One note: Also happy to treat this as a quasi-AMA:
If you have any (appropriate) non fantasy football related questions (music, sports, movies, philosophy, law etc.), I'm happy to add a little rapid fire response on those at the end :)
How do you adjust your base pick valuations for different positions and player archetypes for different league settings (e.g., PPR No TEP, 0.5 PPR No TEP, 2 TE, 4 pt passing TD, best ball, 10 TM, etc.) than those with which you made your rankings? Is there a general rule of thumb you follow (e.g., adjust up/down 0.5 base 1s if the settings are favorable/unfavorable for a position)? In what type of league settings are the elite players more valuable? Since it is fairly unfeasible to do this exercise for all different types of league settings, maybe pick one and go more in-depth describing the thought process you use to adjust your base pick valuations to help extrapolate that line of thinking to any league setting.
Thanks for all the effort you put into the substack! It has been by far my favorite source of fantasy football information since its inception, and I'm excited to keep reading it into the future.
You mentioned Kyler being someone you would buy if you are rebuilding. I’m a productive struggle with Lamar/Trey Lance/Howell at QB but swinging and missing on Lance hurt me. I have Bijan/Breece/Achane and a bunch of backups AJB/Tee Higgins/Dotson/Burks/Jeudy and good at TE with Pitts/Dulcich/Chig/LaPorta but I’m weak at QB. Would you punt this year and deal Jackson for something like Kyler + Kenny Pickett + a 2025 first to a team competing now with Justin Herbert Kyler and a win now team with Kelce + aging veterans. Would love to know how you decide when to go for it and when to reload to be like the best team possible next year. Thanks! Love the new episodes
Also would be curious what you think about a trade like trading AJ Brown who is ranked ahead of Garrett Wilson and below on other sites (ahead on yours) - would you add something to AJB to get Garrett? I’m trying to trade AJB and McKinnon to a RB needy win now team for Wilson and Nico Collins - is that a musical chair type of deal in your opinion?
Do you have any advice for keeper leagues where you lose the pick in the round they were drafted? Is it all about value and opportunity cost, or are you still keeping the best players possible? For example (and this might not be the best example), I have to choose between round 6 Tony pollard and round 13 Travis etienne. I’d much rather have pollard in a vacuum obviously, but the value on etienne there is probably too much to pass up. What if instead of etienne it was say Miles sanders or someone you’d usually avoid, but the value is still so great you have to consider? What about round 1 or 2 Justin Jefferson, where you’re gaining little to no value but you guarantee yourself the best player possible? Thanks, love the Substack so far!
What should Trey Lance owners do right now? Feels like holding or selling extremely low (or with him as a throw-in in a trade) is the only options for those of us who swung big and missed badly.
How much risk do you place for WRs with uncertain QB futures? For instance, Tyreek and Waddle with Tua being a concussion away from being done. Kupp with Stafford's arm health in question. All of the Raiders with Garropolo in question. (Yes, I know he's not good, but better than a random rookie). Steelers and a QB who isn't looking like he'll improve and no decent backup there.
Those risks scare me as a Waddle/Diontae owner who "should" be competing.
What do you think of trading your future 24 1st to go “all-in” this year? I think the typical dynasty player thinks in terms of “all in” vs “rebuild” years, but obviously it’s very hard to actually win a title.
What about for a young player/rookie, e.g. a QJ/Addison/base 1 player, such that you have some value insulation due to youth?
Year 6 10-team 1 QB .5 PPR my team has been a top 3 team every year (2titles). I have top line but aging WRs (Adams, Allen, Diggs, Debo, Hopkins), Hurts and Kelce. My question is do you think the scoring advantage I get against other TEs every week is so great that I shouldn’t trade him for a young WR and Pitts?
one time on a flight I got really bored so I created a list called "life lessons learned from Dynasty" which is to document any lesson I've learned from playing dynasty which can also apply irl. Here is what I came up with on the plane, it's a really fun thought exercise for the dynasty dead period which would really fit into the whole "thinking about thinking" vibe. Feel free to react to the whole list / cherrypick examples / just use it as a discussion topic.
