Week 6 Streamer Stock Watch and Dynasty Mailbag Answers

Hello folks,

We’ve got the Stock Watch for you per usual today if you want to scroll down, but at the top of this we’ve got answers for all your questions on my Dynasty Rankings Mailbag that I solicited mid-week.

Let’s get into both!

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I noted that Harold Fannin Jr. is sliding. Do you no longer think he’ll be a difference maker?

Good question — the short answer is probably yes, but I’d rather give a longer answer because it speaks to my process.

On a micro-level, I’ve been watching some Browns all-22 recently and I gotta be honest… our guy looks a little stiff out there. He’s going to get a lot of snaps short-term because Cedric Tillman is out and they need to run 12-personnel. But it was very concerning this week in my opinion that while both him and Njoku played full-time roles vs. Minnesota that Fannin was consistently the one they had stay in to block. I expect his routes to be higher in future weeks — teams consistently use TEs in protection more often vs. Brian Flores — but the team seeing him as the blocker of the two is not ideal. Hopefully their trust in him as a blocker winds up being a postive note if we get the much-anticipated David Njoku trade.

On a macro-level I want to touch on why a player like Fannin would be sliding down despite reasonably stable production.

When a player — especially a rookie — pops big time in the start of a season I try to intentionally “over” react to build in some element of projection. If I wanted to move players around less I might move players up more slowly and then be reactive when they show me they’re worthy of another move up. My fear with that approach is that I don’t want my subscribers to potentially sell too low on an ascending asset, because ultimately I’d rather buy a tier too high than sell three tiers too low. So I’m usually trying to rank these guys a bit above their baseline expectation to give them some room to keep progressing without having to shift my rank. If they plateau I’ll move them down even if they’re not really getting “worse”.

How toast is Derek Henry now?

I think he’s not that toast! We all saw Week 1 right??

For the last few years Henry has been volatile. He doesn’t catch passes and he can look rough in games where he’s consistently met behind the line of scrimmage. But then he’ll have games with huge breakaway runs and look unstoppable.

Unfortunately he’s pretty dependent on Lamar Jackson’s gravity to create a lot of those so he’s barely startable with Cooper Rush.

His dynasty price point has been way too high for me all off-season but if you could grab him for a 2nd right now I would. It’s totally possible he smashes down the stretch when Jackson is back.

With your rankings, how much of a bump would you give TEs in a league where you have to start 2?

How much value (in terms of base 2nds or whatever) would you dock the elite TE’s in nonTEP leagues?

How much would you dock them in leagues that don’t require starting TE’s? (all WR spots are just WR/TE)

I’m going to answer these TE questions all together.

Short answer is that the format matters quite a bit — and in my experience managers don’t shift value nearly enough between formats.

In 2-TE leagues TEs become like pseudo-QBs — especially if there is a premium stacked on top of it as well. I play in only one 2-TE league so it’s hard for me to give precise advice on the format but the biggest difference for sure would be in valuing the TE-middle class.

To combine these questions, I hardly value the TE6-10 types at all in non-premium since they don’t tend to separate from other TEs much and they have very little flex value.

I value them fairly highly in TE-premium where the overall scoring at TE is higher. I like to roster multiple top-TEs in this format since my TE2 can combine depth at a now higher-scoring TE spot while also providing flex value, would value them much, much more highly in 2-TE leagues. I’d probably put Tucker Kraft into a 1-1.25 base 1 range vs. a late-1st range if that helps contextualize it in 2-TE with some form of premium.

In no-TE leagues the biggest hit is to the top TEs because they lose the VORP-edge. If there is still a TE-premium the lower end of the TE1 range is probably slightly undervalued because they can match most WRs or RBs in the flex.

I did both non-premium and 2-TE rookie rankings back in May which should also help add context to this.

Was the Doubs omission intentional? If so, curious why?

Short answer is no. Probably should have him in one of the last two tiers.

But I really don’t care in the slightest about rostering players like this in dynasty outside of 14-team or start-11 type leagues. You have basically no upside to generate trade interest with a player like this and they don’t provide any scoring advantage over a replacement level player. I would much rather just have a 3rd-round pick anywhere that I roster Doubs even if Doubs will be “better” than that 3rd-rounder 80-90% of the time. Every player on my roster should either be adding current production value over replacement or providing the possibility of a major boost in market value / productive value. Doubs doesn’t do either so I’m just ambivalent about this type of player.

Is this a sell high moment for Javonte?

I’m wondering if Pitts is too low. Getting full route participation, great PFF grades, wide open opportunity to be the #2 option in ATL. Is he back to full health? Should he be ahead of the Kincaid/Ferguson/Hockenson block?

Javonte answer is probably pretty simple — if you can get a 1st on any team I’d take it. How many RBs on second contracts are worth demonstrably more than a 1st right now? You’re just getting the fat part of the range of outcomes on that deal every time.

If the best you can get is a two and you’re contending this year you might as well ride it out because I don’t see an obvious reason outside of injury he won’t keep producing this year.

I’m comfortable with my Pitts ranking. He’s been a pleasant surprise this year and is back to being an actual starting TE1 which is nice. But I don’t think we need to bake in his former perceived upside. Jake Ferguson is massively outscoring him for instance and Dalton Kincaid is a pretty similar bet to Pitts in terms of both pedigree and limitations who has also been scoring better (though his role is worse). I wouldn’t want to spend more than a 2nd on anyone in this block.

Three questions. Two more general and one specific on a player.

1. I find that in my leagues people are more and more up-to-date with the latest news so capitalizing by reacting to coachspeak, updates on injuries etc is mostly a thing of the past.

The other side of this is that I find that people are almost overreactive, so a good week (or even a predicted good week) leads to a little value bump even in dynasty.

Do you also find this to be true and any tips on how to stay ahead if it is so?

