. The earlier, the better, or the more KTC appreciation you will see. In this example, we are looking at 2024 picks and how they appreciated in the calendar year 2023. So if you go back to May of 2023 and have your rookie draft, you should feel safe buying 2024 1st round picks (at cost) at that time, even though the season would imply it's not the best time to buy. Buying 1st round picks one and even two years out looks to be a reasonably safe and positive investment. And we will argue this year: if you are having trouble acquiring 2024 1st round picks, go ahead and try and get your hands on some 2025 1st round picks because it's likely they will appreciate in 2024, similar to how the 2024 1st round picks did in 2023. The caveat here is we are basing these conclusions on a one-year sample, so what if this was a weird year? We don't have the data going back five or ten years on this, but we know the calendar year 2022 was relatively similar to 2023, and we think it's reasonable to infer, given the logic makes sense, that 2024 will likely be similar to 2023.
Rookie Pick Analysis (again)
And here are the same charts with all the data on one. It's a bit busy, so we broke it up into sections above, but we think it's worth looking at it all together.
And here is all of it broken out into the seasons.
Rookie Picks and Risk
Rookie picks have asymmetric risk; they very likely provide positive appreciation without the risky nature you bear holding a player over time. Holding a player in fantasy football comes with negative and positive risks. The player can get injured, play poorly or well, benefit or falter from the draft, free agency, coaching changes, and much more. You bear the positive and negative risks to hold a player through time. There is not much adverse risk in holding a pick through time. A pick can't get hurt, a pick can't play poorly, a pick can't be replaced through free agency or the draft. Thus, we argue that picks provide asymmetric returns (more potential for profit and less potential for loss) and are quality investments. The one caveat is that, from a practical standpoint, not all fantasy football leagues last. So, buying picks one or two years from being able to use them can be risky if the league folds and you are holding all of these unused picks. So, if you invest in picks as a strategy, do the due diligence on the league's viability over the long term.
Thanks for reading! If you want to learn more about Dynasty Fantasy Football and the P/E ratio, please follow me on Twitter @_jasonstein and let me know your questions and how I can help.
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