Some things are worth paying up for, figure out what those are
Some things are not worth paying up for, figure out what those are
Embrace randomness & range of outcomes based thinking
Listen & learn from different perspectives
Balance short term success with long term success
There’s a social element to everything
Process over results
True self-evaluation is key to improvement
Know what you value and what you do not value relative to its cost
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time
Everyone takes their own path
Know when to push your chips in
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes
Subtle racism is everywhere (this one is regarding stereotypes around black QBs that they can't pass well or don't watch enough film)
It’s better to have friends
Health is important
Weed certain people out of your life
A few great is better than many good
Find & foster a community
To generate big wins, differentiate yourself from the masses and be right. Find inefficiencies and exploit them
Not dynasty related, but instead guillotine league related (where the lowest team gets chopped every week and those players go to the waiver wire). You could probably write several articles on the optimal strategy behind this format, but I'll start with a simple question: in an 18 team full PPR guillotine league draft, how would adjust every major position (QB, TE, WR, and RB) in terms of the importance of getting an elite player early vs a replacement level player late? What major strategy changes would you go into a draft with vs a typical 12 team PPR redraft league? Remember, the only goal every week is to just not finish last. Thanks!
All are freely available on the Full Tilt Fantasy Podcast feed via Apple Podcasts, Spotify etc. They are also available on Pat and Davis' respective podcast feeds: Legendary Upside + Sportsgrid
I think I've tweeted the link to each episode out as well
2023 draft class had some very clear tiers and then a cliff. How would you tier the expected 2024 class? At what pick will star value become starter value and starter value become lottery ticket?
The Hold Tax (using your term) on future 1sts is something that’s always fascinated me. Prospect agnostic, do you have a rigorous way of comparing the value of 1sts from different years? Example: Say I’m looking to acquire a 1st from a team whose 2024 1st is 2x more likely to be late than early...would you still rather have this 2024 1st than this manager’s 2025 1st? 2026? Obviously the farther out we go, the pick becomes more “base”. How would you approach this type of situation? Pretty rich topic, but i’ll keep it to this for now! Cheers!
One note: Also happy to treat this as a quasi-AMA:
If you have any (appropriate) non fantasy football related questions (music, sports, movies, philosophy, law etc.), I'm happy to add a little rapid fire response on those at the end :)
How do you adjust your base pick valuations for different positions and player archetypes for different league settings (e.g., PPR No TEP, 0.5 PPR No TEP, 2 TE, 4 pt passing TD, best ball, 10 TM, etc.) than those with which you made your rankings? Is there a general rule of thumb you follow (e.g., adjust up/down 0.5 base 1s if the settings are favorable/unfavorable for a position)? In what type of league settings are the elite players more valuable? Since it is fairly unfeasible to do this exercise for all different types of league settings, maybe pick one and go more in-depth describing the thought process you use to adjust your base pick valuations to help extrapolate that line of thinking to any league setting.
Thanks for all the effort you put into the substack! It has been by far my favorite source of fantasy football information since its inception, and I'm excited to keep reading it into the future.
You mentioned Kyler being someone you would buy if you are rebuilding. I’m a productive struggle with Lamar/Trey Lance/Howell at QB but swinging and missing on Lance hurt me. I have Bijan/Breece/Achane and a bunch of backups AJB/Tee Higgins/Dotson/Burks/Jeudy and good at TE with Pitts/Dulcich/Chig/LaPorta but I’m weak at QB. Would you punt this year and deal Jackson for something like Kyler + Kenny Pickett + a 2025 first to a team competing now with Justin Herbert Kyler and a win now team with Kelce + aging veterans. Would love to know how you decide when to go for it and when to reload to be like the best team possible next year. Thanks! Love the new episodes
Also would be curious what you think about a trade like trading AJ Brown who is ranked ahead of Garrett Wilson and below on other sites (ahead on yours) - would you add something to AJB to get Garrett? I’m trying to trade AJB and McKinnon to a RB needy win now team for Wilson and Nico Collins - is that a musical chair type of deal in your opinion?
Do you have any advice for keeper leagues where you lose the pick in the round they were drafted? Is it all about value and opportunity cost, or are you still keeping the best players possible? For example (and this might not be the best example), I have to choose between round 6 Tony pollard and round 13 Travis etienne. I’d much rather have pollard in a vacuum obviously, but the value on etienne there is probably too much to pass up. What if instead of etienne it was say Miles sanders or someone you’d usually avoid, but the value is still so great you have to consider? What about round 1 or 2 Justin Jefferson, where you’re gaining little to no value but you guarantee yourself the best player possible? Thanks, love the Substack so far!