Yes I do. I have spent most of the last two years being a “buy high sell low” guy because I think generally the dynasty market was overly prideful in taking the long view.

I’m not sure that’s the case any more. For the first time this year I really struggled to buy high on guys like Fannin, Warren, Judkins, Skattebo after promising starts.

I think generally that’s made the market more efficient rather than less efficient, but I do think if you can leverage this to try to make some calculated buy lows on players who are young and you have reason to believe are strong fundamental bets it’s worth trying.

2. At this point in the season I try to figure out if I should try to contend in my leagues.

On rosters where I am contending (or at least close to it) and want to boost production there are usually very few options that would actually make a difference (assuming you already have a decent roster).

How much would you be willing to overpay for these compared to your rankings?

Or would you not adapt your rankings to team situation at this stage of the season like this?

I think we over-estimate the impact of one player on a roster. The reality is that most games are not that close and one player wouldn’t make the difference. Couple that with the fact there is no guarantee the better projecting player you trade for actually out-performs the worse-projecting player you’re taking out of your lineup.

The idea of my rankings is that (if you agree with the valuations) you should generally be trying to do one of two things:

1. Trade for/away players at lower/higher values than where I rank them irrespective of team direction

2. Trade for/away players who fit your team direction at their ranking (or their market value if more beneficial)

Basically I think it’s totally fine to not be profit-seeking if you make a deal that helps your team short-term on a contender. But I’m not anxious to overpay for win-now assets. I’m probably more willing to sell low on a tanking team since the alternative is asset depreciation anyhow.

3. Why is Brian Robinson so low in your rankings?

I realize he has very little stand-alone value, but *if* CMC were to go down I assume he would be a potential league winner. And I see lots of more or less straight handcuffs above him in your rankings. Have I missed something here?

I could obviously be wrong but I do not think he would be a league-winner if CMC went down or even close to it. This team can’t run the ball whatsoever! CMC is getting there because of his pass-catching role but his rushing role isn’t very fantasy friendly.

We haven’t seen this team prioritze other backs in the receiving game they do CMC if that’s not their skillset. Jordan Mason and Elijah Mitchell were total non-entities in the passing game. So I don’t think Robinson — who is not a pass catcher — would be more than a low-end RB2 in McCaffrey’s absence. McCaffrey’s receiving would likely be spread more between the receivers, tight ends, and Kyle Juszczyk. I also wouldn’t totally bury Isaac Guerendo who has more juice and more pass-catching ability.

You mention how, once your teams seem to have a bye reasonably locked up, you seek to recycle excess aging production into future picks to “evergreen” your teams. Is there any reason you wouldn’t similarly do this by recycling aging production into injured “year n+1” production (e.g. Nabers, Burrow). It seems to accomplish a similar aim but there’s an argument that injured players are less certain to appreciate in value.

I would view Nabers and Burrow as equivalent to draft picks yes. I’m not sure how many bye-week teams have enough surplus sitting around to trade for these guys but if you have one good for you! Generally speaking when I’m pruning my teams to extend their window I’m looking more at the guys in my flex spots or top bench spots while preserving the elite starters in my lineup for the playoff run.

Do you think that there are diminishing returns to the amount of firsts a team has within the same draft class, regardless of where those picks fall? Would you be willing to “overpay” with a package for a more proven asset to consolidate value, or do you feel it’s best to draft rookies with those firsts at their value?

Depends on your team position. In a vacuum no I don’t think there are diminishing returns to having too many picks in a given class.

But I do think it’s important to keep balance in mind on your roster construction. I too often see teams coming out of a tear down with a value surplus and a million picks just make all their picks and wait for their team to be good. You don’t need to do that! If you have a value surplus you should be trying to move some future value into productive value and trying to win so long as you can do so while maintaining a value surplus. Don’t waste years that you could reasonably contend tanking for no reason.

If however you’ve just torn down your team and are short on value then I think you probably do want to make all your picks — or else flip some for future picks.

Also curious about your perspective on Rashee Rice given his upcoming return. Obviously still a borderline WR1 in your rankings, but how much potential does he have to creep into the tiers above him tied to a QB like Patrick Mahomes and with the volume he was getting before he was injured? Do injury/character concerns change much of his value for dynasty as compared to redraft?

As a general note I’m putting a 1-tier dock on Rice in perpetuity due to the fact he’s on a five-year probation term. There is a legitimate risk he breaches his probation and would face severe legal consequences. That’s a risk we don’t have to deal with for any other player and it applies through his entire prime.

If you don’t care about that risk, feel free to mentally adjust him up one tier because purely on production I do think he belongs a tier higher.

For redraft I expect him to be a top-10 WR rest-of-season immediately, and one with top-five upside.

For a contender would you move aj straight up for the guys he’s near in your tier? Ladd, worthy, etc?

I generally find 1-for-1 trades at the same position a pretty poor trading model. I prefer trades where it’s conceivable for both managers to win the deal and that’s pretty tough to accomplish in a trade like this.

That being said, if that deal is out there yes I would do it. On any team.

Couple late list TE questions/suggestions: Gunnar Helm is getting a little steam from the coaches, could make an argument he has a much clearer path to relevancy than some of the other rookie TEs. And Theo Johnson. Very realistic that he is #2 in targets ROS, would give him time to solidify value. Think both those guys could be ranked higher

Sure…. end of the day there is just a glut of tight ends and a high bar to exceed it. It’s not a position that has a lot of trade value outside the top guys so I’m generally not going to put much value on guys who have to parlay multiple things to become legitimate breakouts.

I have no issue drafting and stashing guys like this in 3rd and 4th rounds of rookie drafts though so you can establish home grown TE-depth. Just know you’re probably getting more use from these guys as bye-week fillers than trade pieces.