What should Trey Lance owners do right now? Feels like holding or selling extremely low (or with him as a throw-in in a trade) is the only options for those of us who swung big and missed badly.
I’m sorry, didn’t catch that part (slowly backs into the bushes Homer Simpson style).
Not a great mailbag response percentage Jakob.
Explained up top that I'm fetching these for a podcast episode - the last of the consensus dynasty rankings pods with Davis and Pat.
Most of these will be addressed on air, and I will link the episode with a separate post.
Any questions that don't get touched on in the podcast I will answer after we record
How much risk do you place for WRs with uncertain QB futures? For instance, Tyreek and Waddle with Tua being a concussion away from being done. Kupp with Stafford's arm health in question. All of the Raiders with Garropolo in question. (Yes, I know he's not good, but better than a random rookie). Steelers and a QB who isn't looking like he'll improve and no decent backup there.
Those risks scare me as a Waddle/Diontae owner who "should" be competing.
What do you think of trading your future 24 1st to go “all-in” this year? I think the typical dynasty player thinks in terms of “all in” vs “rebuild” years, but obviously it’s very hard to actually win a title.
What about for a young player/rookie, e.g. a QJ/Addison/base 1 player, such that you have some value insulation due to youth?
I have a dynasty roster with Justin Herbert, Deshaun Watson, Kyle Pitts, Breece Hall, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and basically nothing else.
My question is, how would you handle a very top-heavy roster that already has the positions of scarcity figured out?
I don’t really want to trade out of those high-end studs, but I’m not sure how to accrue enough value to fill out the rest of the team otherwise.
Year 6 10-team 1 QB .5 PPR my team has been a top 3 team every year (2titles). I have top line but aging WRs (Adams, Allen, Diggs, Debo, Hopkins), Hurts and Kelce. My question is do you think the scoring advantage I get against other TEs every week is so great that I shouldn’t trade him for a young WR and Pitts?
one time on a flight I got really bored so I created a list called "life lessons learned from Dynasty" which is to document any lesson I've learned from playing dynasty which can also apply irl. Here is what I came up with on the plane, it's a really fun thought exercise for the dynasty dead period which would really fit into the whole "thinking about thinking" vibe. Feel free to react to the whole list / cherrypick examples / just use it as a discussion topic.
Some things are worth paying up for, figure out what those are
Some things are not worth paying up for, figure out what those are
Embrace randomness & range of outcomes based thinking
Listen & learn from different perspectives
Balance short term success with long term success
There’s a social element to everything
Process over results
True self-evaluation is key to improvement
Know what you value and what you do not value relative to its cost
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time
Everyone takes their own path
Know when to push your chips in
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes
Subtle racism is everywhere (this one is regarding stereotypes around black QBs that they can't pass well or don't watch enough film)
It’s better to have friends
Health is important
Weed certain people out of your life
A few great is better than many good
Find & foster a community
To generate big wins, differentiate yourself from the masses and be right. Find inefficiencies and exploit them
Not dynasty related, but instead guillotine league related (where the lowest team gets chopped every week and those players go to the waiver wire). You could probably write several articles on the optimal strategy behind this format, but I'll start with a simple question: in an 18 team full PPR guillotine league draft, how would adjust every major position (QB, TE, WR, and RB) in terms of the importance of getting an elite player early vs a replacement level player late? What major strategy changes would you go into a draft with vs a typical 12 team PPR redraft league? Remember, the only goal every week is to just not finish last. Thanks!
where are the podcast episodes about the consensus rankings (mentioned in the email about this mailbag)?
All are freely available on the Full Tilt Fantasy Podcast feed via Apple Podcasts, Spotify etc. They are also available on Pat and Davis' respective podcast feeds: Legendary Upside + Sportsgrid
I think I've tweeted the link to each episode out as well
cool cool - thanks - must have missed it
2023 draft class had some very clear tiers and then a cliff. How would you tier the expected 2024 class? At what pick will star value become starter value and starter value become lottery ticket?
The Hold Tax (using your term) on future 1sts is something that’s always fascinated me. Prospect agnostic, do you have a rigorous way of comparing the value of 1sts from different years? Example: Say I’m looking to acquire a 1st from a team whose 2024 1st is 2x more likely to be late than early...would you still rather have this 2024 1st than this manager’s 2025 1st? 2026? Obviously the farther out we go, the pick becomes more “base”. How would you approach this type of situation? Pretty rich topic, but i’ll keep it to this for now! Cheers!